Red and blue 3LP albums
Boxed albums
It looks like Amazon in France managed to spill the beans a little early today, by preparing a page for the new red and blue albums, with pictures. They didn’t list the contents, but someone on reddit published the following list, with 21 tracks added to the original 2LP track lists. We’ll see if the announcement proves these track lists right or wrong.
The new red album
1962-1966
- Love Me Do
- Please Please Me
- I Saw Her Standing There
- Twist and Shout
- From Me to You
- She Loves You
- I Want to Hold Your Hand
- This Boy
- All My Loving
- Roll Over Beethoven
- You Really Got a Hold on Me
- Can’t Buy Me Love
- You Can’t Do That
- A Hard Day’s Night
- And I Love Her
- Eight Days a Week
- I Feel Fine
- Ticket to Ride
- Yesterday
- Help!
- You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
- We Can Work It Out
- Day Tripper
- Drive My Car
- Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
- Nowhere Man
- Michelle
- In My Life
- If I Needed Someone
- Girl
- Paperback Writer
- Eleanor Rigby
- Yellow Submarine
- Taxman
- Got to Get You into My Life
- I’m Only Sleeping
- Here, There and Everywhere
- Tomorrow Never Knows
The new blue album
1967-1970
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Penny Lane
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- With a Little Help From My Friends
- Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
- Within You, Without You
- A Day in the Life
- All You Need Is Love
- I Am the Walrus
- Hello, Goodbye
- The Fool on the Hill
- Magical Mystery Tour
- Lady Madonna
- Hey Jude
- Revolution
- Back in the U.S.S.R.
- Dear Prudence
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
- Glass Onion
- Blackbird
- Hey Bulldog
- Get Back
- Don’t Let Me Down
- The Ballad of John and Yoko
- Old Brown Shoe
- Here Comes the Sun
- Come Together
- Something
- Octopus’s Garden
- Oh! Darling
- I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
- Let It Be
- Across the Universe
- I Me Mine
- The Long and Winding Road
- Now and Then
So if these lists are correct, the additions to the original track lists are: I Saw Her Standing There, Twist & Shout, This Boy, Roll Over Beethoven, You Really Got A Hold On Me, You Can’t Do That, If I Needed Someone, Taxman, Got To Get You Into My Life, I’m Only Sleeping, Here, There & Everywhere, Tomorrow Never Knows, Within You Without You, Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Blackbird, Hey Bulldog, Oh! Darling, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), I Me Mine, Now & Then.
According to this, all songs are now stereo.
A rumour from Steve Hoffman’s music forum has the formats:
2CD Red Album
2CD Blue Album
3LP Red Album
3LP Blue Album
6xLP Red/Blue in Box
And also has images of the single:
Quite bland front covers
Now and Then 12″
Now and Then 7″
Now and Then 7″ (Blue Vinyl)
According to another source, the “Now And Then” single will be released November 3, 2023 on four different 7” singles, 10” single (so not 12” – remember Ringo’s latest EP’s as well as The Rolling Stones’ “Angry” were in the 10” format) and cassette single. Digital, too. No CD for the single. The last Beatles song will be paired with the first – “Love Me Do” is the b-side. Release date for the albums is November 10, 2023. The new red and blue albums will each be 2 CDs and 3LPs, so finally value for money on the CD’s, something fans have complained about in earlier incarnations. 30 of the 38 songs were remixed by Giles Martin. The blue album will add 9 new songs including “Now And Then”. 7 songs were given the Jackson/Martin treatment (Presumably MAL-related instrument and vocal separation). The CDs will arrange all the songs in chronological order, whereas the LPs will have the additional songs on LP 3.
Red album 2CD
Blue album 2CD
My nomination for best track not included (assuming the list is correct): Rain
I would hope they would include new remixed versions of Free As a Bird, and Real Love incorporating the new ‘de-mixing’ technology.
There must be some doubt about the track listing. Back In The USSR has been removed.
Most odd, Now and Then was from late seventies, definitely after 1970
I’m sure Back In The USSR wasn’t in the track listing when I first read it. It’s back on now! Oh Darling is an addition to the Blue album as well as the additions listed above. Is there going to be a B side to the single?
I could care less for the Red & Blue comps – I’m over the moon that we FINALLY get Now and Then after all these years. Between The Stowe School release, The Mal Evans Bio, and Now & Then; this has been a successful year of treasures.
It would seem strange to jump from 1970 to 2023 without anything in between, hopefully FAAB and RL are in this set too!
I agree one hundred percent with you, dude. Free As A Bird & Real Love deserve to be included. They’re just as canonical as Now And Then will surely be. Fingers crossed, my friend.
Hello Roger. Thank you for being a wonderfully informative source of Beatles information. Have you heard anything about Free As A Bird and Real Love? I consider these beautiful songs to be canonical. It would be strange if they weren’t included. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Free As A Bird and Real Love are NOT included.
I would have thought that Now & Then should be track one of Anthology 3. Anthology is surely due for rerereleasing, and it would fit the idea of a “new” Beatles song to kick each album off. Also, it’s not that long since the Red/Blue albums were released utilising the newly remastered recordings.
Finally, the b-sides of FAAB/RL were all unreleased recordings. Surely, there are some recordings still unheard, given that the Giles Martin releases of recent years have thrown up a few surprising recordings.
