Quite a few years after the breakthrough of CD's, EMI began releasing the Beatles-LP's in this new format. The first four (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale) were released on the 26. of February 1987. Annoyingly for the fans, these were in mono, and not in stereo. EMI said that they had been re-evaluating the Beatles-catalogue, and decided that the earliest stereo-mixes weren't good enough, and made the decision that from now on, the standard format for these LP's should be mono. In addition, they decided that the various local variations of Beatles LP's around the world (including USA) should no longer be re-pressed, from now on the british Beatles catalog should be the world standard. The result was that the americans had to stop re-pressing their original-LP's and the british series is now the standard in the USA as well. And the first four LP's are now only available in mono on new records.
The british record-chain HMV celebrated the release of the Beatles CD's by gathering these four CD's in a box, include a book and sell this box for a little more money than the combined price of the four CD's.
This was repeated when the next three CD's (Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver) were released in april the same year. These were in stereo, but George Martin had done new mixes for the Help! and Rubber Soul CD's, because EMI was still not satisfied with the original stereo mixes.
However, from Revolver and up to Abbey Road the sixties stereo mixes were found adequate. A Collection Of Beatles Oldies was once again overlooked, so the next CD release was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on June first, 1987 on the 20th anniversary for the original LP. The packaging was extravagant, including a booklet with details about the recordings and lots of photos of the Beatles in their Pepper-suits. HMV also did a great job with their box, and for this release a special booklet had been produced (on the previous boxes, already published books had been included), and a poster and a badge were also included in the box, which was adornished with an outtake of the original album cover.
In august, both The Beatles (White Album) and Yellow Submarine were released on the same day, but HMV elected to release one box pr. CD.
The surprise in september was the release of Magical Mystery Tour on CD. This was a 1967 compilation released in the USA and wasn't among the original british LP's at the time. However, EMI had discovered that this LP was essential in a Beatles collection, since it gathers together some 1967-tracks that were released only as singles and EP's originally. HMV followed suit with a new box.
In October came the CD editions of Abbey Road and Let It Be, again released simultaneously, again sold in individual HMV-boxes. As with the Sgt.Pepper-release, an outtake-photo was used for the Abbey Road-box.
Then in March 1988 Past Masters Vol.1 and Vol.2 appeared, where EMI had gathered together the remaining Beatles tracks which hadn't already been released on the other CD's. Fans who had been buying all the CD's now had a complete collection of the Beatles EMI releases. HMV released boxes for both CD's, as well as a special box which gathered together all the Beatles CD's On the lid of this box was a hologram depicting the Beatles drums.
EMI found this a clever idea and made a box of their own, a black wooden box with a small book written by Mark Lewisohn. In the UK, fans could decide whether to buy the box and book with or without the CD's! Elsewhere in the world however, one had to buy the box with it's full content, even if one had been eagerly buying the individual CD's.
Apart from these "official" boxes, smart business people have been producing countless "unofficial" boxes for the Beatles CD's ("Live At the BBC" is for instance available in a wooden radio-shaped box), usually including a book with photos from the time of recording. These unofficial boxes are usually individually numbered and presented as limited editions. We haven't seen any of these boxes increasing in value, though :)
As Beatlesfans and -collectors we are often being asked if we have got all the Beatles records. This is a question which everybody can safely answer with a "no", even if you have all the records mentioned on this website. If you have got these records, you will have almost every variation of every Beatles song which has been officially released by The Beatles as a band, but if you want all the Beatles records released, you must have more than one lifetime in order to collect everything. You'll have to travel to every country from Argentina to Zimbabwe and buy all the Beatles records released there. And make sure you get different editions of the same record, stereo and mono editions, covers or labels with misprints or mispressings, records with slight variations on the cover or label or matrix number etc.
So, you realize that there is no one person who can possible live long enough to gather together all these records, which means that no one has got a complete Beatles collection. But, if you're only interested in the music, and don't collect different covers etc, you just want all the songs that the Beatles have released, the following records should suffice:
CD Albums: PLEASE PLEASE ME, WITH THE BEATLES, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, BEATLES FOR SALE, HELP !, RUBBER SOUL, REVOLVER, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, THE BEATLES (White Album); YELLOW SUBMARINE, ABBEY ROAD, LET IT BE, PAST MASTERS Vol 1 and Vol 2, THE BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC, ANTHOLOGY 1, 2 and 3, YELLOW SUBMARINE SONGTRACK, THE BEATLES FIRST (featuring Tony Sheridan), THE COMPLETE SILVER BEATLES and LIVE AT STAR CLUB 1962
Vinyl LP's: FROM THEN TO YOU (or THE CHRISTMAS ALBUM) and THE BEATLES AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
You also need these three maxi cd-singles: BABY IT'S YOU, FREE AS A BIRD and REAL LOVE.