The Beatles - Anthology

Artist : The Beatles
Title : Anthology
Genre : Rock
Source : CD
Ripper : EAC 0.99pb (Secure mode)
Codec : MP3
Encoder : LAME 3.97
Command line : -h -v -b 192 -V 0 --vbr-new -m s
Bitrate : VBR ~270kbps
Mode : Stereo
Frequency : 44100Hz
Tags : ID3v2.3 (With covers images)

The Beatles Anthology
To accompany the Anthology series, three double music albums were released, each containing two CDs of never-before-released Beatles material (although many of the tracks had appeared on bootleg vinyl and CD for many years prior).

Two days after the first television special in the series had aired, Anthology 1 was released to stores, and included music recorded by The Quarrymen, the famous Decca Records audition tapes, and various out-takes and demos from the band's first four albums. It also included the song "Lend Me Your Comb", omitted from the collection 'Live at the BBC', released the previous year (1994). The song "Free as a Bird" was included at the very start. 450,000 copies of Anthology 1 were sold in its first day of release, the most sales for an album in a single day ever. The Beatles' original drummer Pete Best, fired by the band in 1962 before they hit it big, received his first substantial Beatles royalties from this album, for the inclusion of early tracks on which he played.

On March 18, 1996, Anthology 2 was released. The second collection presented out-takes and demos from the Beatles' sessions for Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Magical Mystery Tour. These included selected early demos and takes for Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever", previously available only to bootleg collectors. The new song "Real Love" Γ?? which, like "Free as a Bird", was based on an unfinished Lennon recording Γ?? was also included in the two-CD collection.

On October 28, 1996, Anthology 3 was released. The third collection featured out-takes and demos from The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be.
Collage of the three covers of The Beatles Anthology, created by Klaus Voormann.

The three album covers, when laid side-by-side, become one long painted collage of various peeling posters and album covers representing the different stages of The Beatles' career. This was the work of Klaus Voormann, who also created the album cover for Revolver in 1966. The Anthology covers required Voormann to recreate elements of his cover for Revolver within the collage. During the music video for "Free as a Bird", the Anthology collage appears as posters on a shop window as the camera pans quickly across the street. The design also adorned the VHS, laserdisk and DVD releases, again to be properly encountered by laying the cases side-by-side. Upon the release of Anthology 3, HMV stores made available a cardboard sleeve designed to hold all three CD volumes of which each side of the sleeve make up half of the collage.

The success of the Anthology albums was parodied by the release of the Rutles' Archaeology some months later. This album even included a spoof of "Free as a Bird", entitled "Don't Know Why". In Anthology style, the album included both outtakes from the original Rutles album and new material. Perhaps fittingly, delays in the release of the third volume of the Beatles' series ultimately meant that the Rutles' parody arrived in shops on the same day as its inspiration.

Wikipedia (complete information): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_Anthology