The Beatles Expand 'White Album' With 50th Anniversary Release: Details

beatles 50th anniversary deluxe white album set

The Beatles' White Album is being reissued in deluxe form, but it'll be unlike anything you've heard from the band before.

On Monday (September 24), the iconic music group revealed it would be re-releasing a box set of remixed versions from their self-titled 1968 effort to celebrate the record's upcoming 50th anniversary this fall. The exclusive collection, which arrives November 9, comes complete with modern-day mixes and previously never-before-heard demos and session recordings.

Along with re-worked renditions of each track from The Beatles, all of which were produced by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, the collection also features 27 unheard early acoustic demos and 50 session takes.

“In November 1968, millions of double LPs were shipped to record stores worldwide ahead of that tumultuous year’s most anticipated music event: the Nov. 22 release of The Beatles (soon to be better known as the White Album),” read the press statement.

“With their ninth studio album, the Beatles took the world on a whole new trip, side one blasting off with the exhilarating rush of a screaming jet escorting Paul McCartney’s punchy, exuberant vocals on ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ ‘Dear Prudence’ came next, John Lennon warmly beckoning his friend and all of us to ‘look around.’ George Harrison imparted timeless wisdom in ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ singing, ‘With every mistake we must surely be learning.’ Ringo Starr’s ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ marked his first solo songwriting credit on a Beatles album.”

The anniversary project announcement comes a week after it was reported the group's 1970 documentary film Let It Be was being considered for a re-edit with new, unreleased footage from the original.

Here's what's inside 'The Beatles' 'White Album' 50th Anniversary release:

Super Deluxe: The comprehensive, individually numbered 7-disc and digital audio collections feature:

CDs 1 & 2: The BEATLES (‘White Album’) 2018 stereo album mix

CD3: Esher Demos

- Esher Demo tracks 1 through 19 sequenced in order of the finished song’s placement on ‘The White Album.’ Tracks 20-27 were not included on the album.

CDs 4, 5 & 6: Sessions

- 50 additional recordings, most previously unreleased, from ‘White Album’ studio sessions; all newly mixed from the four-track and eight-track session tapes, sequenced in order of their recording start dates.

Blu-ray

- 2018 album mix in high-resolution PCM stereo

- 2018 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 album mix

- 2018 Dolby True HD 5.1 album mix

- 2018 direct transfer of the album’s original mono mix

Deluxe: The BEATLES (‘White Album’) 2018 stereo album mix + Esher Demos

The 3CD; 180-gram 4LP vinyl box set (limited edition); and digital audio collections pair the 2018 stereo album mix with the 27 Esher Demos.

Standard 2LP Vinyl: The BEATLES (‘White Album’) 2018 stereo mix

180-gram 2LP vinyl in gatefold sleeve with faithfully replicated original artwork


Photo: Getty Images/Beatles website


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