So why is The Beatles’ Anthology 1 on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
How to “handle” The Beatles’ three anthology albums that were released in How to handle The Beatles’ three anthology albums from the mid-1990s posed an interesting challenge for this here best 1,000 albums ever project.
Take Anthology 1 for example: it contains 60 tracks and some two hours of music. It also includes precisely one “new” song (“Free As A Bird”), which is pretty good but honestly nothing mind-blowing going by the insanely high bar The Beatles naturally set.
Among the 60 tracks, there are a bunch of alternative takes or recordings of early Beatles songs (I’m tempted to call them “classics,” but at some point all Beatles songs sort of became classics, I guess?), such as “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me,” “One After 909,” and “Roll Over Beethoven.”
Which is all good stuff, and yet there’s gold in them thar hills, for those Beatles superfans willing to look. That’s to say, there’s a sweet treasure trove of early recordings on the Anthology 1 that either aren’t available elsewhere or were hard to find back in the pre-streaming days.
You can hear their early sound coalescing on these recordings: raw yet magical vocal harmonies, tight but unpolished instrumentation, and that restless energy that was starting to dial into that quintessential Beatles’ sound.
Songs like “Hello Little Girl,” “Searchin’,” “Three Cool Cats,” and “Besame Mucho” show off the seemingly effortless way that the band breezes through different late 1950s and early 1960s musical styles. And you can get a riveting sense of the immense talent that was about to be unleashed upon the world.
I must also add that I really dig the very loose, live recording of “All My Loving” that’s included.
Anthology 1 also includes a number of audio tracks from Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who is sometimes referred to as “the man behind The Beatles.” These tracks are interesting enough, though they of course can’t convey the enormous impact he had on The Beatles’ fortunes.
One of many things that is deftly highlighted by the brilliant Beatles documentary, Get Back, is how much the band misses Epstein’s presence and influence during the latter days of their career as a band.
I could go on for thousands of words more about how great Get Back is, but I’ll limit myself to one further observation that relates to the early Beatles days. With surprising frequency, you hear Paul or John reference their days in Hamburg, which refers to the time period from 1960-1962 when The Beatles would get regular gigs abroad to make some cash and polish their chops before they broke huge.
I mention this because during the time period of Get Back, early 1969, the band has been famous worldwide for years, but of course for them – still very young men at this point – those more innocent pre-fame days didn’t seem all that long ago.
Some stats & info about The Beatles – Anthology 1
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, British Bands, British Invasion, Rock & Roll
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3 out of 5 stars
- When was Anthology 1 released? 1995
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #519 out of 1,000
The Beatles’ Anthology 1 on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Beatles’ Anthology 1 that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Well up came that first cat, he said, “Man, look at that! Man do you see what I see?”
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.