Apple 3445
Producer: George Martin
Track listing: Free as a Bird / Speech: John Lennon / That’ll Be the Day / In Spite of All the Danger / Speech: Paul McCartney / Hallelujah, I Love Her So / You’ll Be Mine / Cayenne / Speech: Paul / My Bonnie / Ain’t She Sweet / Cry for a Shadow / Speech: John / Speech: Brian Epstein / Searchin’ / Three Cool Cats / The Sheik of Araby / Like Dreamers Do / Hello Little Girl / Speech: Brian Epstein / Beasame Mucho / Love Me Do / How Do You Do It / Please Please Me / One After 909 (False Starts) / One After 909 / Lend Me Your Comb / I’ll Get You / Speech: John / I Saw Her Standing There / From Me to You / Money (That’s What I Want) / You Really Got a Hold of Me / Roll Over Beethoven / She Loves You / Till There Was You / Twist and Shout / This Boy / I Want to Hold Your Hand / Speech: Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise / Moonlight Boy / Can’t Buy Me Love / All My Loving / You Can’t Do That / And I Love Her / A Hard Day’s Night / I Wanna Be Your Man / Long Tall Sally / Boys / Shout / I’ll Be Back (Complete) / You Know What to Do / No Reply (Demo) / Eight Days a Week (False Starts) / Eight Days a Week / Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!
December 9, 1995
3 weeks
Long before the Beatles’ Anthology 1 sailed to the top of The Billboard 200, a series of meetings between top executives at Capitol, EMI, and Apple Corps. were held to pave the long and winding road to new Beatles releases.
Prior to 1994’s two-CD Live at the BBC set, which reached number three on The Billboard 200, there hadn’t been a new Beatles compilation released in America since 1988’s Past Masters CDs, which featured singles and B-sides not included on the British versions of the Beatles’ albums, which were issued on CD in the U.S. When Gary Gersh took over as president/CEO of Capitol Records in July 1993, he took stock of the situation.
“When I arrived at Capitol, the relationship between the Beatles and EMI had gotten to the point where it was continually being stalled in terms of getting new product out, making a new deal, or trying to move forward with what the potential was for releasing new Beatles product,” Gersh says.
Gersh took his concerns to Charles Koppelman, chairman/CEO of the EMI-Capitol Music Group, and suggested that the executives and their counterparts in the U.K. examine the Beatles’ future.
“I said, ‘We should take a real serious look at reassessing the Beatles situation with EMI worldwide. We should open our eyes to what the future could be,'” Gersh says.
Rather than be content with the catalog sales of the Beatles albums already on the market, Gersh suggested changing the structure of EMI-Capitol’s arrangement with the Beatles and Apple Corps. in hopes of generating new product. Although Gersh stops short of revealing specifics of the new deal, he says it “is extremely beneficial for both the Beatles and EMI, and, from the Beatles’ perspective, I would think they would say it has never been fairer than it is today.”
It was those secret negotiations that paved the way for Anthology 1, the first of three double-CDs featuring Beatles rarities, tied into a three-part, six-hour television documentary that aired on ABC-TV in November 1995.
Fueling the anticipation for Anthology 1 and the TV documentary was the release of “Free as a Bird,” the first new Beatles song in 25 years. The song was constructed from a 1977 John Lennon home demo recorded in mono. In March 1994, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr completed the track with producer Jeff Lynne at McCartney’s home studio in Sussex, England.
“It was strange because I warned Ringo that he’d better have a handkerchief ready when he listened to the tape for the first time, because he’s a very emotional guy, and I know I had a bit of a cry,” McCartney told Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s a powerful thing hearing your friend on a very beautiful song. When we got in the studio, however, it felt like John was there. It was like he had done his vocal and maybe gone off to the toilet or something while the rest of us worked on the track.”
The excitement of “Free as a Bird” and Anthology 1 earned the Beatles a few more historic achievements. The first two hours of the documentary were watched by an estimated 27.3 million viewers, tops in its time slot. Meanwhile, the album entered The Billboard 200 at Number One, with sales of more than 855,000 units, making it the fastest-selling double-CD and the highest grossing album debut (raking in over $22 million, according to Capitol) in history.
Anthology 1 gave the Beatles their 16th Number One album and set the mark for the longest time span for a run of Number One albums in the rock era — it was 31 years and 10 months between Anthology 1 and Meet the Beatles! The Fab Four’s previous chart-topping album, The Beatles 1967-1970, had hit the pole position 22 years and seven months prior to Anthology 1‘s move to the top — another record.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 9, 1995
1. Anthology 1, The Beatles
2. Fresh Horses, Garth Brooks
3. Daydream, Mariah Carey
4. Christmas in the Aire, Mannheim Steamroller
5. Waiting to Exhale, Soundtrack