So I like the Beatles. I wouldn't call myself an uber-fan, but I certainly have all their CDs in various incarnations and varied and sundry other items of interest. But there are fans and there are fans, and I just received a whopper of a book by the latter...
"The Anthology of The Beatles Records" is a two volume, slip-cased, 1370 page (!) tome with 4000 color illustrations documenting just about every single Beatles release from day one to the closing date of publication (11/2007). I say "just about" because even the author admits there's no way to know definitively if he's collected every possible iteration of every 45RPM label from, say, Switzerland... but if he missed it, it's not for trying. This massive tome also comes with a brand new vinyl 45 Beatles single on a vintage Polydor label and sleeve, color postcards and if you really want to go for the gusto, you can get the thing autographed by Tony Sheridan, Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann. (If you don't know who they are, you'll never get a book like this anyway.)
At any rate, if you thought the Beatles catalog was limited to the 15 or 16 official albums they released while still recording, you've got another think coming. Not that there are revelations of new music, per se... we're talking about the endless repackagings of their library, with different covers, label styles, photography and even occasionally different mixes.
Here's some of their official blurb:
"More than 1300 pages, more than 4000 color photos! Complete discography from 1962 till our days! Some records have been documented for the first time! New countries have been added to the discography: Belarus, Uzbekistan, Republic of Geaorgia, Latvia."
This sort of scholarship doesn't come cheap; it's 260 Euros (sans autographs) straight from Germany, or close to $500 (damn this exchange rate!). But if this sort of madness strikes a chord, or you need one heck of a doorstop, check it out at www.something-books.com.
