The Beatles Story (1993)

The Beatles Story was a 3-disc CD set published in Japan by CTA Records. At the time of release, Japanese copyright law stated that any non-Japanese recording made before January 1, 1968 was public domain, meaning that although unauthorized the set was completely legal. Anyone could re-release non-Japanese recordings as long as royalties were paid to JASRAC, the collective management organization administering music copyrights. The set was imported into the US and even sold at large retailers such as Best Buy, but being that the CDs were completely illegal in the US they were soon pulled. The discs are believed to be sourced from consumer reel to reel releases and underwent some filtering on the high end to reduce noise. Being that the original CD releases of the Beatles’ first four albums were in mono, this set was the only CD source for songs from those albums in stereo.

A second 3-disc CD set titled Another Beatles Story was also issued.

Disc 1: Super Hits

1. Please Please Me
2. I Want To Hold Your Hand
3. She Loves You
4. From Me To You
5. Love Me Do
6. Can’t Buy Me Love
7. A Hard Day’s Night
8. I Feel Fine
9. Eight Days A Week
10. Ticket To Ride
11. Help!
12. Yesterday
13. We Can Work It Out
14. Paperback Writer
15. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
16. Magical Mystery Tour
17. Penny Lane
18. Strawberry Fields Forever
19. All You Need Is Love
20. Hello Goodbye

Disc 2: Rock ‘N Roll

1. Rock And Roll Music
2. She’s A Woman
3. I Saw Her Standing There
4. Boys
5. Twist And Shout
6. Little Child
7. Roll Over Beethoven
8. Hold Me Tight
9. I Wanna Be Your Man
10. Money
11. Long Tall Sally
12. You Can’t Do That
13. Slow Down
14. Matchbox
15. Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey
16. Honey Don’t
17. Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby
18. Bad Boy
19. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
20. I’m Down

Disc 3: Love Ballades (sic) front cover

1. Yesterday
2. P.S. I Love You
3. Ask Me Why
4. Baby It’s You
5. A Taste Of Honey
6. All My Loving
7. All I’ve Got To Do
8. Till There Was You
9. You Really Got A Hold On Me
10. If I Fell (listed as “If I Feel”)
11. And I Love Her
12. I’ll Follow The Sun
13. Yes It Is
14. It’s Only Love
15. Michelle
16. In My Life
17. Girl
18. Here, There, And Everywhere
19. For No One
20. She’s Leaving Home

Release history

• CTA Records – released 1993