You can buy vinyl records in supermarkets these days; the once-obsolete format is back in full swing, and major record labels are scrambling around to find any iota of unreleased material to press onto wax. The recent announcement of The Beatles Anthology 4 is just the tip of the iceberg.
One might assume that, being the biggest band the world has ever witnessed, the music industry has squeezed just about every ounce of value from the Fab Four over the years. After all, The Beatles were only together for a total of ten years before their messy break-up in 1970, and during that relatively short time, the group managed to produce 12 of the greatest albums of all time. Even still, a deluge of demos, offcuts, and alternate takes have been put out into the world in the decades since that break-up, some being of more value than others.
Inevitably, those various demos and rare studio outtakes are coveted dearly by legions of devoted, hardcore Beatles fans. Any molecule of new material from the Fab Four seems to be treated with a level of respect as though it were passed down by God himself, and, admittedly, it is easy to see why. Still, the endless onslaught of deluxe reissues and limited edition box set releases – not just from The Beatles, but from virtually any artist with a sizeable following – is increasingly saturating the vinyl market.
A side effect of the vinyl revival is that collecting vinyl records is seen more as a hobby than a means of listening to music. Never to miss a trick, the music industry has taken that opportunity to commodify vinyl as much as possible, releasing countless ‘limited edition’ variants, coloured vinyl represses of classic albums, and extensive (and expensive) box sets compiling previously unreleased material from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, and, of course, The Beatles.
While there are those record collectors who are happy to fork out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds for material that was deemed not good enough to release in the first place, does the average, budget-conscious record collector really need any of these huge box set releases? Well, if there is any one boxset release that everybody needs, it is The Beatles In Mono.
Collecting the first nine UK-released Beatles albums, as well as Magical Mystery Tour and a compilation of Mono Masters, the much sought-after set presents the sounds of the Fab Four as they were originally intended to be heard. Although stereo audio has often been seen as the superior audio format since its introduction, the vast majority of The Beatles’ material was mixed and mastered in glorious mono.
So, when you are listening to The Beatles In Mono, you are listening to the purest form of the band’s work; exactly how the group themselves intended their earth-shattering work to be heard. Sure, it doesn’t have Carnival of Light, that ever-elusive 20th take of ‘Revolution 1’, or a range of offcuts and outtakes to tide over the Beatles completists, but the boxset provides an unparalleled means of listening to the band that changed it all.
The Beatles In Mono hit the airwaves in 2014 and saw a recent re-release earlier in 2025, although neither edition stuck around on record store shelves for too long. On the second-hand market, the set is much more expensive than any new box set release, but as far as bang for your buck goes, it is unparalleled.
If the aim of releases like Anthology 4 is to provide a new insight into The Beatles (rather than the more likely case of squeezing the last few pence from the long-dead horse), it cannot compare to the insight provided by In Mono. As far as listening experience is concerned, there is no CD, digital download, or – god forbid – stream that comes anywhere close to replicating the rich tones of those original mono recordings, so why look anywhere else?