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Beatles vinyl to be sold with magazines

By Paul Sinclair

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80

The UK arm of global publishers De Agostini, have launched ‘The Beatles Vinyl Collection‘ a series of magazines that all come with a stereo vinyl copy of a Beatles album.

Issue one is, inevitably, a special price of £9.99 and includes a vinyl copy of the band’s swan-song, 1969’s Abbey Road, but going forward (the magazines will be published fortnightly) all issues with single albums will be £16.99 and double and triple albums, £24.99. With 23 issues planned and mention of triples, it’s assumed this series will including Past Masters volumes, ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ compilations, the ‘1’ album, Live at the BBC, Love and more. However the publishers haven’t clarified the full list of titles.

Supported with some TV advertising, De Agnostini are hoping fans will head to their website and subscribe to the whole series, and they’ve lined up plenty of incentives to lure in the punters, including T-shirts, album artwork display frames and two ‘high quality vinyl storage boxes’.

Read more about The Beatles Vinyl Collection here.

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80 Comments

80 thoughts on “Beatles vinyl to be sold with magazines”

  1. Germany had the same magazines until yesterday. The issue with The Beatles (White Album) had a flyer attached, that they stop the magazine for now due to quality reasons.

  2. ok, so just a bit of info about the Italian newsstand edition (same schedule, one issue every other week, currently out: the White Album).

    It’s exactly the same as the 2012 edition (artwork, sound quality).
    The “magazine” is not actually a magazine but a scaled down booklet, not LP-size but more like 10”. The booklet is by Kevin Howlett and addresses each album, but it’s not the 2009 CD booklet, it’s a different text altogether (translated into Italian). Pictures are more or less the same as the 2009 edition, and it’s a 12/16 page thing (I don’t have it with me now so not sure exactly about the number of pages, but you get the idea).
    The binder is NOT for the LPs but for the scaled down booklet.
    This goes for the Italian edition anyway. Don’t know how this will work for the UK edition.

  3. I guess it depends if you believe anything that’s ‘reported’ in the national press anymore ;) For the record, this story comes from The Sunday Times and an article by Michael Burke on, I think, page 3. A quick internet search shows a few of today’s other Sunday papers picked up on this too. This makes me think it’s come from some sort of press release.

  7. And all this over-shadows the other more interesting Beatles news in the papers at the weekend about the re-jigged Sgt. Pepper’s 50th Anniversary reissue. Spoiler alert if you haven’t heard :)

    Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane are going to added into the album as originally intended – the move to do this has apparently been approved by everyone. I wonder who instigated the suggestion?

    1. If there is a Sgt Pepper reissue, I simply don’t believe they would do this. Bonus tracks, yes. Changing the album to include those songs seems extremely unlikely.

  9. I have a mint condition Q Magazine Beatles special still sealed in the envelope it was delivered in somewhere. Anyone know if it’s worth anything?

    1. Answer appears to be no. I found one on eil.com, that purveyor of ridiculously overpriced musical items and it’s only a tenner…

  10. I’ve got the mono box set and have had my eyes on the Anthologies and 1 vinyl….wouldn’t it just be better to buy the originals rather than these? Doesn’t seem to be much price difference.

  11. Not quite sure who this is aimed at. The collectors will have everything anyway and there isn’t anything new to justify a subscription. The casual buyer isn’t going to want the whole set and will just pick and choose from their local record shop. And those who want to own every song the Beatles recorded don’t need the red and blue albums as well as 1. So I am struggling to think who will subscribe.

  12. I have just picked one up from WH Smith’s purely to swap a damaged one from my Stereo boxset (Thomas the tank engines on spinning turntables do not mix)
    If anyone is in doubt about the packaging Deagostini use, I received nearly 30 Jazz LPs and not one arrived damaged, I even recycled the cardboard boxes when selling vinyl on eBay.

    1. From what i’ve heard it’s going to be a box with a book of photos and the cd will have penny lane and strawberry fields added to it, that’s it.

  17. I just bought my copy of Abbey Road from WH Smiths and had to look through 3 or 4 copies to find one without dented corners on the lp sleeve.

  18. If you look at the subscription list , the first release is one record then after that they bundle two or three records at a time , so it could cost up to £45 per delivery !

  20. It would make an impressive collection but for the fact that this material is available in most cases elsewhere. Then there’s the duplication of material across the red and blue albums and past masters and the fact that some records are missing altogether. If it included Live at the Star Club and the Tony Sheridan tracks, the 1963 bootleg tracks issued on iTunes, Live at Hollywoid Bowl and Let It Be Naked, then you could just about justify it.

  21. If they did a version of the subscription for the albums that weren’t in the Stereo box, which I already have, I would consider this. I might see if I can pick up a copy of the Anthologies at the very least.

  23. In Italy, the reason behind the fact they tend to sell a magazine + a cd/lp/dvd etc. is that the issuing company will pay a much lower VAT (4% instead of 22%). Maybe it’s not the case here, but for this reason, usually the magazines which are sold with the other medium are totally useless.

  26. I agree the supposed magazine is very disappointing. Very basic, not particularly insightful. The free binder with issue 1 is testament that the magazines will be thin on content. Might be worth picking and choosing albums or for filling in collection gaps.

  28. I will own up to subscribing to the Jazz at 33 vinyl collection. Really happy with the quality of the pressings and a really good mix of titles for a jazz newbie like me who was only listening to Miles Davis. The ‘free’ zippo lighter went on ebay though.

