Would the Beatles Anthology happened WITHOUT the new recordings?

I've always wondered this. Was a straight vault release in the works regardless of Free as a Bird & Real Love, or was the plan to have (new) Beatle music out there first & foremost, & tie the rare tracks in with this. In summation, what was going on behind the scenes in the years leading up to Anthology?

 

sorry for the clunky thread title. Should be "Would the Beatles Anthology project have happened WITHOUT the new recordings" Gorts---feel free to edit

 

Possibly.

 

The plan was for the trio to record incidental music but the Lennon tracks, given to them by Yoko Ono, convinced them to attempt new recordings utilising the demo vocals.

Sadly, we argubly got two of the clunkiest songs put out with the Beatles name attached.

As if Lennon would want his former bandmates to even go near the demos, they're highly personal and very true to Lennon post-Beatles.

The whole anthology is very santised, almost to the point of McCartney-esque revisionism. Check out the director's cut editions floating about Youtube, Harrison just goes for it with every story. a lot, and I mean a lot of great interview material was cut out, not for timing but surely for legal reasons!

 

Yes,almost certainly. The popularity of other artists box sets and the fact they (Beatles/Apple/EMI) had lost so much money due to the (and who could blame them) bootlegging fraternity. Wasn't it the "Artifacts" box that possibly gave them the idea of tracklists etc?

 

This is my theory as well. But I guarantee that tying in Free As A Bird & hyping it as a brand new Beatle track had Apple/EMI salivating at the projected sales figures.

 

I can't agree with that. They might not be the greatest Beatles songs. But I wouldn't call Real Love clunky. That's a fine song imo.

 

Yeah, neither can I. I actually like both songs--"Real Love" is more "complete" but even "Free as a Bird" has its moments and the way that the Threatles arranged it made it sound Beatlesque to me.

Yeah it would have happened. Heck, EMI had plans to do their own. George needed the money and The Beatles were tired of bootleggers turning their stuff into gold.

The sped up sound doesn't bother me at all--it's something they had done before in the past. As for the demo, well they used what Yoko gave them.

I'd disagree that they were nonsense and as far as sounding Beatle-esque, well, I'd disagree if The Beatles couldn't sound Beatle-esque who else could?

 

It is a fine song until you listen to it.

The vocals were sped up by a semi-tone for reasons of time signature, giving Lennon an awful teenage whine to his voice. They used the poorer quality demo with little clarity to the vocal and the instrumentation is pretty sterile.

If Lennon had turned both songs into functional final versions in the 80's, undoubtedly they'd be truly beautiful, soaring tracks, not the nonsense they were.

All in all, a cash-in, no wonder Harrison looked half-bored in the video.

It sounds Beatle-esque, and that is not The Beatles...

 

It is difficult to say, much like will we see a Capitol Albums Vol #3?

 

I like both Free as a Bird & Real Love. Apparently, the public tired of Free As A Bird (either that or they didn't like the historic recordings on Anthology 1)---I've seen boatloads of Anthology 1 in every used CD store I've visited.

 

But there was never, ever any need for it. There was never any need for these three middle aged men to take a personal demo, lather some instrumentation over it and pretend they were The Beatles again. Lennon would've told them to f**k right off!

 

It was was Yoko's idea. Don't you think she knows John more than you do?

 

No, considering she hasn't known what John has been thinking since, oh... late 1980.

 

Quite possibly the best reply I've read for years.

 

Eh, you're coming off as a bit presumptuous, Tyrell..or judgmental. Anyway, Lennon visited the Threatles as a white dove, obviously giving his approval, so it's all good.

 

Apparantly if you play Free As A Bird backwards, you can hear a secret message from John Lennon saying 'this song sucks'.

 

He would have, but he would have also been touched. That was the macho/insecurity paradox that made John a compelling musician in the first place.

I don't think "Free as a Bird" is a very good song to begin with. It's dreary, it's blah-simple…I can see why John worked on stuff like "Watching the Wheels" instead of it. "Real Love" is a fine song, though, and I think the Beatles' version is beautiful given the limitations. It sounds like the natural extension of something like "Every Little Thing" or "I Should Have Known Better." I think people here get too hung up on the sound quality of the demo. The varispeed thing isn't that strange, considering all the other effects that John's voice experienced back in the day.

 

John Lennon said, under oath, that he and the other Beatles were planning to record new music for the ending of the film documentary, The Long and Winding Road.

 

Yeah, surely group composed, written and recorded material, not some ol' tapes from their bedside cupboards, especially considering that it would've been the mid-80's by that point, the times would've brought another set of problems and solutions for Lennon.

 

Mainly for business reasons. There's absolutely nothing to indicate this was even close to happening.

 

I'm sure there were people "in the camp" keeping track of what was surfacing in underground releases. It sure took them long enough to reallize that we wanted this stuff, and LOTS of it.

This would have worked with just the vault stuff coming out. No doubt, many had the horrendous vinyl boots and some of the early CD's. Nice chance to upgrade!(and legally at that!).

I liked both "new" songs, especially Real Love official and unofficial. The FAAB video, made to watch to see all the song references.

http://www.beatlesagain.com/barchive/faabclus.html

I have another page, but can't find the link.

The ironic thing is that the "official" Anthology releases scratched the surface. I'd go on, but *that* area is taboo.........

 

The answer to the latter is NO. Give it up, guys.

 

Actually it says "turned out nice, didn't it?"

 

Too much narration, too many low-fi recordings.
They weren't Guided By Voices, in that low-fi was not really "their thing"