{"id":150360,"date":"2025-11-20T15:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/150360\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T15:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:47:09","slug":"the-beatles-the-anthology-collection-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/150360\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles ‘The Anthology Collection’ Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf you love the Beatles<\/a>, you definitely want to hear this new \u201cBaby I\u2019m a Rich Man,\u201d from the superb new collection Anthology 4. It\u2019s a six-minute take from May 1967, unheard until now, with the lads hard at work in Abbey Road. John calls out to their loyal roadie Mal Evans, \u201cWe\u2019d like some Cokes, Mal.\u201d Paul adds, \u201cAnd if you\u2019ve got some cannabis resin!\u201d That sounds good to John. \u201cYeah,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got cannabis, send it in!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThey know the tapes are rolling, but they don\u2019t care. They\u2019re on top of the world and they know it.\u00a0 Paul quips, \u201cWe\u2019ve got that taped for the High Court tomorrow.\u201d (This recording session happens to be the day after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards got dragged into court for their recent drug bust. Cheeky lads, these.) John declares, \u201cAll right, let\u2019s hear some rhythm and soul from London now!\u201d Then they rip into \u201cBaby I\u2019m a Rich Man\u201d \u2014 not even one of their most famous 1967 songs, just another day of genius for this crew, thriving on a four-way energy nobody else can reach. It\u2019s such a jolt to hear it \u2014 how passionately these boys love being the Beatles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthology 4 is a real treasure trove for fans. It\u2019s the companion album to the long-awaited new edition of the ultimate Beatles documentary. The original Anthology blew up into a global sensation when it debuted in November 1995, a TV miniseries plus three albums and a book. It\u2019s the full Fab Four story, in the words of the boys who lived it out: John Lennon<\/a>, Paul McCartney<\/a>, George Harrison<\/a>, and Ringo Starr<\/a>. Anthology is finally getting its new version, restored and expanded, debuting on Disney+ on November 26. It\u2019s got an emotionally powerful new Episode Nine, focusing on footage of the three surviving Beatles coming together in 1994 and 1995.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Anthology albums were packed with unreleased tunes, outtakes, demos, and studio banter. Giles Martin<\/a>, son and heir to original producer George Martin, has remastered the Nineties volumes, but he\u2019s also curated the new Anthology 4. The Anthology Collection has 191 tracks in all, available for download and streaming, as well as deluxe box sets with 12 vinyl LPs or 8 CDs. Anthology 4 is separately available as a stand-alone box, either triple-vinyl or 2 CDs.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthology 4 has 13 previously unreleased takes, mostly from the 1964-1965 period, where you hear them working out early songs like \u201cTell Me Why,\u201d \u201cNowhere Man,\u201d and \u201cEvery Little Thing.\u201d It also gathers 23 tracks from previous archival editions, mostly in the past decade. But Anthology 4 weaves all the material together into a jubilant story of the band in full creative frenzy. As John quips at the end of this previously unheard take of \u201cHey Bulldog,\u201d they\u2019re \u201cveering between yer blues and yer comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the original Anthology albums dropped, everybody figured this was the final word on the Beatles \u2014 but it turned out the vaults were full of archival treasures that would take decades to emerge. Two of the Anthology 4 songs, \u201cI Saw Her Standing There\u201d and \u201cMoney (That\u2019s What I Want),\u201d came out on The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, an oddity released for just a few hours in 2013 to extend the European copyright.<\/p>\n

\n\tMost of these tracks come from the Special Editions that have been redefining the Beatles legacy ever since 2017, when the Sgt. Pepper box blew minds, packed with more goodies than even the most hardcore Fabological obsessives could have imagined. There\u2019s outtakes of \u201cGot To Get You Into My Life\u201d from the Revolver box, \u201cHere Comes the Sun\u201d from Abbey Road, \u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Down\u201d from the Apple rooftop. The topper is \u201cGood Night,\u201d from the 2018 White Album edition, with all four Beatles harmonizing \u2014 a stunning performance that somehow sat in the vaults for 50 years.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the heart of Anthology 4 is the previously unheard material. There\u2019s a revelatory first take of \u201cIn My Life,\u201d with John thinking the song out loud, screwing up his courage, with Paul\u2019s harmony and Ringo\u2019s drums providing the brotherly support he needs. He never sounded more naked. \u201cI\u2019ve Just Seen A Face\u201d is all madcap comic energy, with John joking about Fifties skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan, saying, \u201cLonnie\u2019s gonna be sorry he didn\u2019t sing this one.\u201d They break up laughing, as they keep doing all over Anthology 4, and it\u2019s a contagious sound \u2014 if you savor the sound of these lads laughing at themselves, this album has their highest mirth-per-minute ratio.