''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' (subtitled ''But Goldies!'') is a
compilation album by the English rock band
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
. Released in the United Kingdom in December 1966, it features hit singles and other songs issued by the group between 1963 and 1966. The compilation served as a stopgap release to satisfy
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
's demand for product during the Christmas period, since the Beatles had only begun recording ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'', the follow-up to their ''
Revolver'' album, late the previous month. It was the band's first official greatest hits collection, although the Beatles had no involvement in the album.
The album's preparation and release coincided with rumours in the press that the group were on the verge of splitting up. This speculation was encouraged by the band members' high-profile individual activities since completing their
final US tour, in late August 1966, and the announcement that, unlike in previous years, the Beatles would not be performing any concerts in Britain at the end of the year. The album cover is a painting combining contemporary
psychedelic and
op art themes and was commissioned by the band's manager,
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967.
Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him i ...
. To adherents of the "
Paul is dead
"Paul is dead" is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles died on 9 November 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike. The rumour began circulating in 1967, gaining broad popul ...
" hoax, the artwork offered the first clues relating to the alleged demise of
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
and his replacement in the Beatles by a lookalike, a scenario that is said to have taken place in November 1966 and been facilitated by the group's retirement from live performance.
''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' offered the debut album release in Britain for many of the band's singles, although these songs had been available on compilation
EPs since their initial release. It also provided the debut release in stereo for these recordings, since the Beatles favoured mono mixes for their singles until 1969. The compilation peaked at number 7 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
, where all the band's previous albums had held the top spot. It was also released in some other European countries and, in 1968, in Australia. The album was deleted from the Beatles' catalogue following the reissue of their albums on compact disc in 1987.
Background
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
made the decision to retire from live performance in 1966, dissatisfied at playing to audiences of screaming fans, and following a series of controversies that had tarnished the band's image throughout the year. Those controversies included the unfavourable reaction to the
butcher cover originally used for the band's American album ''
Yesterday and Today'', death threats and political incidents during their visits to Japan and the Philippines, and condemnation from some religious groups in America in response to
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
's comment that the Beatles had become
more popular than Christ. After completing their world tour on 29 August, the four band members took a break from group activities for three months. Due to the attention that their individual activities received, by early November, rumours in the press claimed that the band were breaking up. Alternatively, according to a report in ''
The Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'', the Beatles were to sever ties with their longtime manager,
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967.
Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him i ...
, and instead be represented by
Allen Klein
Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 July 4, 2009) was an American businessman whose aggressive negotiation tactics affected industry standards for compensating recording artists. He founded ABKCO Music & Records Incorporated. Klein increased profits ...
. Fans of the band were disappointed by the announcement that, in a break from the tradition established in 1963, the Beatles were not playing any UK shows over the Christmas period. On 10 November, four days after 200 fans had demonstrated outside Epstein's home in central London, newspapers reported that there would be no further concert tours by the Beatles.
Although Epstein voiced support for the Beatles' continuing evolution as artists, highlighting the advances they had made with their August 1966 album ''
Revolver'', this period was one of doubt and anxiety for him. As a manager who thrived on organising the group's concert appearances, he began to worry that their enormous popularity might be coming to an end,
or would diminish in the absence of new musical product. In the Beatles' absence, ''
The Monkees
The Monkees were an American rock and pop band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966, whose lineup consisted of the American actor/musicians Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork alongside English actor/singer Davy Jones. The group was con ...
'' – a television show starring four California-based musician-actors, brought together as a Beatles-like act – had first aired in September and soon won over the
teenybopper
A teenybopper is an early teenage girl who follows adolescent trends in music, fashion, and culture. The term may have been coined by marketing professionals and psychologists, later becoming a subculture of its own. The term was introduced in ...
audience that the band had sought to lose. In late October, Epstein informed
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
that, unlike in the previous three years, no new Beatles material would be ready in time for a Christmas release. As a result, the record company planned a compilation album, titled ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies!)'', for release in Britain and other territories overseen by EMI.
According to their press officer,
Tony Barrow
Anthony F. J. Barrow (11 May 1936 – 14 May 2016) was an English press officer who worked with the Beatles between 1962 and 1968. He coined the phrase "the Fab Four", first using it in an early press release.
