A few days ago, it was announced that the Anthology was to be rereleased.
The tv series has been cleaned up by Peter Jackson and extended but will only be available on streaming services, no idea if or how the book has changed, but the music has been revisited by Giles Martin and remixed, again.
There are still three double CDs, but now a fourth set, Anthology 4. There are some new outtakes, rehearsals and bits and pieces, 13 ‘new’ tracks plus 17 that have been released before in the box sets. Anthology 4 is not available separately, only with the first three at £100 (the LP version is over £300).
If you are a Beatles fan you will already have the first three sets. Paying £100 for 13 ‘new’ tracks is just too much money.
It’s hard to know who actually will buy any of this. The pricing is ridiculous. The remixed music doesn’t need remixing – it’s OK as it is, and those of us who dislike the new versions won’t be playing it anyway.
But sadly, there will be people who go for it.
There are some corrections and additions to this. The information seems to be changing and is rather vague.
It is said that Giles Martin has remixed the music (you know, boosting Paul’s bass to dominate everything). This seems to be true for some songs on the tv show, but not the actual CDs or LPs, so they will be remastered but essentially the same as released before.
The versions of Free as a Bird and Real Love have been reprocessed to make them sound more in line with Now and Then, you know, digital and processed.
The last side on the 12 LP set features just those three songs, all released before and a total running time of about 11 minutes.
There is no indication of the running time of the last episode of the tv show, beyond it shows George, Ringo and Paul working on the new songs. It could just be 10 minutes. If you don’t have Disney+, you may need to consider if it is worth buying it.