  29. I was going to go for this but I read on the Steve Hoffman page that the postal packaging is terrible with the record sleeves damaged. The customer service at Deagostini is non-existent and the ‘gifts’ have been described as tat.
    Shame really, I just hope loads of people who haven’t heard Abbey Road buy it at the reduced price and discover the Beatles amazing work.
    Also this was launched last year in the UK and came to halt after the first 4 records were dispatched so it’ll be interesting to see how far they get this time.

  30. Well,I have the blue box from 78,so what’s the point? It will be good for speculators,they’ll buy Abbey Road massively,wait some time, then sell them double priced on eBay to newbies in vinyl

  31. Does anyone know if they’ll be stock in WH Smiths…? I quite fancy Abbey Road at a good price but I’ll stop after that as I’ve got the CD boxset (on my 3rd attempt, the first two were fakes… they looked like the real thing but the typos gave it away ‘George Harrisun’ and ‘Ringo Start LOL)’

    2. Hi Justin

      Well they have it in our tiny WH Smith here on the Isle of Man so I guess wherever you are in the UK you’ll be able to get it.

    3. My local branch of WHSmith (which is only small) had the first one the other day. They don’t tend to keep stocking these sorts of series though so may need to be ordered, either through the shop or direct from the publisher.

    2. Question from the US here–really? They had a 200-piece DeLorean at 3 pounds per piece? Yikes! (I travel to London a few times a year and got a C-3PO replica hand “grabber” in a magazine a year or two ago. My son broke it by squeezing too hard with 2 hours of me getting home. Hopefully the DeLorean was more durable!)

    1. Well, maybe 10 years. But it sounds like a pretty safe investment, as most nicely packaged Beatles items tend to be. I do a lot of eBay and flea markets, and Beatles’ items are consistently strong sellers, no matter the media type or age.

  34. This is something De Agostini used to do with CDs, now with vinyl being a fad makes sense they opted for that format. But as extremely cheap were CDs marketed like that I suppose vinyl will be cheap as well, on the sleeves you’ll have printed the info that this is a pressing for De Agostini, and that sucks. You’d rather buy proper pressings and avoid these.

    And it’s ‘De Agostini’, not ‘De Agnostini’.

  38. Not tacky at all. These are Apple/Universal approved and are, from what I can tell, the 2012 stereo remasters (with slightly different logos and the word de Agostini on the run out grooves), but pressed by MPO rather than Optimal. Beatles forums are reporting very good sound quality (at least as good as 2012) and the pricing is competitive (if not better) with that asked from the Beatles own store, Amazon, HMV in store, Sainsbury’s. It’s also I think the first time Anthology has been offered on 180g vinyl.

    To think that I can walk int my local newsagent and see legit Beatles albums on sale as I did today surely cannot be a bad thing.

  39. What’s not to like? I don’t need this myself but the magazines should be interesting. I wish I was a kid again, discovering the albums for myself one-by-one, but with the added reading material… so maybe this is not a bad thing at all.

  40. The release sequence above is correct, looking at the packaging of the first issue.

    I bought the first issue today and for me it’s very disappointing.

    The ‘magazine’ is actually a 10″ four page pamphlet, and whilst I haven’t had time to play the vinyl yet, there is a 2009 digital remaster credit in the small print on the back cover , so it doesn’t look as though we are going to get any analogue remasters at bargain prices.

    Note that the advertising makes reference to the 180g weight of the vinyl, but doesn’t mention the mastering.

    Glad I didn’t subscribe.

  41. Because I’ve only got a couple of Beatles records…(I’ve got CDs) have signed up for this. I was going to buy them anyway but might as well get the mags and freebies too

  42. Paul, in Italy you can buy them in newspaper kiosk. Every week, one LP + magazine. The price: single 17.99 € (except ABBEY ROAD, first issue, 9.99 € ) double and triple 27.99 €.

  44. I calculate £460 for 23 albums across 37 bits of vinyl. Eight page booklets with each one. Not the worst deal in the world, not the best. If you look on YouTube you can see unboxing/comparison videos of these releases (they came out in parts of Europe already in 2016) – there’s a small credit for DeAgnostini on the sleeves and labels.

    I have to ask: is MPO a good thing or a bad thing?

    1. They’re a French pressing plant. If you’ve got some vinyl on Mute or Factory from the 80s then chances are you’ve got some of their stuff already.

  45. You`d be better of saving your money each fortnight and buying the proper Stereo Box for a much cheaper price complete with a better storage box and a superb 250 page book. The double and triple albums can be got for a cheaper price than £24.99.

  47. The Daily Beatle web site (http://wogew.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/beatles-vinyl-albums-by-subscription.html) has the following order for the releases;

    Abbey Road
    Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
    Help!
    The Beatles (The White album)
    Rubber Soul
    Magical Mystery Tour
    Yellow Submarine
    Beatles for Sale
    Love
    A Hard Day’s Night
    1962-1966 (The Red album)
    With the Beatles
    Anthology 1
    Revolver
    Anthology 2
    Live at The BBC Vol 1
    Please Please Me
    On Air: Live at the BBC Vol 2
    Let it Be
    1
    Anthology 3
    1967-1970 (The Blue album)
    Past Masters

    This seems to tie in with a list that was published about 3 months ago on the De Agnostini web site although I can’t find that link at the moment.

    Apparently, the discs are being specially pressed for this collection by MPO.

  50. I’m not a Beatles completest but saw the ad on tv the other day for it and had to rewind it a few times to check the ongoing prices. I might get a couple of my favourites but certainly won’t get suckered into the whole collection. The extra magazine sounds like a good idea to me and certainly isn’t tacky in my opinion. Certainly better than a model pirate ship which you can collect fortnightly and end up paying £500 for in all!

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