This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
You’d think every version of every song on every Beatles disc would be on CD by now. But no.
Thanks to an ill-advised decision by the surviving Fabs in the ’80s, their first four U.S. LPs — Meet the Beatles, The Beatles’ Second Album, Something New and Beatles ’65, all of which were cobbled together from U.K. releases — are not legitimately available on CD. Plus, the British equivalents are in mono, not stereo. Capitol Albums Vol. 1 rights both these wrongs by compiling remastered stereo and mono versions of all four. Of course, the stereo versions are often those off-balance mixes common to the era — vocals on the right, band on the left. And it’s hard not to wish they’d dialed back the echo and reverb that threaten to drown many cuts. But the track list — 45 classics including I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There, She Loves You, Money, Rock and Roll Music and more — forgives a multitude of minor sonic sins.
DISCS: Four.
TRACKS: 90 — but only 45 different songs.
YEARS COVERED: 1964.
NEW STUFF: Nothing — or everything, depending on your view.
EYE CANDY: For a Beatles box, the packaging is surprisingly shoddy. Sure, the mini LP-cover CD jackets are neat, but the cover art is cheesy, the box is cheap and the 48-page book is mostly pics. Plus the set is awkward to handle — the discs and the book go in opposite ends of a cardboard unit that bends in the middle so everything falls out. Maybe money can’t buy you love, but it oughta buy you something better than this.
DAMAGE: About $50.
