THE BEATLES -1 - Mint 2x12" LP, picture cards & poster

	£		20
	$		26

YOU ARE BIDDING FOR A MINT CONDITION DOUBLE VINYL LP, 4 BEATLE PRINTS & POSTER OF 1 BY THE BEATLES. PLEASE LOOK AT MY OTHER ITEMS, I'LL BE SELLING LOADS OF VINYL OVER THE COMING MONTHS.

1 is a compilation album by The Beatles, released on 13 November 2000. The album features virtually every number-one single released in the UK and USA from 1962 to 1970. Despite being issued on the 30th anniversary of the band's breakup, it was their first compilation available on one Compact Disc. 1 was a critical success and has gone on to sell over 31 million copies. It's the seventh best-selling album since May 1991[1] and the best-selling album in the United States from 2000 to 2009.[2]

Compiled by producer George Martin and the (then) three surviving members of the band, 1 includes the 27 Beatles songs that went to number one in the United Kingdom on the Record Retailer magazine charts and/or the United States on the Billboard magazine charts. It is worth noting, however, that the song "For You Blue" was listed in Billboard chart compilations at #1, as a double A-sided single with "The Long and Winding Road", but Capitol Records treated "For You Blue" as strictly a B-side and didn't promote it as an A-side. Meanwhile, "Day Tripper" was included on 1, since it charted at #1 in the UK as a double A side with "We Can Work It Out", while in the US, only "We Can Work It Out" was #1. The only singles released in both the UK and US that did not reach #1 in either country, and were therefore ineligible for inclusion on the album, were "Please Please Me" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"—both reached #2 in the UK charts. The former was largely known as "the Beatles' first UK number one single"; however, it reached the top spot in the musical magazines New Musical Express and Melody Maker but not on the chart published by Record Retailer (now Music Week). On the other hand, "Strawberry Fields Forever" was part of a Double A-side single along with "Penny Lane". Being a Double A-side, UK sales policies counted the sales as a half of the real amount sold, a fact that kept the single at #2 in the charts, behind Engelbert Humperdinck's debut single "Release Me".

This album was essentially a combo of both the US and UK versions of the earlier album 20 Greatest Hits, with "Something" added to the mix (that song was left off 20 Greatest Hits because of time constraints). On 1, "Hey Jude" was released in its original full-length version (slightly over seven minutes); on the American version of 20 Greatest Hits it had been released as a shortened version.

Before 1, all its 27 songs were available mainly in two remastered CD versions, first on the respective Beatles albums released in 1987 and on Past Masters, Volume One and Past Masters, Volume Two, released in 1988. The second remastering was made available on the CD versions for 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 (released in 1993).

According to the liner notes of the album, the original analogue masters were "digitally remastered at 24 bits resolution, processed using Sonic Solutions NoNoise technology and mastered to 16 bit using Prism SNS Noise Shaping." The remastering was overseen by Peter Mew of Abbey Road Studios and took place there.

[edit]

The package of the album was intended to be simplistic and ambitious at the same time. Its cover was designed by Rick Ward, and consisted of pop-art yellow number one on a background red. (The emphasis on the 1 icon was later used on many of the compilations of number-one hits by different artists that followed this album; for example, ELV1S by Elvis Presley or Number Ones by the Bee Gees). On its back cover, the album also included the famous photos of the Beatles taken by Richard Avedon copyrighted on 17 August 1967. The whole project uses exclusively different kinds of Helvetica typeface.

1 was released on mainly three formats—CD (on Apple 7243 5 29970 2), vinyl (Apple 529 3251) and cassette (529 9704). The CD includes a 32-page booklet with a coloured page with international picture covers (a total of 163 covers are displayed on the whole booklet) and details (recording date, location, release date, chart stats) for each of the singles. It also includes on its first two pages a collage with 27 1's in different colors (all of them following the same art as the cover) with the sentence "27 #1 singles = 1" (which was used as a catch phrase for the promo ads for the album), and the following foreword by George Martin.

The Beatles work was always impeccable. Those four young men, John, Paul, George and Ringo, broke so many records and so many barriers and they will be remembered for being the most significant music creators of the twentieth century. This collection of number ones is taken from the most widely circulated charts in the UK (Record Retailer) and the USA (Billboard). Looking through the list of songs brings back many memories for me. My first thought was about 'Love Me Do' – our first single. To begin with, nobody wanted to know, even our own record company. But after a lot of hard work it entered the Top 20 in the UK, and in the States it later reached number one. From then on John and Paul seemed to burst with inspiration. Those early songs were so fresh and sparkling, always surprising and delighting me with each new offering. Never did they fall back on a cliché or a rehash of an earlier success. Each one was a gem. Before long their work spurred George into writing great material too, like the classic ballad 'Something'. It barely took eight years to cover this collection – 'Love Me Do' to 'The Long and Winding Road' – but it was a lifetime in the world of rock and roll. A wonderful collection, and wonderful for me to have been there. George Martin

The LP and the cassette conserved the main art of the CD version, but on a different form. The double vinyl record version was not released in the U.S., where it was imported the British edition. The vinyl version features a large full-color fold-out poster showing 126 picture sleeves (37 fewer than on the CD), and reproductions of the four Richard Avedon photos. The Avedon portraits also appear on the inside of the gate-fold cover. The records have custom labels featuring the same graphics as the front cover and are packaged in custom inner sleeves. The deluxe packaging of the vinyl album, with its four portraits and poster, is reminiscent to that of The Beatles. The cassette included a 20-page insert, including the collage, the George Martin commentary and paged Avedon's portraits on its inlay and the whole description for the tracks as a total of 36 covers on its inlay reverse.

[edit]

Each of the four sides of the vinyl represented appropriately different styles and phases of the Beatles' career: in order, Beatlemania's Mersey Beat, folk-rock/pre-psychedelic style, purely experimental/psychedelic style, back-to-basics/rock style. This was apparently a coincidence, considering that the songs are distributed on the sides following a balance-time rule. (The cassette edition comprises the first two vinyl sides on its side A and the last two vinyl sides on its side B, with a length of 38:32 and 40:35 respectively.)

1. "Love Me Do"
2. "From Me to You"
3. "She Loves You"
4. "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
5. "Can't Buy Me Love"
6. "A Hard Day's Night"
7. "I Feel Fine"
8. "Eight Days a Week"

9. "Ticket to Ride"
10. "Help!"
11. "Yesterday"
12. "Day Tripper"
13. "We Can Work It Out"
14. "Paperback Writer"
15. "Yellow Submarine"
16. "Eleanor Rigby"

17. "Penny Lane"
18. "All You Need Is Love"
19. "Hello, Goodbye"
20. "Lady Madonna"
21. "Hey Jude"

22. "Get Back"
23. "The Ballad of John and Yoko"
24. "Something"
25. "Come Together"
26. "Let It Be"
27. "The Long and Winding Road"

[edit]