I STOOD IN LINE FOR THE BEATLES...At a 'Best Buy' store at midnight in 1997 for the release of Anthology 2. Actually it was pretty cool; a good sized crowd was in attendance. As they opened the doors at midnight, they played the album; I remember hearing 'Real Love', then 'It's Only Love' as I paid for my copy. So cool to be there at midnight with so many other Beatles fans! Thanks for this special focus on Beatles Anthology.

Cool that you revisited the Anthology series. I do have them all on cd. Remember the excitement when each was released- there were midnight release parties in Chicago. Us fans chatted it up before we went home to listen to it. That was a lot of fun! Hopefully, one day I’ll get a vinyl copy of any of the Anthologies.

There was a CD bootleg set in the early 90's called Archeology 5 cds that had most of the Anthology stuff on it. Of course the quality ranged from one end to the other but it was a Beatles paradise to us back then. Sure was happy when the official Anthology came out and the stuff was suddenly clean...what a joy.

I remember discovering the song "Yesterday " through limewire back in the early 2000s. The version I first heard and it's probably my favorite is the one in Anthology 2 when paul talks in the beginning. I thought that version was the only version there was back then and it blew me away.

Oh btw there are alternate Jeff Lynne mixes of free as a bird and real love being broadcast on the Beatles channel sirus xm

I still love the bare bones demo version of “Real Love” from the John Lennon Imagine documentary soundtrack.

Many of the outtakes were available to hardcore collectors on bootlegs in excellent quality. There was plenty of new material on on three volumes for all fans to love. More recently uploads to the internet have seen upgrades to all three volumes with upgraded outtakes,additions and many tracks converted to true stereo. Great channel.

One of my earliest memories is 1964 was my oldest brother coming home from school to tell us that everybody at school was talking about this new group coming on Ed Sullivan that evening. We all crowded around our black and white set… my life has never been the same. My mom took us to Sears the next day to get their record. At that point, they still hadn’t finalized a distribution contract with Capital Record for US distribution so the only record with them on it was a various artist record with United Artists Record with I Want to Hold Our Hand. I then proceeded to grow up at the same time the Beatles were spreading their magic. And, excuse the pun, I never missed a beat.

😃Right!! Their sense of humour is so awesome

I first started collecting The Beatles Anthology series on cassette back in July of this year. For cassette, I got Anthology 1 in July, Anthology 2 in August, and Anthology 3 in September. I then started getting The Beatles Anthology on CD. I got the CD version of The Beatles Anthology 1 five days after I got the cassette version of Anthology 3. A few weeks after, I got The Beatles Anthology 2 on CD. I am planning to get The Beatles Anthology 3 on CD for Christmas this year. I do have The Beatles Anthology on vinyl as well. I got both The Beatles Anthology 1 and 2 on vinyl currently as of this month. I am still trying my best to get The Beatles Anthology 3 on vinyl, but it WILL be worth it when I finally have the time. And to conclude what I will say, I am a fan of the Beatles Anthology series, and I find all three Anthology albums to be enjoyable to listen to.

I remember hearing Real Love for the first time on the Imagine bio film soundtrack. Really like it just acoustic.

Really enjoyed your take on the Anthology albums. I dont lusten to them often, extra takes and out takes are things that I might listen to once or twice, but not often. Now, in the other hand, unreleased songs I really enjoy hearing. Thanks for posting.

😃Just want to thank you for all the great insight and Beatle talk✨👍

Great vid! Feels very fortuitous for me as I've recently revisited these albums. Agree they really bring you back go the mid-90s. In retrospect they're a strange release by today's standards, with the mix of demos, outakes and live stuff. Today, we just want all the sessions! I'll always be fond of them though. Likewise, I was really excited to watch the Free As A Bird video. I was also slightly perplexed by the Real Love single as I remembered it from the Imagine doc! Loving all these recent vids. Pick another random box set off the shelf!

Hi There , my cousin Allan rouse , was the project coordinator on the anthology & also on the Anthology Albums. , which I’m very pleased about .

I loved That Means a Lot. The reverb would have fit in just great on "Help!"

I still remember how exciting that whole period was with the albums, the show and that countdown to FAAB at the end of the first show. It was very emotional hearing it for the first time. I still enjoy both songs but I do feel the Jeff Lynne production weighs FAAB down a bit though he must be given credit for taking John’s demo and getting a Beatle performance out of it. I too would love to hear Carnival and wish they had finished Now And Then which to me is a haunting John song. But George put his foot down and you have to respect that. I think A Beginning sounds like it belongs on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. I can’t imagine it at the beginning of Don’t Pass Me By. And why did they fade You Know My Name with just a few seconds left? I also wish they included the take of Something that included the jam at the end where John starts going into the piano lick of what would become Remember. Didn’t even get it on the Abbey Road box. And if they could do such an amazing job remastering the short bit of harmonies on the “Frankensteined ” Yes It Is let’s hope when they eventually get to the Help remix that that one sounds as good as it did almost 30 years ago. And there was also an early take of This Boy on one of the CD singles. They kept mixing up “this” and “that” and it just ends with them cracking up. Definitely worth checking out.

