The Beatles: Past Masters (2LP) [APPLE/PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set on 180g vinyl comes from the original analogue master tapes, in a gatefold jacket. It gathers "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Day Tripper," "Get Back" and "Hey Jude" in one place.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo and mono mixes
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

The Beatles had a habit that would give a modern label executive palpitations: they kept their biggest singles off the albums. Past Masters exists to tidy that up. Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn compiled it in 1988, when the catalogue first went to CD, gathering every song the band put out commercially that wasn't on the 12 original UK albums or the US Magical Mystery Tour.

That means the A-sides and B-sides, from the original single version of "Love Me Do" through "From Me to You," "She Loves You," "I Feel Fine" and "We Can Work It Out," to "Lady Madonna," "Revolution," "Don't Let Me Down" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko." There's the whole Long Tall Sally EP, the German-language "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" and "Sie Liebt Dich," George Harrison's "The Inner Light" and "Old Brown Shoe," the charity version of "Across the Universe" and the gloriously daft "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)."

Collectors treat it as the final piece of the core catalogue, the 14th album in all but name. Play the four sides in order and you hear the whole story, from mop tops to rooftop, without getting up much.

Also at Kops: more The Beatles on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Apple / Parlophone, a reissue of the 1988 compilation.