White Album news

The ninth of November 2018, my son turns 25 and the 50th anniversary edition of The Beatles will be released.

It looks like an official announcement with a full track list is imminent, regarding the fiftieth anniversary edition of "The Beatles" (aka "the white album"). Beatlefan published this info yesterday:

1) a 4 LP Limited Edition, consisting of the regular double album in a new stereo remix, (2 LP stereo remix + 2 LP Esher demos.

2) 3 CD version with the same as on the 4LP edition.

3) And a Super Deluxe CD Box (3 CDs as above + 3 CDs of outtakes). Plus the box will include a Blu-ray disc that will be audio only. There will be no video. The Blu-Ray disc will consist of everything that's already on the CDs, plus some extra material not on the CDs.

The outtakes include non-album tracks/jams/improvisations. Of the latter, Beatlefan has been told that at least a couple are previously unknown. There also are some rehearsals. There will be 19 Esher demos of album tracks, plus outtakes of "Hey Jude", "Revolution", "The Inner Light", "Across The Universe" and "Lady Madonna".

This is a screendump of what thebeatles.com website looks like at the time of writing.

Included will be the 12-minute version of "Helter Skelter" that previously was boiled down to about 5 minutes for the “Anthology,” but the legendary 27-minute version of "Helter Skelter" will not be included. The release will have one huge surprise in the form of a song which was rehearsed during the White Album sessions, but released it (in a different version) a few years later.

An official announcement of the releases is expected soon.



Also, there's this interview with Giles Martin which was published in Spanish over at Diariodosbeatles.blogspot.com:

Journalist Daniel Buarque from Folha de São Paulo spoke with Giles Martin at the Abbey Road studios, son of Beatles producer George Martin on the new 50th anniversary edition of the White Album.

"I did not make the gold, but I help bring it to the surface," he says. "I have a privileged position, I can go to Abbey Road and unscramble original tapes of recordings from the biggest band that ever existed, and my job is to try to give people the chance to have the experience I have in this job."

"My dad never really liked 'White Album', he felt like he had lost control of the band because the Beatles went mad in the recording process," said Giles Martin.

The result of all this work will be a new remix that will be released in November along with extra material totaling almost 7 hours of recordings.

Giles talked about the initial process of listening to the recordings. "It's really like looking for gold, you have to be attentive. So we discovered conversations, comments, the mood of the recording. We have 102 recordings of 'Sexy Sadie', for example. During the recording, the band acted differently, creating almost everything in the studio. What is equally disappointing and brilliant is the fact that there is no magic is just the beauty of collaboration between humans in a studio. Only people making very nice sounds. They are excellent vocalists, guitarists, drummers. That's what the Beatles do."

According to journalist Daniel Buarque the new material sounds clearer from each instrument and also includes conversations between the Beatles before and after the recordings, as well as interruptions, mistakes and alternative versions of the songs that underwent changes before the final recording.

Aboyt the Esher demos: "They are acoustic recordings of the Beatles that they recorded in their homes and they sound beautiful," says Giles. "In addition, we found more tapes that George Harrison had at his house. The sound is great, and we were looking for something new and different for this 50-year edition," he says.

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So it looks like the new "white album" boxed set will be very similar to the upcoming John Lennon Imagine - The Ultimate Collection boxed set, and likely priced similarly.