Do you want to find out more about The Beatles, and in particular the Red and Blue album compilation series? Well I have some good news for you; there's a really excellent Beatles documentary series now available to listen to for free right here.
Based on their recently re-released and remixed Red 1962-1966 & Blue 1967-1970 double album compilations, the documentary series is made up of six short chapters on the Beatles You Tube channel. I've compiled a playlist for you of all the chapters so that you can listen to all six episodes in one sitting by clicking here.
This is definitely worth a listen and will give any new Beatles fans valuable background and context into some of the best songs that make up The Beatles vast and impressive back catalogue. Open up your ears to find out how lucky we baby boomer generation were to live through this wonderful music the first time around back in the sixties.
No band has ever progressed and developed so much in such a small period of time as The Beatles did. The group were only recording together for eight years but the way their song writing and musicianship progressed and evolved over that short span of years is truly quite remarkable. There are just five years between 'Love Me Do' and 'A Day In The Life' for goodness sake!
Compare 'Please Please Me' from 1962 with 'The White Album' some six years later in 1968; their desire to move forward musically with each album, the willingness to change, to up their game and improve their quality, it's unsurpassed. It is very, very impressive. It's quite unbelievable that any group could move forward at such a pace and still maintain such a high quality of output at such a fast rate as they did. They were unique.
These re-released Red & Blue 2023 re-mixed CD compilation sets are absolutely fantastic. New technology has enabled superb remixing of all the tracks to sound so much crisper and sharper, particularly the older mono ones. Most importantly the speaker channel separation of vocals and instruments is now almost perfect, sounding just like it would have sounded like in the studio at the time of recording. No more of the vocals coming out of one speaker with the instruments coming out of the other. We now have a true stereo mix that's been worth waiting for.
The remixing on the Red double CD set is astonishing with every single track now re-mixed in stereo, the sound is nothing short of remarkable. This is a huge improvement on the last part mono CD release in 2009 and the original vinyl release way back in 1973.
The Blue double CD set also comes with every track re-mixed in stereo. Whilst many on this set have been released before on recent re-mixes of original albums there are still around a dozen new 2023 remixes worth having. Revolution just explodes out of the speakers on this set.
There are also plenty of bonus cuts on both the Red and Blue CD versions, including the 'lost' John Lennon composition Now and Then, which recently charted at number one on the singles chart. Other worthy extra bonus tracks include I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout, This Boy, Taxman, Here There and Everywhere, Tomorrow Never Knows, Blackbird and Dear Prudence.
Want more detail on the track listing? There is an excellent and fully comprehensive album review of The Beatles Red & Blue 2023 expanded boxed set by clicking right here. It's definitely worth a read.
These albums demand to be purchased so go ahead and do it without hesitation. It's a piece of great British musical history that is available at an affordable price. Both the Red & Blue twin CD sets can currently be purchased (Dec 2023) from The Beatles store here for a total price of £43.99.