Life Early life
In the late 1 ...
, the Beatles were opposed to the release of the compilation. The band returned to work on 24 November, when they began the recording sessions for their album ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. Although an article in ''
Melody Maker'' stated that the band would issue a new single in December, the only other scheduled release, aside from the new compilation, was the Beatles'
annual fan-club Christmas record. Writing in 1977, author
Nicholas Schaffner
Nicholas Schaffner (January 28, 1953 – August 28, 1991) was an American non-fiction author, journalist, and singer-songwriter.
Biography
Schaffner was born in Manhattan to John V. Schaffner (1913–1983), a literary agent whose clients include ...
commented that it was surprising that EMI's US counterpart,
Capitol Records, did not also issue the compilation album, given the company's policy of maximising the number of Beatles releases in North America.
Preparation
Song selection
''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' was the band's first official greatest-hits set and their eighth official album release in Britain. The album was hurriedly prepared, to satisfy EMI's concerns. A cover version of
Larry Williams
Larry Williams (born Lawrence Eugene Williams, a.k.a. Lawrence Edward Williams; May 10, 1935 – January 7, 1980) was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Williams ...
' "
Bad Boy" was the sole new track for the UK market. It had already been released in the United States, on the Capitol album ''
Beatles VI
''Beatles VI'' is the seventh Capitol Records studio album by the English rock band the Beatles in the United States and Canada (including ''The Beatles' Story''). It was the ninth album released into that market in less than one and a half ye ...
'' in June 1965. Thirteen of the fifteen other songs had been issued as singles, all of which had topped the national chart compiled by ''
Record Retailer'' magazine (subsequently adopted as the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
). "
Love Me Do
"Love Me Do" is the official debut single by the English rock band the Beatles, backed by " P.S. I Love You". When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1962, it peaked at number 17. It was released in the Unite ...
" and "
Please Please Me
''Please Please Me'' is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Produced by George Martin, it was released on EMI's Parlophone label on 22 March 1963 in the United Kingdom, following the success of the band's first two s ...
", the Beatles' first two hit singles, were not included.
The compilation provided the debut UK album release for the following singles tracks: "
From Me to You
"From Me to You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released in April 1963 as their third single. It was written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The song was the Beatles' first number 1 hit on what became the official U ...
", "
She Loves You
"She Loves You" is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by English rock band the Beatles for release as a single in 1963. The single set and surpassed several sales records in the United Kingdom charts, and set a record i ...
", "
I Want to Hold Your Hand
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded on 17 October 1963, it was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment.
With advance orders ...
", "
I Feel Fine
"I Feel Fine" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released in November 1964 as the A-side of their eighth single. It was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The recording includes one o ...
", "
Day Tripper
"Day Tripper" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with " We Can Work It Out" in December 1965. The song was written primarily by John Lennon with some contributions from Paul McCartney a ...
", "
We Can Work It Out
"We Can Work It Out" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It was first issued as a double A-side single with "Day Tripper" in December 1965. It also appeared on the 1966 US release '' Yesterd ...
" and "
Paperback Writer
"Paperback Writer" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, the song was released as the A-side of their eleventh single in May 1966. It topped sin ...
". The two songs that had not been issued as UK singles (apart from "Bad Boy"), "
Yesterday" and "
Michelle", had each been number 1 hits in other European countries overseen by EMI. Aside from their appearances on albums or as standalone singles, most of the songs on ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' had also been available on the various compilation EPs issued by EMI since 1963, one of which was the December 1965 release ''
The Beatles' Million Sellers''. EMI therefore pushed for the inclusion of "Bad Boy", to ensure that British fans had a reason to buy the new compilation album.
Stereo mixing
Several tracks, including "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Day Tripper", "We Can Work It Out" and "Paperback Writer", were remixed in stereo for the album, since the majority of the Beatles' singles had only been mixed for mono release previously. The stereo mixing was overseen by
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the " Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the ...
, the Beatles' producer, with none of the band members present. The mixing sessions took place between 31 October and 10 November 1966 at EMI Studios (later
Abbey Road Studios) in London.