Just picked up all 3 still in the shrink for $125 at my local record store… couldn’t believe it

Love how I’m not alone in liking Free As A Bird & Real Love. I picked up sealed vinyl copies from a fan who was liquidating his collection years later. I’ll have to listen to them.

Thanks for covering these. I have all 3 and all 3 UK pressings. I haven’t even played em. I was in college when these came out and CD was king. I got the vinyls years later. I may need to break these open and listen to em. I also agree 2 was the best. I skip around on 1 and hardly listen to 3. But maybe it is time for a visit. I think my copies are sealed. I want to check out this narrow stereo. In the 90s vinyl was an afterthought so I think likely the mastering wasn’t with a great engineer. So who knows

I wish Apple would get off their butts and get the new versions released. Us "original" Beatle fans are getting pretty long in the tooth and wont be around to hear them all at this pace.

Agreed, Anthology 2 is the best. I remember being bown away when I heard Take 1 of Strawberry Fields. The live recordings are fantastic too. Wish the Bealtes would release a live anthology. The show from Washington DC in 64, Shea Stadium and Budokan from 1966 would be a great start

Had the CD's and DVD's from day one, wasn't buying vinyl in the 90's, but managed to catch up and bought them as part of the De Agostini part work releases a few years ago, and quite cheap as well.

Fun fact, Anthology 3 had a midnight release at the same time as Toy Story VHS! I bought both of them at BB!

I remember hearing Penny Lane for the first time on the radio - the promo mix was used and you heard the trumpet notes at the end. I think that was the first "New Beatles record" I remember when it was new. I was 4.

Anthology 2 is my favorite as well. I like Free As A Bird and Real Love more than Now And Then. I hadn’t noticed How Do You Do It and One After 909 were spliced together. A Beginning is ok. You can hear it in Yellow Submarine right after the opening credits. To be fair to Sir George Martin, the background music sounds great in that movie. It really does. Just my opinion. I was happy with a whole side of White Album outtakes at the time.

😃I love the Strawberry Fields drum solo at the end of the third version

“That means a lot”on Anthology 2 is probably my favourite of the rarer Beatles tunes.

Good video.I have the anthology albums and c.d.s. My favorite is anthology 2.I love those instrumental backing tracks especially Eleanor Rigby..I think A beginning makes a better intro for Good Night on The Beatles.

Allegedly when the albums came to iTunes they were remastered . I can understand having some grips . Sometimes it feels like it is a good thing to have the bootlegs to Compensate what is missing in some cases . Carnival of light has never been leaked , surprised it wasn’t in the John Barrett tapes bootlegs . I like alternate versions of songs like earlier take or mix . I bought the records much later than the cds which I remember buying at blockbuster video . Overall I am happy they were released and I believe that more material could be compiled to make at least one additional album .

The Anthology series has many highs....and yeah, some clunkers that were understandably shelved for decades.....I'm looking at you 12-Bar Original. But.....after all the time that had passed, hearing those songs were revealing. As for Carnival of Light......part of me wants to hear it, but part of me doesn't. The legend of the song would instantly vanish if its ever released, for better or for worse. But yeah, it would have made sense to include it in the recent Sgt. Pepper update. I haven't listened to any of these discs in ages but I'm glad I have them. I would have to say Part 2 is my fave of the trio even if it is rather chintzy during the Rubber Soul session. Great video!

I haven’t finished the video yet, but I got to thinking when you mentioned Free as Bird it’d be nice to have a remix of that! Along with Real Love. With the advances in technology because of Peter Jackson with Get Back. You could have that separation in the Lennon vocal and performance that you couldn’t in the 90s.

Bob The Cat - curious, not shy, doesn't eat records

Well "To each his own" as they say. I like Anthology 3 by far the best of the 3. A Beginning is a beautiful piece. I don't think it would've fit as the intro and neither did the Beatles. To me, the White Album/Let it Be and Abbey Road stuff is the best because it's the part of their career that's most interesting to me. I also think what Geoff Emerick did with Helter Skelter is Amazing!! I still get chills listening to it. Then I'd say, disk 2 of Anthology 2.

All three Anthologies have been remastered and were available digitally in lossless quality last I checked. Very noticeable improvements from what I remember, still listen to the originals and need to swap them out and compare more closely.

