I bought the red and the blue on vinyl when they were released in 1973. At that time, album sides could not hold 30 minutes of music, hence the need for a double album.

The CD version was planned for 1992 then delayed until 1993. Prior to both projected release dates, it was announced that it would be a double disc affair even though the entire two albums could fit on one disc with 15 minutes to spare.

If this is due to the desire of preserving the original appearance of the album as a double anthology, I don't buy it.

Today, double discs are now presented in the slim CD case that look like single CDs. Therefore, they should release its blue album this way, put the red album on one disc and they would look comparable.

That way we would save a few bucks. Now for the music...

The first four songs are mono. The two track stereo tapes for Love Me Do and She Loves You are no longer in existence.

When The Beatles rerecorded their two biggest hits I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You in German in early 1964, they were able to just record the vocal track over the existing backing track of Hand. Since She Loves You's two tracks had been erased, they had to record a whole new rendition.

Please Please Me and From Me To You are also in mono. There are stereo masters for these but since Please Please Me in stereo has a vocal flub it was not used. It was announced there was no clean stereo master for From Me To You.

I do enjoy this compilation. It's great to have these songs remastered in the early 1990's, and I love hearing All My Loving, Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, And I Love Her, and Eight Days A Week in stereo.

In fact, this blows the excuse out of the water that the first four albums would sound terrible in stereo, so present them in mono only.

However, I wish they had used the US stereo mix of Day Tripper. This was on both US and UK versions of the red album. It is a cleaner mix, with less obtrusive echo on the vocal, has a longer fade out, and doesn't try to hide a vocal flub with a volume knob twist. The fade out should have been sung: Day Tripper...Day Tripper Yeh! The Beatles accidently sung it: Day Tripper Yeh!...Day Tripper Yeh! No attempts were made to have them resing the vocal. They just lowered the volume during the mistake. What that did was lower the entire backing track with it.

Still, it is a nice anthology with unpublished photos and the lyrics to all the songs (correct lyrics this time. Just compare the lyrics of A Hard Day's Night on the vinyl to the CD. "So why on earth should I moan, cos' when I get you alone" is correct)

I must admit to feeling a bit foolish for buying the Red & Blue albums AGAIN this time, despite already owning the Mono Box and the 9/9/9 Abbey Rd and Let It Be editions. The reason I got these is that when I first owned Beatles music on vinyl, I actually had these Red & Blue sets before I got most of the individual Beatles albums (except Abbey Rd & the White album). I've most likely listened to Red & Blue as much or more often than the individual albums. The specific sequence of songs on these two double albums just feels "right" to me, and I want to experience that again in this newly remastered form. Experiencing it all over again is just as grand: the wonderful harmonies, marvelous playing, amazing production, and - most of all - the terrific, life-altering songs.

One thing is strange to me, the decision to include mono mixes only with the first four (oldest) songs. Why didn't they use mono mixes of ALL the older material? (or none?) The stereo mix of "All My Loving" has the vocals only on the right channel. I would definitely have preferred the mono mix there! That's not a show-stopper, though. The overall sound quality of this edition of Red is excellent, and I've overcome my feeling of foolishness and am glad I bought this new Red.

I don't have the same negative opinion of the packaging as reviewer Mark Barry does. It looks pretty sturdy to me; I don't see the cardboard slots housing the two discs tearing apart anytime soon. I would have liked plastic sleeves for the two discs, but otherwise this packaging is OK by me.

One other note: I feel incredibly dense to have just picked up on this after many decades of being a Beatles fan -- when put together with the White album, these two collections make "Red, White & Blue." I must be the only person in the world not to see that for all these years.

Sure, there are other places to get all these songs (the original albums and Past Masters, Vol.1 & 2), and sure, Capital could have issued this on 1 cd and saved us a lot of money. But they decided to be true to the LP release (and make themselves much weathier), and this is what we've got. So here are the facts:

The music here rates 5 stars. The remastering is far superior to the other releases that contain these songs. So, if you are new to the Bealtes and want the best fidelity, you should bite the bullet on the price and buy it. If you're a Bealtemaniac, then you'll need it because of the superior sonics. If you don't like the Beatles, what are you doing here?

