1967–1970

Album covers

For the group's 1963 debut LP Please Please Me, photographer Angus McBean took the distinctive colour photograph of the group looking down over the stairwell inside EMI House (EMI's London headquarters in Manchester Square, demolished in 1995).

In 1969, the Beatles asked McBean to recreate this shot. Although a photograph from the 1969 photo shoot was originally intended for the then-planned Get Back album, it was not used when that project saw eventual release in 1970 as Let It Be. Instead, another photograph from the 1969 shoot, along with an unused photograph from the 1963 photo shoot, was used for both this LP and 1962–1966.

The inner gatefold photo for both LPs has been attributed to both Stephen Goldblatt and Don McCullin, and is from the "Mad Day Out" photo session in London on Sunday 28 July 1968.

The album cover was designed by Tom Wilkes.

International versions

Unlike the 1962–1966 collection, the Blue Album was largely the same in the U.S. and the UK, although there were some variations.

The U.S. edition had "Strawberry Fields Forever" in its original 1966 stereo mix, while "Penny Lane" and "Hello, Goodbye" were presented in mono, and "I Am the Walrus" with a four-beat electric piano introduction; the UK version had the more common six-beat beginning.

The albums had several other variants and anomalies. "Get Back" was described as the album version in the U.S. liner notes, although it was in fact the single version. In both countries, "Hey Jude" was around nine seconds shorter than it had been on the original single, although the full length was restored for the 1993 compact disc edition.

The original vinyl version faded in during the crowd noise at the beginning of "A Day in the Life". The fade in was different on both the UK and U.S. versions. The original compact disc edition, meanwhile, featured a clean version previously heard on the Imagine: John Lennon soundtrack album in 1988.

On the Spanish edition, "One After 909" replaced "The Ballad of John and Yoko", a song that had been banned from the airwaves shortly after being released as a single in 1969, for its allusions to "Christ" and "Gibraltar" in the lyrics.

Release variations

• Original 1973 UK release: Apple PCSP 7181-2
• Original 1973 US release: Apple SKBO-3404 (whole and sliced apples in blue background)
• Second 1976 US pressing: Capitol SKBO-3404 (Capitol target label on back of album cover, blue label with "Capitol" in light blue letters at bottom)
• 1978 first US blue vinyl release: Capitol SEBX-11843 (Capitol dome label on back of album cover, large dome logo at top of light blue labels)
• 1980 East German release. Amiga 8 55 742. One disc only with 14 tracks, mostly from disc 1 of the original version.
• 1993 CD release. Apple 0777 7 97039 2 0 (whole and sliced apples in blue background)
• 2010 remastered CD release. Apple 5099990674723 (whole and sliced apples in blue background)

2023 remixed editions

The compilation, along with its counterpart, was rereleased with an expanded track listing on 10 November 2023.

The nine additional tracks are: "Within You Without You", "Dear Prudence", "Glass Onion", "Blackbird", "Hey Bulldog", "Oh! Darling", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "I Me Mine", and "Now and Then".

Six tracks ("I Am the Walrus", "The Fool on the Hill", "Magical Mystery Tour", "Revolution", "Hey Bulldog", and "Old Brown Shoe") received new stereo mixes for this release. The stereo mixes for the remaining tracks were sourced from those created for the following previously released album reissues: 1 (2015), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: 50th Anniversary Edition (2017), The Beatles: 50th Anniversary Edition (2018), Abbey Road: 50th Anniversary Edition (2019), and Let It Be: Special Edition (2021). The album is also available in Dolby Atmos surround sound. On the CD and digital editions, the additional tracks are inserted into the track list in chronological order of each track's original issue, while on the vinyl edition, the first two LPs retain the track list of the 1973 release, with the additional tracks placed on a third LP. The vinyl edition come in both standard and coloured vinyl with each compilation's respective colours.

Of note, both "A Day in the Life" and "Dear Prudence" feature clean openings on the 2023 release, as opposed to their album counterparts, which are crossfaded with their respective preceding tracks. The dialogue introduction previously added to the 2021 Mix of "Don't Let Me Down" for Let It Be: Special Edition has also been removed.

Track listing

• The singles "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane", "Hello, Goodbye", "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko", the B-sides "I Am the Walrus", "Revolution", "Don't Let Me Down" and "Old Brown Shoe", and the single versions of "Get Back" and "Let It Be" make their global album debut in this compilation.

Charts

Weekly charts

Original release

1993 reissue

2010 reissue

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

In the US, the album sold 1,294,896 LPs by 31 December 1973 and 5,850,026 LPs by the end of the decade.

References

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