{"id":151516,"date":"2025-11-24T17:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/151516\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:51:13","slug":"how-anthology-redefined-the-beatles-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/151516\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Anthology’ Redefined The Beatles Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s a powerful moment at the end of the newly restored Beatles<\/a> docuseries Anthology when George Harrison<\/a> muses about the band\u2019s future. \u201cThe Beatles will just go on and on,\u201d he predicts. \u201cIn those records and films and videos and books, and in people\u2019s memories and minds. The Beatles has just become its own thing now. And the Beatles, I think, exist without us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThen George breaks into a mischievous grin and quotes a song that his old mate John Lennon<\/a> once sang, back in 1966. \u201cPlay the game existence to the end of the beginning,\u201d he says. \u201cTomorrow never knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGeorge wasn\u2019t lying. He spoke these words in the early Nineties, yet it was a prophetic way to sum up the Beatles. Nobody in the Sixties could have imagined how huge the Fabs would be in the Nineties, just as nobody in the Nineties could have predicted how huge they are now. When the original Anthology debuted as a TV miniseries in November 1995, it blew up into a global celebration, with three top-selling companion albums and a lavish book. In 2025, we\u2019re as far from the original 8-part Anthology as Anthology was from Rubber Soul or Revolver \u2014 yet somehow, the lads just keep getting more vital and influential all the time. Tomorrow never knows, indeed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthology is finally making its long-awaited return<\/a>, debuting on Disney+ on November 26. It\u2019s been digitally restored and expanded by Peter Jackson\u2019s WingNut Films team, using the same technology they used for Get Back<\/a>, which dazzled fans four Thanksgivings ago in 2021. Giles Martin<\/a> has remastered the music and produced a new Anthology 4 <\/a>album. There\u2019s also an emotionally intense new Episode Nine, focusing on the three surviving bandmates, who meet up in the early Nineties, to work on this project together.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthology holds up as the definitive Beatles documentary, told by all four in their own words. Part of what made it so innovative \u2014 and keeps it so fresh today \u2014 is that it\u2019s just them. No narrator, no talking heads, no celebrity testimonials. Just Paul McCartney<\/a>, Ringo Starr<\/a>, Harrison, plus archival interviews from the late John Lennon, looking back at people and things that went before. It captures the frantic madness of their life as a band, young boys transforming the world in just a decade together. As Episode Nine director Oliver Murray tells Rolling Stone, \u201cIt blows my mind that George is 24 when he finishes Sgt. Pepper. When I was 24, I was probably trying to make a bong out of a potato.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\n\tBut it took time for the ex-Beatles to come together for Anthology, 25 years after the band\u2019s ugly demise<\/a>, telling the story of their long and winding friendship. \u201cIt was brave, in a way,\u201d Giles Martin says now. \u201cIt was a surprise for everyone, including themselves. But it was a cathartic process for all of them. I think they\u2019d forgot what it was like, because there\u2019d been so much mud thrown in different directions since they broke up. I think it\u2019s a little bit like finding an old photo album, looking at photographs, and then realizing actually you had an amazing relationship with that person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the Anthology doc debuted in 1995, it was a cultural shock. It defined the Beatles as we\u2019ve known them ever since \u2014 not as an event that happened back in the Sixties, but an ongoing phenomenon that keeps growing and evolving. In Episode Nine, the surviving bandmates confess that not even they can explain the band\u2019s astounding afterlife \u2014 they\u2019re frankly weirded out at how much the world loves them. \u201cIt being 30 years ago, it is all getting fairly legendary,\u201d Paul says. \u201cA bit TOO legendary for our liking, because we\u2019re still living it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthology finally rescued the Beatles from the Sixties. For way too long, the Fabs story had been framed with a sickly sense of nostalgia \u2014 a fairy tale from the good old days. But by the time Anthology arrived in the Nineties, there was a new generation of Beatles fans too young to relate to that nostalgia, or to think of this music as a thing of the past \u2014 because the Beatles were more vibrant and influential and challenging than ever, in every corner of the music world. As the Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s Raekwon said, \u201cThe Beatles are timeless dudes doing timeless things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\n\tAt the time, people were stunned at how much they loved Anthology \u2014 sure, everyone expected to enjoy it, but not this much. It was (and is) a joy to spend time with, whether you drop in anywhere at random or binge the whole ten hours.