Anthology 1

By the early 1990's, historians and musicologists took a profound interest in collecting all of the available materials relating to the Beatles, perhaps the most influential musical artists of the modern era. The "Anthology Project," as it came to be called, included a book, three albums of archival material, and a series of documentary films, shown on television in Britain and North America. Around the same time, a single record, Free as a Bird, came out, in which a tape by John Lennon was used as the basis for a reunion recording by the surviving Beatles.

The book, published in 2000, long after the documentary series had been aired, is mainly a collection of personal narratives and opinions expressed by the members of the group themselves and by those who took part in the Beatles phenomenon, both centrally (as in the case of George Martin and Geoff Emerick) or tangentially (as in the case of quotes from relatively obscure persons who happened to cross the Beatles' jet stream).

In retrospect, the most enduring aspect of the Anthology project was not the boxed set of DVD's from the television documentaries (though they continue to entertain and fascinate), but rather the six discs (or 9 LP's) that were compiled from fragments, out-takes and little-known recordings of this famous group.

"Anthology 1" is the most commonly used way of referring to the first of the three releases in this series. It came out on November 20, 1995 on the Apple label, with production credit to George Martin. The 60 tracks in the collection last for 2 hours and 5 minutes in all, and provide audio documentation of The Quarrymen, the ill-fated Decca Audition of January 1, 1962, and numerous demos or rejected takes from the first four studio albums recorded for EMI/Parlophone. Two other additions are noteworthy: The collection starts with the last Beatles' recording, Free As a Bird. In addition, the collection has Lend Me You Comb, which probably should have been in the Live at the BBC collection, but was omitted.

Half a million copies of Anthology 1 were sold on the first day of its release. It took the number 1 spot in Billboard's 200 chart and was certified 4x platinum.

After Anthology 1 had been in distribution for a while, Anthology 2 and Anthology 3 were released to the public. Those who owned all three double-disc albums could lay down the CD cases or album covers in order and see that the three discs represented a single collage, comprised of scraps of posters, clippings and photos of the group. This was intentional. The entire work of art was conceived and created by Klaus Voormann, an artist and long-time friend of the Beatles, who executed the cover of Revolver.