Anthology Albums 1, 2 & 3 | Page 5 | Fab forum

The Anthologys are a great intro for getting into bootlegs.

Along with the many hightlights (In Spite Of All The Danger, TNK, You Know To Do to name but 3) there are many pointless edits (While My Guitar Gently Loops Endlessly, Not Guilty senselessly butchered into such a crummy version, How Do You Do It? (why on earth edit one line)) and some of the later year takes (Hello Goodbye, Penny Lane, I Will) are too similar to the final released versions to arouse interest.

And why ignore take 11 of What You're Doing yet include take 4 of Mr Moonlight!!

mr. Sun king coming together said:

Alissa said:

I suppose my only beef with the albums is the tampering with tracks that were meant to be… untampered with!

No. No no no. These same edits (Or similar edits) would have occurred in 1965 as occurred in 1995. These songs were viewed as, let's be honest, the crap. Therefore, to make what wasn't good enough 30 years earlier worthy of release, they edited. In much of the same way things were edited in 1969. Was it "tampering" George Martin did on Strawberry Fields, editing two separate takes into one song (the exact process used in Anthology)? Of course not. Same thing here. It's a peeve of mine that people cry foul over something that the Beatles had done earlier in their career.

There is a difference, in my opinion, between the officially released proper versions and the outtakes because they are outtakes. No one is going to say that lucy in the sky (i use it as an example) is better because its had the organ part of take 54 put in over the original bass of take 42 than if it was left alone because it will always be compared with the officially released one, as that is the standard by which it is rightly measured with. I dont believe that any of the outtakes, alternates are better than the originals, tho some are darn good. The Beatles chose the best versions is the ultimate message from The Anthology's.

Therefore i'd rather have the full take 21 of any song than some hybrid.

If someone call tell me why WMGGW is improved due to the end loop i'd like to hear it. Same goes for the editing job on Not Guilty which was abysmal.

However its a personal thing. And thats why the Anthology is a great intro to the world of bootlegs. You hear the alternates, enjoy them for what they are, and maybe find they are edited and go and get the unedited.  

mr. Sun king coming together said:

I know all that. But if you want people to buy Anthology, you need it to be good music. You can't have it be complete shit. So they edited it to make sure it was an enjoyable listen, on top of an interesting listen.

If they wanted an interesting and enjoyable listen with the Anthology's they should have ditched Mary Jane. Neither interesting or listenable, just 6 minutes of unlistenable garbage – 6 minutes!! Even the remix didnt make it bareable.

For me the anthology series are a good introduction to the bootlegs, however there is so much amazing music out there that is not officially available eg the complete bbc sessions, the strawberry fields outtakes, what youre doing take 11, some of the live concerts (candlestick park '66), the esher demos.

Plus the anthology has the most pointless edit ever known in the history of music namely Not Guilty. I have no idea what they were thinking when making a great song into a piece of worthless garbage, turning a heavily frustrated song into a gutless whimper. Worse still they were using a crappy edit made in the 80's, they could easily have went back to the master take when compiling the series in the 90's and given us something listenable.