Anthology Two

The next installment of the "Anthology" series was released on March 19 1996 with the very inventive title: "Anthology 2"( catalogue number 34448). This was released in the LP, CD and cassette format. Since I deal mainly with vinyl and CD, the post will reflex this fact. This release came as a 3-LP set or a 2-CD set.
The front cover of this "Anthology 2" release featured the addition of the centerpiece for Klaus Voorman's design and shows the Beatles circa 1966 on a Shea Stadium promotional poster for an upcoming show, the upperleft shows some of the cover for the "Please Please Me" lp, the bottom left show George and Ringo from "With The Beatles" and George from the "Rubber Soul" LP. The upper right shows the Beatles photographed in Hamburg by their friend Astrid, the US version of the front cover of the "Help!" soundtrack, John's eyes from the "Revolver" LP cover, the wax figures of the Beatles from the "Pepper" LP cover, John's mouth from the "Revolver" LP along with the portrait of the artist (Klaus), the start and stripes from what I'm guessing is the San Francisco promotional poster for the upcoming show with both John and Paul partly viewed.
The back cover continues with the "canvas" theme; credits are once again at the upper left along with the Apple and Capitol logos, the bar code at the upper right (for both formats) and the track listing below/ the Beatles logo/ the album title.
The CD came with a 48 page booklet including photos from the era along with liner notes on the origin of the songs with outtake/concert information. The LP came with a tri-fold sleeve featuring the Sgt. Pepper outtake photo along with all the photos from the booklet (cropped in order to make it all fit) and the same information on the tunes.
The labels for the CD contain the full Apple for CD 1 with the Beatles logo and title on the left and copyright information on the right. The bottom of the label explains that this is "disc 1" and to see the booklet for details. The second CD contains the sliced Apple for CD 2 with the same format as CD 1. The label backgrounds for the CD are silver. For the LP labels, the first side has the full Apple and the second side has the sliced Apple for each of the three vinyl records. The format is basically the same as the CD with the exception that the background is cream coloured and the labels for the LPs have the Capitol logo for the US versions along with "Made in the USA" while the UK versions have no Capitol logo and the "Made in the UK" blurb.
The recordings cover music recorded between February 1965 and February 1968 along with "Real Love" (which is the first track) . This is followed by: "Yes It Is" (take 2 into take 14), "I'm Down" (take 1), "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" (take 5), "If You've Got Trouble" (take 1), "That Means A Lot" (take 1), "Yesterday" (take 1), "It's Only Love" (take 2), "I Feel Fine/Ticket To Ride/Yesterday/Help!" (live August 01 1965 from Blackpool), "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" (live August 15 1965 from Shea Stadium), "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (take 1), "I'm Looking Through You" (take 1), "12-Bar Original" (take 2 edited), "Tomorrow Never Knows"(take 1), "Got to Get You Into My Life" (take 5), "And Your Bird Can Sing" (take 2 overdub session), "Taxman" (take 11), "Eleanor Rigby" (instrumental re-mix), "I'm Only Sleeping" (rehearsal/take 1), "Rock 'N' Roll Music/She's A Woman" (live June 30 1966 from Tokyo Nippon Budokan), "Strawberry Fields Forever" (demo/take 1/take 7/ edit and remix take 26), "Penny Lane" (remix and edit), "A Day In The Life" ( take 1/ take 2/take 6 and back to take 2), "Good Morning Good Morning"(take 8), "Only A Northern Song"(remix), "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" (take 1/take 2/take 7), "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (take 6/take 7 and take 8 remix), "Within You, Without You" (instrumental remix), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)" (take 5), "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)", (remix and edited), "I Am The Walrus" (take 16), "The Fool On The Hill" (demo), "Your Mother Should Know"(take 17 re-make), "The Fool On The Hill" (take 4), "Hello Goodbye" (take 16), "Lady Madonna" (takes 3 and 4 plus sax overdub remix), "Across The Universe"(take 2).
As you can see, the project at this stage used a lot of newly created mixes and edited from various takes from the master tapes. Nothing wrong with that, but not very organic (in my opinion). Interesting none the less.
The original release for this installment was late February, but was delayed due a change in the tracklisting when the song "I'm Down" was changed from being track 6 to being track 3. This change was suggested by Paul McCartney.



The front cover of my UK copy comes with a pink sticker glued to the upper left promoting the "new single" "Real Love".