Martin was surprised at how time-consuming the remixing of "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" proved to be. In the case of "She Loves You", the 1963 two-track recording tape had since been reused, forcing EMI engineer
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Ernest Emerick (5 December 1945 – 2 October 2018) was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums ''Revolver'' (1966), ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) and ''Abbey Road'' ...
to return to the mono master and create a "mock stereo" mix. This was achieved through removing the high frequencies from the left channel and the low frequencies from the right. They had also intended to remix "From Me to You", the Beatles' first song to top the ''Record Retailer'' chart, but this did not take place.
The final day of the album's preparation was carried out without Martin and Emerick. Author
Kenneth Womack
Kenneth Womack (born January 24, 1966) is an American writer, literary critic, public speaker, and music historian, particularly focusing on the cultural influence of the Beatles. He is the author of the bestselling ''Solid State: The Story of A ...
writes of their absence, as of the Beatles' non-participation: "Clearly, ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' was the sole priority of EMI at this juncture." Two other EMI engineers, Peter Bown and Graham Kirkby, remixed "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" that day. They then worked on "
This Boy
"This Boy" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon (credited to Lennon–McCartney). It was released in November 1963 as the B-side of the band's Parlophone single "I Want to Hold Your Hand". In the United State ...
", the B-side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", but this was due to a miscommunication with EMI's office in
Manchester Square
Manchester Square is an 18th-century garden square in Marylebone, London. Centred north of Oxford Street it measures internally north-to-south, and across. It is a small Georgian predominantly 1770s-designed instance in central London; co ...
, where the song had been confused with "Bad Boy". The error was discovered later, by which point there was no time to remix "Bad Boy" and the original mix was used for the compilation.
Artwork
The album cover is a painting by artist David Christian, who captured the vibrant colours then popular in London's
Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in Soho in the City of Westminster, Central London. Close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, it is home to fashion and lifestyle retailers, including many independent fashion boutiques.
S ...
fashion boutiques. In the description of music journalist Martin O'Gorman, the cover image partly reflects the popularity of
retro
Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from history, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. In popular culture, the "nostalgia cycle" is typically for the two decades that begin 20–30 ...
boutiques such as
I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet; it also includes a man with a
mop-top
The English rock band the Beatles are commonly regarded as the foremost and most influential band in popular music history. With a line-up comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they sparked the " Beatlemania ...
haircut reclining on a chair and "clad in Day-Glo striped trousers and a garishly patterned tie". O'Gorman adds that, except for the moustaches that the four Beatles had recently grown, the artist had captured the band's new psychedelic image, which would be unveiled in the film clips for the two songs on their next single, "
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with " Penny Lane". It represented a departu ...
" and "
Penny Lane
"Penny Lane" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Strawberry Fields Forever". It was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songw ...
".
[O'Gorman, Martin. "Strange Fruit". In: .] According to a report in the 3 December issue of ''
Billboard'' magazine, the painting was a "colorful
Op-Art
Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions.
Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images ...
" work that had been commissioned by Epstein.
The back of the LP sleeve featured a photograph of the group taken by
Robert Whitaker. The photo was taken in the Tokyo Hilton,
[Hunt, Chris. "Here, There & Everywhere". In: .] where the band members were confined for much of their 1966
concert tour of Japan due to security concerns. Author
Colin Larkin
Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged".
Along wit ...
comments that, in comparison with their look as live performers, their "image as pin-up pop stars was also undergoing a metamorphosis" by late 1966. The Beatles are shown inspecting ''objets d'art'' that the Japanese promoter had arranged to have brought to the group's hotel suite,
on 1 and 2 July,
[Irvin, Jim. "Different Strokes". In: .] to help fill the time before their shows at the
Budokan Hall
The , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally built for the inaugural Olympic judo competition in the 1964 Summer Olympics. While its primary purpose is to host martial arts con ...
.