\u00a0 So much lore. So many laughs. Casual fans flipped into obsessive geeks overnight. All three albums \u2014 outtakes, demos, live slop, studio chatter \u2014 became mega-selling hits, in the days when people paid money for music.\u00a0Hell, it\u2019s no coincidence that 1997 was one of the best years ever for rock albums \u2014 every band made their next record under the Anthology spell.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it badly needed a technical upgrade. Most fans probably haven\u2019t watched it in years, since it\u2019s only been available via old VHS tapes and DVD, where the archive footage looks shabbier with the years. The new version grew out of the Get Back <\/a>project, when Jackson and his Wingnut team took hours of previously unusable footage and cleaned it up into the Beatles, loud and clear and laughing and fighting together. Martin says, \u201cAnthology was that organic process of doing Get Back, with Peter Jackson and the team saying, \u2018Maybe we should look at redoing Anthology 30 years on.\u2019\u201d Martin used that de-mixing technology for the music. The famed Shea Stadium concert, drowned out by 56,000 screaming fans, now sounds startlingly clear. \u201cI\u2019d like to say,\u00a0 \u2018It sounds like if you were there,\u2019 but of course if you were there, you wouldn\u2019t have heard anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Martin, it\u2019s a full-circle moment. He was his father\u2019s teenage apprentice on Anthology the first time around, years after George Martin produced the band. \u201cThe first time I ever came to Abbey Road with my dad was for Anthology,\u201d Giles says. \u201cIt was the first time I heard the tapes and I was mesmerized. I just couldn\u2019t believe how good they sounded \u2014 I remember \u2018A Day in the Life\u2019 on four-track tape being played to me in that room. It\u2019s probably quite a poignant thing for me, because ever since then, my ambition in everything I\u2019ve done with the Beatles is to try and get that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band\u2019s right-hand man Neil Aspinall began the Anthology project in 1970, assembling footage into a documentary he planned to call The Long and Winding Road. But in those days, the last thing the ex-Beatles wanted was to revisit their past. \u201cWe were at war then,\u201d Paul says in Episode Nine. George, sitting right beside him, adds, \u201cWe weren\u2019t talking much.\u201d (Except in songs like \u201cSue Me Sue You Blues,\u201d \u201cHow Do You Sleep?,\u201d \u201cDear Friend,\u201d \u201cEarly 1970,\u201d \u201cGod,\u201d and the many other solo songs they aimed at one another.) Their wounds started healing over the years \u2014 when John and Yoko separated for a while, Paul was the one she sent out to L.A. to advise him on how to win her back. George, Paul, and Ringo jammed at Eric Clapton\u2019s wedding in 1979. (John was furious he wasn\u2019t invited.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut bizarre as it seems now, there was never a single moment after 1969 when all four Beatles set foot in the same room. They thought they had time. They didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAny dreams of a reunion, personal or creative, died in December 1980, when John was murdered by a stranger with a handgun in New York. It was a decade later, in 1991, when British directors Bob Smeaton and Geoff Wonfor began to expand Neil Aspinall\u2019s shelved film into something new, with the surviving Beatles finally ready to tell their side of the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGeorge and Paul would have dinner with each other occasionally,\u201d Martin says. \u201cThey\u2019d certainly be in touch. And that\u2019s the thing people don\u2019t realize \u2014 they think they\u2019d been in exile for all those years. But to do the Anthology, that\u2019s a different thing \u2014 to be on even soil, if you like. You can see it\u2019s refreshing for them because, as they always said, there\u2019s only four people who knew what it was like to be in the Beatles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey still had their conflicts, for sure \u2014 it was only a couple of years after Paul boycotted their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, because of their financial disputes. The doc became Anthology instead of The Long and Winding Road \u2014 George couldn\u2019t bear naming it after a Paul song. Yoko eventually screened it with a stopwatch, to measure how much screen time Paul got versus John. Yet the group still shared their unbreakable bond. \u201cWhen we got over our business troubles,\u201d Ringo explains in the film, \u201cWe decided that we might try and do the definitive story of the Beatles. Seeing as other people had a go at it, we thought it might be good from the inside-out, rather than from the outside-in. We\u2019ve heard it from everybody else\u2014now you can hear it from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new Episode Nine shows the surviving Threatles in the Nineties, as they gather to work on Anthology and play some unfinished songs that John left behind. \u201cFree As A Bird,\u201d \u201cReal Love,\u201d and \u201cNow And Then\u201d were home demos recorded at the Dakota in the late Seventies, from a cassette that Yoko provided. \u201cIt was emotional listening to the tape for the first time,\u201d Paul says. \u201cI said to Ringo, I warned him, \u2018You better have your hanky ready when you listen to this.\u2019 Because it\u2019s quite emotional \u2014 hearing our old mate sing this little song.