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s an amazing early take of \u201cThis Boy,\u201d known only to proud owners of the 1995 \u201cFree As a Bird\u201d CD single, which means practically nobody. As it begins, John sneers, \u201cGet that bloody mic out of the way.\u201d But it\u2019s breathtaking to hear him leap into the bridge and wail \u201cOh myyyyy\u201d \u2014 there\u2019s no holding back, only the most intense emotional urgency. John kept putting down \u201cThis Boy\u201d for the rest of his life, dismissing as an early throwaway \u2014 but he was probably just threatened by how vulnerable he let himself sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery Little Thing\u201d is a loose studio romp, which falls apart when Paul confesses, \u201cI burped.\u201d There\u2019s also a BBC rehearsal of \u201cAll You Need Is Love\u201d with comic narration (\u201cQueen Margaret in a low-feathered nightgown\u201d). Ringo belts a fantastic \u201cMatchbox,\u201d sounding live and raw, without the bizarrely overdone reverb from the botched official version, busting out his \u201call right George\u201d for the guitar solo.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the best moments is the terminally underrated \u201cI Need You,\u201d a George Harrison tune from Help! It\u2019s faster and friskier than the final version, bristling with Buddy Holly energy, but you can hear how nervous he is. In the final minute, the rest of the band is snickering at him, yet the Quiet One perseveres and never breaks. (In the final credits of the Help! movie, he keeps repeating his songwriting credit out loud: \u201c\u2018I Need You\u2019 by George Harrison!\u201d It wasn\u2019t easy being George.) It isn\u2019t hard to hear the link between this \u201cI Need You\u201d and the solemn focus he brought to \u201cIsn\u2019t It A Pity\u201d or \u201cBehind that Locked Door,\u201d five chaotic years later.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the emotional highlight here is \u201cIf I Fell.\u201d John guides himself into the song, as if he\u2019s not sure how earnest he dares to get, while Ringo clicks loudly behind him. This session is February 1964, right when the Beatlemania explosion is going global \u2014 just a couple weeks after their American conquest on The Ed Sullivan Show. But they\u2019re already determined to leave it behind, pushing on with this weirdly constructed ballad, with more chord changes than they\u2019d ever crammed into one tune. The kidding and laughing is all gone as soon as the song begins \u2014 John is laser-focused on telling his story, his voice deadly serious, lifted by those hair-raising Paul harmonies. \u201cIf I Fell\u201d is a song you\u2019ve heard a million times, but hearing this version makes you marvel that it ever happened.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Anthology project inspired the three surviving Beatles, Paul, George, and Ringo, to reunite in the studio and rescue some unfinished John songs, from home cassette demos provided by Yoko Ono. \u201cFree as a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love,\u201d both Nineties singles, are here, newly remixed by producer Jeff Lynne. Anthology 4 ends fittingly with \u201cNow and Then,\u201d a John demo the lads tried at the 1994 sessions, but left unfinished.\u00a0 In the new Episode Nine, Paul muses, \u201cIt might not go away, that one.\u201d He was right \u2014 decades later, he returned to his old friend\u2019s song, until it became the final Beatles single in 2023.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tGeorge Harrison tells a great story in the new episode about the Beatles working late nights at Abbey Road. \u201cSome of the people here \u2014 the engineer, for instance \u2014 would always be trying to go home at 5:30,\u201d he says in mock horror. \u201cAnd we\u2019d all be trying to make history.\u201d So Mal Evans brewed a special pot of tea for the studio crew. \u201cWe doused the tea with uppers,\u201d George recalls. \u201c\u2018Can we go home now?\u2019 No, you can\u2019t, bastard \u2014 have a cup of tea.\u201d Ringo adds, \u201cGeorge [Martin] hasn\u2019t come down yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe entire Anthology Collection bristles with that kind of nonstop restless creative spirit \u2014 the raw Hamburg punk rock of Volume One, the trippy studio experiments of Volume Two, the mature world-weary grit of Volume Three. There\u2019s a comic moment in the new Episode Nine where George and Ringo mock Paul for being the taskmaster in the band, always hustling the others into the studio. As Ringo quips, \u201cWe could sit in the garden longer than you.\u201d Paul has to plead guilty. \u201cI was the work fiend,\u201d he admits. \u201cI like the Beatles. I like to work with the Beatles. I\u2019m not ashamed of that. It\u2019s what I love in life, all that making music.\u201d You can hear that love loud and clear with all four boys on Anthology.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you love the Beatles, you definitely want to hear this new \u201cBaby I\u2019m a Rich Man,\u201d from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,28002,85210,61,60,28003,278,5876,28004,19889],"class_list":{"0":"post-150360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-george-harrison","10":"tag-giles-martin","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-john-lennon","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-paul-mccartney","16":"tag-ringo-starr","17":"tag-the-beatles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}