The Beatles - for free on YouTube

The Beatles - Free As Birds on YouTube!

In an unprecedented move, The Beatles have released most of their albums for free - on YouTube. Whether or not this is going to be a permanent move remains to be seen. It's all the original British albums, from "Please Please Me" from 1963 to "Let It Be" from 1970, all presented in their remastered stereo editions. In addition to this, the following albums are also available:, "1962-1966" (The Red Album), "1967-1970" (The Blue Album), Anthologies 1-3 plus "Anthology Highlights", "1", "Love", and both volumes of "Past Masters".

In some instances, a music video is screened during the song, in others, there's just a still picture of the album cover. For instance, "Anthology Highlights" starts with the "Free As A Bird" video, then continues with the other tracks with just a still photo, then near the end, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" has the modern music video, as has the closing song, "Real Love".

Screen capture from YouTube (Norwegian text)

It seems that these albums are not available worldwide, as readers of this blog have reported that they are unable to see them on YouTube. I sent one of my readers in Hungary a link to "One after 909", and all he got was an "attachment unavailable" message.

Other recent uploads to the channel: "Eight Days A Week" (the Shea Stadium video they made for Ron Howard's film), the Intertel music videos for "Ticket To Ride", "I Feel Fine" (chipless version) and the umbrella version of "Help!". Also, the "Come Together" animated video they made for "1" back in 2000 and "A Hard Day's Night" from the Paris concert. As part of the promotions for the cinematic event "Yellow Submarine" they have published two new short films,  "Yellow Submarine - An Introduction" and "Yellow Submarine - The Design":

Here's a link to The Beatles' YouTube channel, straight to the album listings, which are themed playlists sorted by album.