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThey cut \u201cFree As a Bird\u201d and \u201cReal Love,\u201d both hit singles, yet gave up on \u201cNow and Then\u201d in one afternoon. The other two didn\u2019t share Paul\u2019s enthusiasm for the tune, and neither did producer Jeff Lynne. Nobody could even tell what Paul heard in it \u2014 but with typically bloody-minded Macca tenacity, he refused to let it go. \u201cWith anyone else, this would definitely be the end,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut with the Beatles, you\u2019ve got to watch out\u2014they could do it. There\u2019s always a surprise somewhere down the line. It might not go away, that one.\u201d Paul called that right. Decades later, he turned this demo sketch into the Beatles song he always knew it deserved to be \u2014 a soulful tribute to his old mate. \u201cNow And Then\u201d<\/a> became the band\u2019s final song, a worldwide hit in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEpisode Nine ends with the same heart-grabbing scene as the original Anthology: George, Paul, and Ringo, sitting in a field of grass, strumming guitars and singing lazy songs beneath the sun. \u201cThis has been a really nice day for me, chaps,\u201d Ringo says. The other two reply with witty quips, but Ringo is utterly earnest, not even a smile. \u201cIt\u2019s been really beautiful and moving for me. I like hanging out with you two guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s more poignant now than ever to see them play guitar in the good-day sunshine, lounging on the lawn at George\u2019s Friar Park estate. They probably figured they\u2019d be doing this every ten years for the rest of their lives. They had no way of knowing that just a few years later, George would get viciously attacked and nearly killed by an intruder in his home, not far from the spot where they\u2019re sitting. And just two years later, Harrison was gone, dead of cancer in 2001, at the tragically young age of 58.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEpisode Nine needed to offer a new layer of self-reflection,\u201d Oliver Murray says. \u201cIt has a different heartbeat to the others, simply because it was made later. It\u2019s the \u2018coda episode.\u2019 My North Star was to take a look at how they felt to be a Beatle. What did it cost to be a Beatle? I think it\u2019s quite melancholic at times.\u201d Their shared history still seems painful onscreen. \u201cIt is like a living conversation between them,\u201d Murray says. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t some fireside chat where they think about the past and this distant thing that they were in. It\u2019s something that they wear, and at times it\u2019s heavy. So Episode Nine hopefully gives space to watch them looking inward, rather than just talking outward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMore than anything, Anthology is the story of a friendship \u2014 John, Paul, George, and Ringo are the most famous friendship in our culture, the foursome that symbolizes the highs and lows of being in a group. That\u2019s why Paul has been getting up there onstage all fall<\/a>, on his amazing current tour, and singing John\u2019s 1965 confession \u201cHelp!\u201d for the first time since the Beatles broke up. It\u2019s a vulnerable moment: Paul, in his 80s, getting back to a song his best friend sang in their early 20s, still trying to make sense of John\u2019s pain, still trying to heal their broken bond. He\u2019s got so many of his own hits that he could perform instead. But in his heart, he\u2019s still singing for John.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, Lennon\u2019s death haunts everyone in Anthology. \u201cI feel sorry for John,\u201d George says in the new episode. \u201cBecause the Beatles went through a lot of good times, but also went through some turbulent times, and as everybody knows, when we split up, everybody was a bit fed up with each other. But for Ringo, Paul and I, we\u2019ve had the opportunity to have all that go down the river and under the bridge and to get together again in a new light. And I feel a bit sorry that John wasn\u2019t able to do that. I think he would\u2019ve really enjoyed this opportunity to be with us again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Fabs\u2019 laughter and camaraderie is so contagious through all nine episodes, like the famous moment where Paul defends the White Album. (\u201cIt was great! It sold! It\u2019s the bloody Beatles\u2019 White Album! Shut up!\u201d) But it\u2019s also full of heartache, as when Ringo recalls how he quit and told his bandmates, \u201cI feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.\u201d Each one replied, \u201cI thought it was you three.\u201d George is a master of bitchy one-liners. But in the new episode, when they accuse McCartney of always nagging the others into working harder, Paul retorts, \u201cI like the Beatles. I like to work with the Beatles. I\u2019m not ashamed of that. It\u2019s what I love in life \u2014 all that making music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEpisode Nine may conclude the series, but it\u2019s not an ending,\u201d Murray says. \u201cI hope it\u2019s a handover and a conversation between one generation and the next, because I wanted to leave with as many questions as answers. When you look at the Beatles, it tells you as much about where WE are culturally as it does about the Beatles themselves. The fact that the legacy is still alive and well is astonishing. They\u2019re a sort of cultural language that\u2019s carried from one generation to the next, and now it\u2019s in the ground-water. And we\u2019re all drinking Beatle water, whether we know it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGiles Martin remastered the music, including the concert performances. \u201cThe live audio was really challenging,\u201d he says. \u201cI tried a bit of this with when we did Eight Days a Week with Ron Howard [in 2016], then Beatles \u201964 [in 2024], with Shea Stadium, the Washington concert, Budokan. I then used the de-mixing technology we developed with Peter.