7:40 'Free As a Bird' - - The first statement it makes is how distinctive GH could make a simple guitar line. Flexing those strings as usual but the notes are minimal, yet as intrinsic to the song as was his simple riff 30 yrs earlier on 'And I Love Her.' Bending the notes and landing down the scale for resolution of the phrase makes it not only bluesy but so fatalistic it's ironic. That's Very George Harrison, the slight cynicism of his experience and his downbeat acceptance that this is just the way it goes meeting with his eastern philosophy that if you have expectations they will be dashed in the scheme of things. His attitude in this guitar line is the equivalent of Kurt Vonnegut's refrain "So it goes." One variation on that 'Free As a Bird' guitar line leads to JL's voice and leaves cynicism behind to head upwards on the scale, idyllic, the way his 'My Sweet Lord' guitar line was inclined to do - - setting up Lennon's voice with a halcyon cast like the best of his memories. And then heading off even higher to an ecstatic solo midway through leaves karma behind: in that phrasing GH's guitar is consciously, deliberately I think, casting JL free of samsara: that's what "Free as a bird" means to GH in this song. So PM was right to think, especially with Jeff Lynn on board, "o-oh George is going to indulge his 'My Sweet Lord' thing" - - but he was wrong to worry about it: it's a perfect fit, far too simple a riff to ever sound contrived. The other first impression: Ringo's drumming lags a fraction of a second all the way through - - which is characteristic of his drumming throughout Beatles history and mirrors GH's fatalism, even down to how GH lags behind on Abbey Road's zebra-crossing. Ringo had a boyhood start on fatalism given his last rites hospital encounters, and this attitude informs his demeanor and his humor. Maybe that's why Ringo always got along with GH without a problem: Ringo's urban fatalism was the downbeat grounded equivalent of GH's eastern acceptance in letting go. The pair of them are locked in solid in that world view inside the first 30 seconds. GH bio BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR criticises Jeff Lynn's production for dampening Ringo's drum sound, and maybe so - - and maybe Jeff Lynn had no choice but hold down production so as not to drown JL's fragile track - - but his beat is still vital in buoying up the rhythm. I think between them GH and Ringo straightaway pre-empt and rescue any disappointment in the thin sound quality of JL's voice throughout. And all that before PM gives resolution to the lyrics with a middle 8 that is indispensable in turning half a song into a full Beatles number. They really rallied together on that song, and it demonstrates what JL threw away and never found again when he split the band - - which is the subtext of PM's additional lyric of what they *all* threw away and what a generation threw away after the Sixties. ('Real Love' remains half a song to me.) 1:04 "Chewed on by a previous cat." If your lyrics ever take a wry turn, that's a line right there, a refrain even. In my younger days, coming out of a dodgy relationship, I certainly felt chewed on by a previous cat. It's also true enough of some well-worn cover versions that it could pass as an ironic song title: 'Chewed On By a Previous Cat.' It's the David Bowie end of town that he could have put in an ironic lyric - - a la "Some cat was laying down some/ Rock and roll or so he said." And sure enough, what with the wavering fragile quality of Lennon's demo, 'Free As a Bird' was chewed on by a previous cat.

My God, it's over 25 years since the Anthology albums came out. That's astronomical - over a year since Get Back was on Disney Plus and Let It Be remixed - all these hot items we'd craved for years came out and that was it. Life feels sort of anti-climactic now.

Volume 2 lacks, Daytripper, We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, and Rain. I would prefer alternate takes of all of those.

Anthology still hadn't released Love of the Loved - that would have made a great track on Please Please Me - I had to get Anthology bootlegs to finally get that song.

Love Free as A Bird and Real Love. That said, let Ringo re-record the drums playing the full kit like he did on “now and then”. Big fan of Jeff Lynn, but recording each drum separately as he did in the 90s nullified Ringo’s awesome groove. It’d give the recordings life.

Nice overview, Brian: agree with all your points, pretty much, except Helter Skelter. Not a fan of that tune, and don't need to hear that one. These are great lps, but there's so much more archival material the Beatles could put out. Some of the material on 3 is now redundant, due to the recent archival material, but still worth having. Maybe that could be reworked for a future release. While I love the 2 "new" songs, I'm not a fan of Lynne's production style (for anyone, frankly), and wish George Martin had done these instead. I'd love to see an Anthology style series of live material; the complete Sweden show should be available commercially, along with any number of decent sounding shows that exist that we know of in the bootleg world. Thanks for another fine video.

D agostini versions were on ebay.

1 and 2 are My favourites, love them. , 3 not so much, maybe because it's not My favourite Beatles era .

Whilst there were many undiscovered gems among all of the three Anthology collections, I have to say that I actually really disliked the two 'exclusive' Jeff Lynne produced Beatles songs 'Free As a Bird' and 'Real Love' which trailed the first two compilations - the original rough unfinished John Lennon demo of the latter is far better - because all Jeff did was succeed in making them sound like archetypal ELO songs. Whilst that is not a bad thing (I like a lot of prime era ELO), the heavy, plodding dead-sounding treatment of Ringo's drums just made both songs sound so goddamned sluggish.