Talk:The Beatles albums discography

Ownership history of the Beatles catalog

The ownership history of the Beatles catalog – both the songwriting and the recordings – is a long and complicated story.

There's a section of The Beatles about the song catalog that discusses that history. Should this article link back to that section? — Steve98052 (talk) 16:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Canon Count

This page lists the official canon as 219, but it should be 218. This is because there's a mistake in the source it is pulling from, https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-beatles_canon.shtml

Now this page is correct in that Pollack considered the canon to be 212 (discarded some doubles and including Can You Take Me Back). However the mistake is that 6 doubles are now officials canon, not 7 as Note 1 on the wiki states. So this brings the total with Can You Take Me Back (and also not including Free as a Bird, Real Love, or Now and Then) to 218 and not 219. The mistake in the original source is the two separate versions of All You Need is Love. That source erroneously claims the Magical Mystery Tour version is different than the single version which is not true, they are the exact same release. Furthermore the US version of MMT is what is now in the official core catalogue, so even if there were two versions (which there aren't) only one appears in the official core since MMT is included and there is no secondary version on Past Masters (the version on Yellow Submarine is also the exact same track).

So long story short instead of 219 (212 + 7 "doubles") it should be 218 (212 + 6 "doubles"). That linked source only references the Pollack canon, it is not a site form Pollack himself. Pollack himself in his notes on that song never mentions anything about there being a double or two different versions of All You Need Is Love. The notes section on that linked source calls the MMT track the "refrain" of the single version which, again, doesn't make any sense.

The 6 doubles are the single version of Love Me Do, the single version of Get Back, the single version of Let It Be, the "Wildlife" version of Across the Universe, Komm Gibt Mir Deine Hand (German version of I Want to Hold Your Hand) and Sie Liebt Dich (German version of She Loves you). All 6 of these tracks are included on Past Masters which was made part of the official core catalogue.

Now I also think it's dumb that Can You Take Me Back is being included since it is officially part of Cry Baby Cry and not a separate song and the canon should really be 217, but that is another discussion. N8ThaGr8 (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

More sources: here are links to the original first pressing single release and the first pressing of the MMT album, you can see on the labels that they are both 3:57 in length. More proof that the album version is not a "refrain" of the single version.

https://www.discogs.com/master/54463-The-Beatles-Magical-Mystery-Tour/image/SW1hZ2U6NTcwNzQ2Nw==

https://www.discogs.com/release/1856672-The-Beatles-All-You-Need-Is-Love/image/SW1hZ2U6MzQ1ODQzNA== N8ThaGr8 (talk) 04:09, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a clearer picture of the MMT album showing the runtime https://www.discogs.com/master/54463-The-Beatles-Magical-Mystery-Tour/image/SW1hZ2U6MTkxMDI2NzU= N8ThaGr8 (talk) 04:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

N8ThaGr8: I had never noticed Pollack's double-counting of "All You Need Is Love". As you mention, he also seems to be an outlier in counting "Can You Take Me Back", though I don't think that is especially objectionable. Anyways, helping things out a bit, a quantitative analysis of the band's catalogue in the most recent issue of The Journal of Beatles Studies identifies "217 tracks that the band released officially through EMI between 1962 and 1970". I used this source to change the number to 217, while rewording the note to maintain Pollack's count. Tkbrett (✉) 23:52, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The Lennon cassette singles

Isn't it time the singles from the Lennon Cassette were included in here (And indeed in the Beatles main wiki page)? Deke42 (talk) 21:35, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Interlanguage link

I've inserted three Interlanguage links ; The Beatles Beat, The Beatles' Greatest and Les Beatles dans leurs 14 plus grands succès. Tried to do a fourth The Beatles (DDR-Album) but, as you can see here, it does not work well. How do I make the (DDR-Album) tag disapear from the link leaving title written only as The Beatles? JeanPaulGRingault (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Like so - The Beatles? ILL is meant for articles that do not exist in English, if the article title already existed (and the article The Beatles exists), then you have to use the title of something that is equivalent to the linked article first, then use the parameter |lt= to display the title you want to display. Hzh (talk) 19:25, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks ! JeanPaulGRingault (talk) 05:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)