A Collection of Beatles Oldies

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AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:

A Collection of Beatles Oldies

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  • Artist: The Beatles
  • Rating: StarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: December 10, 1966
  • Total Time: 37:52
  • Type: Compilation (best of)
  • Genre: Rock

Review

It was Christmas time, 1966. Though hard at work on the beginnings of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, the Beatles had nothing for EMI to put out during the holiday season (aside from the annual Christmas record for the fan club). Revolver had come out in the first week of August, too early to exploit. What to do? So EMI issued this stopgap collection of 16 older recordings for the European market, in effect creating the first "Beatles Greatest Hits" album. Actually, it's not a predictable hits anthology, for it omits obvious hit singles like "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do," and includes popular album cuts like "Yesterday" and "Michelle" that were not issued as singles in the U.K. But it doesn't skimp on quantity, offering 16 songs instead of the usual 14, taking the saga all the way up to Revolver, and collecting some British singles into album format for the first time. As for English fanatics who simply had to have everything but might balk at purchasing an album entirely composed of retreads, EMI thought of them too, slipping in the Larry Williams song "Bad Boy" for the first time in Britain (it was included on Beatles VI in America in 1965). The stereo edition features a few anomalies -- an electronic stereo "She Loves You" -- but mostly offers commonly available mixes. The front cover is a period piece of Carnaby Street kitsch, while the back features a casual Beatles photo circa 1966. Today the album seems like a decent summing up of the Beatles' achievement just before the plunge into "Strawberry Fields" and Sgt. Pepper, though obviously not taking in the whole story. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

A Collection of Beatles Oldies

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A Collection of Beatles Oldies
Greatest hits album by The Beatles
Released 10 December 1966
Recorded 1963–1966,
EMI Studios, London and Pathé Marconi Studio, Paris
Genre Rock
Length 39:46
Language English
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin
The Beatles British chronology
Revolver
(1966)
A Collection of Beatles Oldies
(1966)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(1967)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars[1]
A collection of Beatles oldies (side 1) – Parlophone yellow and black label

A Collection of Beatles Oldies (subtitled But Goldies!) is a compilation album featuring a selection of songs by The Beatles recorded between 1963 and 1966. The album was released in the United Kingdom and Australia in both mono (catalogue number PMC 7016) and stereo (PCS 7016.)

Contents

Background

The release of this album was the result of EMI not having any new material by the Beatles for the 1966 Christmas season in the manner of the previous three years.

The sole new track, a cover of Larry Williams' "Bad Boy", had not yet appeared on a Beatles LP in the UK, but had already been released in the United States on the Capitol album Beatles VI.

The album only reached number 6 in the UK album chart,[2] perhaps because most fans already owned most of the tracks on other releases. However, the album continued to sell reasonably well, remained in print for many years, and was only deleted when the compact disc age approached (and made obsolete by the Past Masters compilations). It was also the longest album that the Beatles had released to that point, totaling almost 40 minutes of music.

It is noteworthy that six of the tracks on this LP ("From Me to You", "We Can Work It Out", "I Feel Fine", "Day Tripper", "Paperback Writer" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand") make their debut here as both album tracks (they were previously issued only as singles) and with stereo mixes (some done so especially for this compilation). "She Loves You" also made its debut on a long-playing record here, but it was a re-processed stereo mix, as the multi-track tape had vanished and remains missing to this day. The song is complete on both the first pressing mono and stereo issues, the Fame budget label reissue from the 1980s, and the resequenced pre-recorded cassette.

The cover of this album contributed to the "Paul is dead" hoax as the road shown on the cover seems to lead into the head of the man sitting on the cover.

Track listing

All songs written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

Side one
  1. "She Loves You"
  2. "From Me to You"
  3. "We Can Work It Out"
  4. "Help!"
  5. "Michelle"
  6. "Yesterday"
  7. "I Feel Fine"
  8. "Yellow Submarine"
Side two
  1. "Can't Buy Me Love"
  2. "Bad Boy" (Larry Williams)
  3. "Day Tripper"
  4. "A Hard Day's Night"
  5. "Ticket to Ride"
  6. "Paperback Writer"
  7. "Eleanor Rigby"
  8. "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

External links

References

  1. ^ Allmusic review
  2. ^ Neville Stannard, The Long & Winding Road (Virgin Books, 1983), p45.

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Mentioned in

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