Finally (part II), does this release mean that we aren’t going to have new mixes of Rubber Soul and the rest? Maybe Now & Then needing to be released now has caused a break before we go again next year with Rubber Soul, not to mention the tracks from MMT/YS needing appropriate remixing/outtakes etc..
IMHO, Yellow Submarine is the gold standard for remixing and sounds better than anything else by The Beatles that has been remixed to date. See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7wcRKxeIS4
Totally agree – Peter Cobbin set the benchmark – I’m not a Giles M hater, but he’s never approached Peter’s standard.
This is great news and as some “experts” have foretold these last weeks. But why in heavens name did they not include “Helter Skelter” when they finally had the chance? I have always believed not including it on the original Blue album was a blip, but now?
Still sticking mostly to side one of the White Album.
Just put out a CD single of the 1+ remixes of FAAB and RL with the new track. No need for another Love Me Do.
I’m wondering whether the de-/remixed “Love Me Do” is the version with Ringo on drums or Andy White. 🤔
It has been taken from 2 x 7″ singles, the UK 5 October 1962 release, so will have Ringo. Looking at the traffic surrounding today’s news, 2 things are almost universal – the poor artwork on the single, and the ungainliness of ‘Now And Then’ on – well, one cannot really call it “1967-1970” anymore. It’s like a pimple suddenly being painted on the Mona Lisa. It’s hard not to think that someone on a very high salary c/should have predicted those responses. If the accepted story that these were originally going to be called “…+1”, until the late decision was taken to make the CD sets 2-discers instead of 3, to obviate continuing ‘value for money not pictured on “Red”‘ criticism [hence the reason the already-pressed vinyl sets have the “1” LP] is accurate, surely some consideration should have gone into how the title of ‘Blue’ would pan out. Anyway, best not be too vociferous – they still have a week to change their minds and delay it again!
Only one Yellow Sub era track. It’s All Too Much or Only A Northern Song would have been great. The full ‘Too Much’ would have been epic.
And Helter Skelter, Warm Gun or Yer Blues over Glass Onion.
I think I came up with a better track listing for at least the original album by switching out 3 or four of the tracks, one of them being Birthday because it is such an important party record. Sorry not to see it here.
I think there are better commercial tracks on there albums that could have been chosen such as “You Wont See Me ” and “Baby You’re A Rich Man ” and others I do not see here. Most of the extra albums cuts picked should remain album cuts.
This is exciting! I preordered the CD set and the cassette single. Is there any significance with the single cover? I never heard of the artist. I guess I was surprised to not see a band photo like Real Love single.
I believe he was already a well-established artist before The Beatles came along. Paul is a fan – he did the McCartney III sleeve. It is (to my eyes) an ethereal staircase, viewed from above, leading up from a mistier ‘then’ to a clearer ‘now’.
Wow. I didn’t see that ethereal staircase. Thank you for sharing.
Also, Shad, the cover sort of resembles the balcony/staircase at EMI House. From Angus McBean’s Blue Album cover photo. I wonder of there will be a cover (another of McBean’s staircase photos hiddeb underneath the ‘arty’ cover?
I agree with with another comment about “Rain”I’m surprised it didn’t make list Ringo always says it’s one of his best piece of drumming 🥁
I wish they had left red just red and blue just blue. Two icons (with all their imperfections) have been butchered. And it’s really sad that the original Let It Be film still hasn’t been released on DVD. But apparently no one is talking about that anymore … Beatles history is being taught wrong.
I think these are good sets. It’s neat that they have the technology to pull these old recordings apart and mix them with today’s ears. A lot of these old recordings were never intended to be heard in stereo. Mono was the standard. So the fact that it is even possible is cool.
And nobody (especially Giles, I’m sure) wants to slog through the entire catalog, pulling every song apart and rebuilding them. The Red and Blue collections are a good compromise.
The Yellow Submarine Songtrack was an example of a perfect remix. You can remix mono and make it sound more clear with better dynamic range. It is clear that using technology to pull the tracks apart and reassemble them is a shortcut but doesn’t do them sonic justice. I think the underwhelming Revolver “remix” shows that. If Giles doesn’t want to do it, somebody should since the YS Songtrack demonstrates what quality remixing from scratch can sound like.
I agree that the YS Songtrack is an example remix from the existing tapes. And I think the Revolver remix shows how little instrumentation is actually there. As such it loses a lot of it’s punch when you spread the band out across the “sonic stage”. For the older material, the original mono mixes are hard to beat.
But, as a retired programmer who has also had his own recording studio, I find the technology very impressive.
No doubt the MAL technology is impressive and led to the “Now and Then” being much better than otherwise and for a very impressive “Get Back” film. However, Revolver and Rubber Soul had similar levels of instrumentation. When one compares the songs on Songtrack which has song from each, the difference is clear to me, even in stereo. I feel the White Album would have been better if the YS Songtrack method had been used and allowed more dynamic range and clarity. No need to allow “creativity” to improve the sound of things. BTW, the mono “master” provided on the deluxe remaster of the White Album was awful! Sounds like maybe they forgot to account for the RIAA equalization on the “direct” master.
They missed “Do You Want To Know A Secret” along with “Rain”.
The Steve Hoffman forum is a miserable forum indeed, full of ancient American-centric know nothing boomers. That forum has a bad reputation for good reason. It’s a horrible place.
Amen to that!
Here’s the proper cover for the Blue album.
https://ibb.co/cCvMMqK