The LP cover was one of several references to the Beatles that the English band
Oasis incorporated into the artwork for their albums and singles from 1994 onwards,
at a time when the
Britpop
Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the ...
movement drew heavily on the visual style of the Beatles' ''Revolver'' period. The image of the Beatles in the Tokyo hotel room served as inspiration for the photograph used on Oasis' debut album, ''
Definitely Maybe
''Definitely Maybe'' is the debut studio album by English rock band Oasis, released by Creation Records on 29 August 1994. Oasis booked Monnow Valley Studio near Rockfield in late 1993 to record the album and worked with producer Dave Batchel ...
'', taken by Michael Spencer Jones.
"Paul is dead" interpretation
From ''Revolver'' onwards, the Beatles' more dedicated fans began analysing the band's song lyrics for hidden meaning, and, in the description of American academic
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...
, their album covers were also "feverishly scrutinized for clues and coded messages". The cover of ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' was viewed as the first example of the Beatles leaving clues relating to the "
Paul is dead
"Paul is dead" is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles died on 9 November 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike. The rumour began circulating in 1967, gaining broad popul ...
" hoax. This theory, which escalated in late 1969, contended that
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
had been decapitated in a car crash in November 1966 and replaced in the band by a lookalike – a subterfuge that was facilitated by their retirement from live performance and change of image for ''Sgt. Pepper''. Proponents of the theory noted that four figures were pictured around a car in the top left corner of the painting, and that another car appeared to be heading straight towards the head of the man reclining in the chair, who supposedly looked most like McCartney out of all the Beatles. In addition, if the first two letters of the word printed on the bass drum, "OLDIES", are each advanced alphabetically, the word becomes a message stating "PM
or Paul McCartneydies".
The back-cover photo is also cited as evidence in the "Paul is dead" hoax, because of McCartney's atypical black attire, his distance from Lennon,
Ringo Starr and
George Harrison, and the appearance of smoke around him. This clue represents
ectoplasm, suggesting, in the description of author
Nicholas Kollerstrom
Nicholas Kollerstrom (born 1946) is an English historian of science and author who is known for the promotion of Holocaust denial and other conspiracy theories. Formerly an honorary research fellow in The Department for Science and Technology St ...
, that McCartney's presence is merely an "apparition".
Release
EMI's
Parlophone
Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...
label released ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' on 10 December 1966. With speculation continuing to surround the Beatles' future,
Independent Television News
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
(ITN) filmed its ''Reporting '66'' segment outside EMI Studios on 20 December; each of the band members was interviewed on arrival and assured ITN's reporter that they were not going to break up. Otherwise, the only television appearance that month by a member of the Beatles was when Lennon appeared in the ''
Not Only ... But Also'' Christmas special. On ''Record Retailer''s LPs chart (later the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
), where all of the group's previous albums had held the top position for a minimum of seven weeks, the compilation reached number 7. On the national chart published by ''Melody Maker'', it peaked at number 4.
At this time, the Beatles came second in the World Vocal Group category in the ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
''s annual readers poll, finishing with 5221 votes to
the Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by the ...
' 5321
– marking the only year between 1963 and 1969 that the Beatles failed to win in that category. Reports in ''Billboard'' and ''
KRLA Beat
''KRLA Beat'' was an American rock music magazine that operated between 1964 and 1968. It began in October 1964 as a free newsletter distributed by the Southern Californian radio station KRLA, before being reworked as a more reportage-focused titl ...
'' attributed this result partly to the lack of new music from the band, and the fact that they had not toured the UK in 1966.
According to author Jonathan Gould, Epstein's concern was the Monkees, whose rise influenced his decision to cede to EMI's demands and release "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" as a single in February 1967.
According to
Official Charts Company
The Official Charts (legal name: The Official UK Charts Company Limited) is a British inter-professional organization that compiles various "official" record charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France.
In the United Kingdom, its charts in ...
researcher Sharon Mawer, EMI had been expecting to achieve the "biggest album" of the year with the first compilation of the Beatles' greatest hits, but ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' proved to be "one of the biggest miscalculations of the pop charts". She concluded that fans were unwilling to pay for an LP that, aside from "Bad Boy", repackaged recordings
they already owned and "The era of the successful Greatest Hits compilation was not yet with us."
