(The Beatles, The White Album)

I just thought you should know.

I had heard that there was going to be a multi-disc release of The White Album, but I didn't really may much attention to that because (1) I figured it would be too expensive for me to afford it and (2) I thought it would probably just offer different takes of the same songs, since The Beatles don't seem to have had a big stash of unreleased songs, and while I would find that interesting, I didn't think it was necessary, especially given (1).

But then I saw it in a store in The Mall. $200 (give or take). But oh...I wanted that. Not only were there songs that had never been released...there were also versions of songs that made it onto later albums. Like "Hey Jude." And "Mean Mr. Mustard." And "Let It Be." And "Junk." Say what? Oh, yeah. I wanted it BAD.

But of course I put it back on the rack and looked it up on Amazon as soon as I got home. $152.99. Better...but still pretty rich for my blood. There was an MP3 download version for $66.49, though. I'm not a big fan of MP3 downloaded versions for the most part...and especially not when the packaged looked to be pretty fuckin' sweet...but still, $66.49 for 6 cds is starting to sound possible, right? 

So I thought and I thought. And then I wondered, "Is it possible that they put any of this up on Spotify? Probably not much, but still, I took a look.

Oh.

My.

God.

The whole thing is there, man. All 6 cds. 107 tracks. I went straight to the third disc (since the first two are "just" remixed version of The White Album) and started in. I'm only on the 5th track, but I can't tell you how happy this is making me. Paul McCartney goofing his way through a demo of "Back in the U.S.S.R." John being all Lennon-y on a "Glass Onion" demo. Ringo being funny and snarky on a demo of ""The Continuing Story of Bungaloo Bill." And George doing an acoustic demo of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which marks the first time in a very long time wherein I haven't really hated that song. (I think because some of the lyrics are better, but also because it doesn't have that pretentious  aura that the album version has always had for me.)

I always enjoy listening to lyrical variations, by the way. And there's quite a bit of that going on here.

So even though I have quite a bit of listening left to do, I just thought I'd let you know in case you weren't ahead of me on this one.

This has been a public service announcement.