Anthology 3

by

The Beatles

Edit

Far from "scraping the bottom of the barrel," as some would have it, this third and final installment of the ANTHOLOGY CDs is clearly the most essential. Anthology 3 fills in the more gaping holes in Beatle lore. Not only should it be required listening for Beatle fans, there is plenty that will appeal to casual listeners too -- in contrast to the first two Anthologies.

There appears to be some confusion regarding this album's purpose. This is NOT a greatest hits collection. Rather, these are two CDs of outtakes from the WHITE ALBUM, GET BACK/LET IT BE and ABBEY ROAD sessions. Most of these recordings were much discussed but seldom heard over the years. A few had been unofficially released in the late 1980s and early '90s as part of the ULTRA RARE TRAX bootleg series. In 1995 and 1996 Capitol finally got around to officially releasing them to coincide with a prime time TV documentary about the Beatles.

Everyone is referring to Disc 1 as the Unplugged White Album and there is truth in that description. Seven songs are homemade recordings from May 1968; it's great fun to hear "Glass Onion," "Honey Pie," "Piggies," and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" in such intimate acoustic form. Later, in the summer and early autumn of '68, the Beatles went into the studio to make the WHITE ALBUM. In those sessions they recorded fascinating alternate takes of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" and a calypso version of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (with acoustic guitars and conga drums) which sound nothing like the White Album versions. Other highlights include a slower, bluesier rehearsal of "Helter Skelter." There is a terrific demo of "Hey Jude," in which McCartney delivers an even more impassioned lead vocal than he does on the "official" version of the song. "Not Guilty" is a previously unreleased George Harrison tune that was left off of the White Album; in my unbiased opinion, it is better than "Savoy Truffle," which did make it onto the White Album. John Lennon's previously unreleased "What's the New Mary Jane" might be described as "Imagine" meets "Revolution 9." It's a strangely surreal piece that improves with repeated listening.

Moving on to Disc 2, its versions of "I've Got a Feeling" and "Dig a Pony" are considerably better than the ragged performances of those songs that appear on the forlorn Let It Be album. "The Long and Winding Road," presented here without Phil Spector's controversial overdubs, is another high point. [Update: The other non-Spector take of "The Long and Winding Road," released on LET IT BE: NAKED in 2003, is even better.]

Lennon had one foot out the door during the Let It Be sessions and it shows. Indeed, George Harrison is a more conspicuous presence on Disc 2 than Lennon is. The demo that George made of "Something," alone with his electric guitar, is beautiful. His demo of "Old Brown Shoe" is more compelling than the more elaborate version that was released as a B-side in 1969. The more keyboard-based version of "For You Blue" is charming. Most poignant of all is the demo of "All Things Must Pass," which became the title song of his epic debut solo album in 1970.

ANTHOLOGY 3 also offers a retrospective sneak peak at McCartney's solo career. "Junk" and "Teddy Boy" both went on to grace his first solo album. Even better is "Come and Get It," a song that McCartney gave to Badfinger (it was Badfinger's first hit).

This is not to say that everything on this album is a masterpiece. The rehearsals of "Octopus Garden," "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and "Let It Be" are dispensable and add little; the same may be said of some of the White Album outtakes. Also, with a combined running time of almost two and one-half hours, there may be too much music here for casual listeners to digest all at once. Still, Anthology 3 has plenty of great music to behold and every Beatle fan owes it to him or herself to hear it.

There is some good stuff on here. But there is also better stuff from this period they left off (I've got a boot leg with two great original songs "Commonwealth" and "Suzy Parker." That they didn't include those songs on this album maddens me.) Many of the songs here are in their early stages, and so aren't nearly as good as the official versions. This album disproves Ringo's modest comment that, "The songs are what made the Beatles. Nobody whistles the drum part when they whistle a Beatles song." But the people whistling a Beatles song hear that drum part in their HEAD. And the fact that these are the same songs--but not as good because they don't SOUND as good--as the finished product, shows that the SOUND the Beatles created was as important--if not more so--as the songs themselves. And Ringo was very important to that sound. So, Ringo, that these songs aren't as good as the finished product, when you went all out and perfected them, shows that you were indispensable to the Beatles being great. So, this album is more an album of academic, historical interest, than a source of sheer listening pleasure.