More to the new release of The Beatles' 'Anthology Collection' than meets the eye

There was some consternation when this release was announced. The Anthology series was being expanded to four double albums — but that fourth one was only going to be available as part of this deluxe box set. And while the previous Anthologies had mostly featured unreleased tracks, Anthology 4 has a slimmer margin: of the 36 tracks, only 13 are previously unreleased.

As we know, the decision was ultimately made to release Anthology 4 as a stand-alone release as well as in the deluxe set. Hooray! That provides more incentive to pick up the new disc if you didn’t want to splurge for the entire box set, which was looking like it was going to be of most interest to completists.

But there’s more to this release than meets the eye. Anthology 1 through 3 have all been remastered (they were first remastered for digital release on iTunes in 2011). And that isn’t the only sonic upgrading that’s been done. The pre-1962 tracks on Anthology 1 (including the earliest known Beatles studio recording, “That’ll Be The Day,” recorded at a Liverpool home studio in 1958), have all been spruced up and sound vastly improved. Select tracks (e.g. “All My Loving,” from the first Ed Sullivan appearance in 1964), have been given new mixes by Giles Martin, son of original Beatles producer George Martin, who’s worked on all the album deluxe reissue box sets since 2017’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Other tracks have been tweaked with new stereo processing (described as “a subtle spread of the mono signal”). And some tracks have been swapped out for the bonus track versions that appeared on the deluxe reissue box sets. In all, there are changes to over 30 tracks, meaning these Anthologies aren’t entirely the ones you remember.

Source: goldminemag.com./Patrick Prince

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