The Beatles: 50th Anniversary Edition

• 1. An Album Reopened

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  The Beatles: 50th Anniversary Edition arrived on the 9th of November 2018, marking half a century since the original double album. The record at its center is known to many as 'the White Album.' In September, while the release was being announced, a preview appeared on Spotify and iTunes. It contained three versions of 'Back in the U.S.S.R.' What had been held back, and what would it sound like when it finally came out?

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• 2. The Martin Remix

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  Giles Martin, credited as mixing supervisor on the project, carries an unusual tie to the original recordings. His father George Martin produced the original Beatles sessions and died in 2016, two years before the anniversary edition arrived. Sam Okell took the role of mix engineer. Together, they produced the new stereo remix. That mix serves as the foundation of all four editions the project released. Each of those editions also carries recordings that were never part of the 1968 album.

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• 3. Fifty Hidden Recordings

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  Fifty previously unreleased studio recordings arrived with the anniversary edition, alongside the Esher demos. The Esher demos were made at Kinfauns, George Harrison's house in Esher, and had never been made available to the public before. A two-LP vinyl edition contained the original album alone. A three-CD deluxe set paired the 1968 recordings with one disc of Kinfauns demos. A four-LP vinyl edition paired the original album with two discs of Esher demos. The seven-disc super deluxe edition went further, adding three CDs of outtakes and a Blu-ray disc. In the US Billboard 200, the release peaked at number 6.

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• 4. Universal Acclaim

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  Jordan Orlando, writing in The New Yorker, described the new mix as revealing 'what might be called the greatest record ever made.' His praise rested on the album's innovation, its 'strange, impenetrable, endlessly suggestive beauty,' and its historical position. Orlando described that position as 'at the apex of the Beatles' career.' On what had changed in the sound, Orlando was precise. He wrote that the 'progressive generational muddiness' was gone. What remained was 'the dry snap of Ringo's snare,' Harrison's 'full-throated gentle weeping,' McCartney's 'thunderous' bass, and 'Lennon's halting intakes of breath.' The super deluxe edition received an aggregate score of 100 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 11 reviews. The website defines that rating as 'universal acclaim.' Orlando also described the album as 'an aesthetic keystone for nearly all the rock-and-roll recordings that have followed.'

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