The album was released in Australia in 1968, after EMI's regional office had issued two greatest hits sets exclusive to the local market, in late 1966 and early 1967. There, the retrospectively compiled
Kent Music Report recorded a chart peak for ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' of number 7.
The album returned to the UK chart on several occasions in the early 1970s, including placing at number 32 in April 1970 and number 38 in July 1972.
Critical reception
Among contemporary reviews, ''Tracks'' commented that the album "ought to give some indication of how the Beatles have developed, but it proves mainly how much more variety there is in their albums than in their singles".
''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the '' NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in '' ...
'' reviewer criticised the omission of "Please Please Me" and considered "Bad Boy" "probably the worst on the album". The writer said that the album would only appeal to "the occasional Beatle buyers", but added, "doubtless there are enough of them to make this into a chart-topper."
Writing in the 1970s, ''NME'' critics
Roy Carr
Roy Carr (1945 – 1 July 2018) was an English music journalist, covering pop, rock and jazz. He joined the '' New Musical Express (NME)'' in the late 1960s, and edited ''NME'', '' Vox'' and '' Melody Maker'' magazines.
Biography
Born in Bla ...
and
Tony Tyler
James Edward Anthony Tyler (31 October 1943 in Bristol – 28 October 2006 in Hastings, East Sussex) was a British writer who authored several books and wrote for the ''NME'','' Macworld'', '' MacUser'', '' PC Pro'' and '' Computer Shopper''.
...
said of the compilation: "Once again, it was Christmas – and the Beatles had ''no new product'' to give to EMI for their Santa sack! As a last resort, a predictable collection of oldies was hastily assembled and crammed into an inferior Carnaby-Street-style carrier-bag sleeve." They also commented on the record company's propensity, starting in 1963, for releasing the Beatles' hits and other previously issued songs on EPs – an approach they describe as an "Old Ukrainian saying: if it moves, sell it". Author Robert Rodriguez criticises EMI's commercial motivation, adding: "It must have been obvious to anyone paying attention that, given the low-rent design and their own oft-stated aversion to compilations, the Beatles had nothing to do with this project."
Writing for
Rough Guides
Rough Guides Ltd is a British travel guide book and reference publisher, which has been owned by APA Publications since November 2017. In addition to publishing guidebooks, the company also provides a tailor-made trips service based on custome ...
, Chris Ingham describes it as a "fair, if safe, mid-career compendium". In his review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
, Richard Ginell says that EMI did give fans value for their money, by offering sixteen songs instead of the usual quota of fourteen for a British LP release, one of which was the previously unissued track. Ginell writes that, in retrospect, the compilation stands as "a decent summing up of the Beatles' achievement just before the plunge into 'Strawberry Fields' and ''Sgt. Pepper''".
According to a December 1971 report in ''Billboard'' on the preference for UK-pressed LPs among Los Angeles record-buyers, ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' was one of the most popular imported titles, and recognised as good value for its generous number of songs relative to the US industry standard.
For many years after its release, the 1966 compilation remained the only British album to contain the Beatles' version of "Bad Boy". Although briefly available on the
Music for Pleasure budget label, it was superseded by subsequent compilations: the band's ''
1962–1966
''1962–1966'', also known as the Red Album, is a compilation album of hit songs by the English rock band the Beatles, spanning the years indicated in the title. Released with its counterpart ''1967–1970'' (the "Blue Album") in 1973, the do ...
'' greatest hits set, released in 1973, contained fifteen of the songs; the remaining track, "Bad Boy", was then included on the 1976 compilation ''
Rock 'n' Roll Music''. ''A Collection of Beatles Oldies'' was deleted from the Beatles' catalogue following the reissue of their albums on compact disc in 1987.
Track listing
All songs written by
John Lennon and Paul McCartney except "
Bad Boy" by
Larry Williams
Larry Williams (born Lawrence Eugene Williams, a.k.a. Lawrence Edward Williams; May 10, 1935 – January 7, 1980) was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Williams ...
.
Charts
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collection Of Beatles Oldies, A
1966 greatest hits albums
The Beatles compilation albums
Albums produced by George Martin
Parlophone compilation albums