The Beatles are THE most written-about recording group of all time, so any broad statements would just be repetitive. Suffice to say, the "Red Album" is a mannered look at the Beatles' early singles, all of which are hook-laden, strong classics. With the exceptions of "Norwegian Wood" and "Eleanor Rigby", there is little indication of the mind-blowing experimentalism of their later work. Like their British compatriots the Yardbirds and the Animals (among others), the Beatles grew up listening to and eventually covering the early rock pioneers (Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley being the most overt influences). The "Red Album" documents the band's attempt to capitalize on their American obsessions while breaking new lyrical ground. Lennon and McCartney are working so closely together here that their individual contributions are practically indistinguishable. The songs are starkly emotional and are stripped of any pretense that may have marred some of their subsequent recordings. The Beatles are still such an amazing cultural force, it really should go without saying that the "Red" and "Blue" albums both should be a prerequisite to any complete music collection. Without them, an individual is missing a very large piece of rock and roll heritage. Personal Favorites: the sitar-driven narrative of "Norwegian Wood", the melancholy classic "Yesterday", and the bittersweet recollections found "In My Life". Representative Lyrics: "Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church/ Where a wedding has been/ Lives in a dream/ Waits at the window wearing a face/ That she keeps in a jar by the door/ Who is it for?" ("Eleanor Rigby"); "I give her all my love/ That's all I do/ And if you saw my love/ You'd love her too" ("And I Love Her")

Previewing the song selection before purchase, one scratches their heads at the sheer volume of Beatles songs that are a part of our shared culture. Suddenly all rational thought and sense of logic are thrown out the window when our friendly little "imaginary consumer" remembers that this is less than a mere ½ of the Beatles enduring legacy; part II, the "Blue" series is still necessary, as are their individual albums which continue to stand as landmark achievements in songwriting and recording. However, after gawking over the sheer magnitude of the hits on this compilation, our imaginary customer may now look at the price tag and begin to have doubts about it's value. I now realize that I can no longer stand passively on the side lines; for the greater good of humanity as a whole, and the betterment of the personal psyche of "imaginary consumer", I must wholeheartedly and without prejudice recommend this amazing listening experience!

Sheer numbers of "mega hits" aside, the amount of growth exhibited in the brief four year span that this disc covers is remarkable. As a young musician learning his first guitar chords, it may very well come to pass that disc one of this compilation will guide you through your darkest hour of musical doubts; indeed, it is humanly possible to progress from the relatively simple composition of a "Please Please Me" or "Love Me Do" to the orchestral grandeur of a "Yesterday", and this merely encompasses one single disc, an unbelievable span of three years of songwriting growth! Or perhaps our listener is learning his first lessons of love, feeling helplessly alone in suddenly harsh world, yet the soothing strains of "Yesterday" remind him that he is certainly not alone in this seemingly uncaring world. The listener then puts in disc two, and if any doubt remains that he is alone in the darkness of love lost, the opening trilogy of "Help!", "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" and "We Can Work It Out" will serve as a loving embrace and a reminder that indeed, you are not alone!!

There are however among us a group of individuals who are widely known as "cynics", a pleasant group indeed, but certainly a group that may not relate to my psychological story above. They have been shaking their heads all the while during my time on the podium, their eyes having still not left the price tag section of the disc. It is at this time that I typically resolve to save my breath and allow the cynics their fair loss. My heart grips me however, and I realize that I must relate to them the reasons why, even from a coldly economic standpoint, the purchase of this compilation is worthwhile. Many of the songs on this compilation, "Paperback Writer" for instance, were originally released as "Singles" and are thus more difficult to locate on a typical compact disc format. To collect all of these songs by purchasing the many discs on which they are contained would likely cost triple or even quadruple the price of this compilation!! Added to the fact that you have lyrics for everything, several lovely pictures (each one shows the Fab Four's hair growing slightly longer), and a crisp and clean remastered sound quality, it becomes necessary for me to advise even the harshest cynics of the world that this is a necessary purchase.

I now thankfully alight from my soapbox, as warm fuzzy feelings of charity towards my fellow man engulfs my heart. Perhaps my words today have inspired a real life "Eleanor Rigby" or "Father MacKenzie" to not feel so alone in this world, or at the very least allowed somebody to escape into the musical equivalent of heaven for the all too brief listening experience that is "The Beatles, 1962-1966".