\u201d Obviously, nothing\u2019s been altered in the music \u2014 we just hear more of what the boys actually played in the room that day. \u201cThe challenging thing is the gradations of how good you want to make it versus how real. And I always go for the most real it can possibly be. With this amazing technology, I can isolate John\u2019s voice on the Washington concert \u2014 I can hear only John. No one ever heard that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a result, the live material really captures the lads\u2019 raw primal energy. \u201cThat\u2019s just how they sounded,\u201d Martin says. \u201cI\u2019m not adding anything to it. There\u2019s certainly not some sort of performance plug-in I can switch on that makes them better. They\u2019re just really good \u2014 the only difference is now you can hear them be really good. It\u2019s like when they cleaned up the Sistine Chapel, they found out that Michelangelo wasn\u2019t as dark and broody as they thought he was. It\u2019s the same thing with the Beatles\u2014you clean them up, and you realize they\u2019re basically just like a live punk band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMartin remixed all three of the Anthology albums, originally produced by his dad, plus the new Anthology 4. Martin says, \u201cIt made sense, once we were redoing the TV series, to have a look at doing an extra record for people as well.\u201d It has 13 previously unheard tracks (or 16, depending on how you count) from the vaults, mostly from 1964-1965, with great versions of \u201cTell Me Why,\u201d \u201cIf I Fell,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ve Just Seen a Face.\u201d The other 20 tracks are culled from the special editions Giles has produced over the past decade, in the series that began with the Sgt. Pepper and White Album box sets. \u201cIt\u2019s purely based on, \u2018Hey, check this out\u2014this is fun to listen to,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThat way it generates itself, as opposed to market forces or anything like that.\u201d All four volumes are collected in the 191-track Anthology Collection.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first time around, the Anthology phenomenon shocked the entire music industry \u2014 but nobody was more shocked than the surviving Beatles. This had to be the final frontier, right? Why were millions and millions of consumers eagerly buying their outtakes? What was wrong with these people? Paul quipped, \u201cGeorge Martin reckons if we put out anything after this, it\u2019ll have to be issued with a government health warning.\u201d Little did they know. Not even Mr. Martin could have imagined how his boys would get far more famous and beloved in the 21st century. Just a few years after everyone assumed Anthology was the end of the line, their 1 compilation blew up into the best-selling album of the 2000s, moving something like 30 million copies. It\u2019s still neck and neck with Adele\u2019s 21 as the biggest-selling album of the century so far \u2014 even though all the songs were hits before Adele was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\n\tThat\u2019s the strange paradox of Anthology: the Beatles have never belonged to yesterday. These guys and their songs always belong to tomorrow. And when it comes to their future, tomorrow doesn\u2019t know a damn thing. There\u2019s only two things you can safely predict about them: (1) it\u2019s crazy how much people adore the Beatles, and yet (2) the world\u2019s collective craving for them keeps growing anyway. \u201cI couldn\u2019t put it any better than George does in the episode,\u201d Murray says. \u201cThe Beatles will go on without all four of them, because they belong out with us now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Anthology brings the story down to these boys from Liverpool, and the unique four-way chemistry that bonded them together. \u201cThey became the closest friends I\u2019d ever had,\u201d said Ringo. \u201cI was an only child and suddenly I felt as though I\u2019d got three brothers. We really looked out for each other.\u201d Watching Anthology means not just celebrating that bond, but becoming part of it, as the music brings the Beatles to life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a powerful moment at the end of the newly restored Beatles docuseries Anthology when George Harrison muses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4950,156,57605,101142,29645,157,111,139,69,466,43482],"class_list":{"0":"post-151516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-beatles","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-george-harrison","11":"tag-giles-martin","12":"tag-john-lennon","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-paul-mccartney","18":"tag-ringo-starr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}