Exprimental Pressings

1978 was an interesting year for Beatles collectors because Capitol had a batch of coloured vinyl prepared for selected Canadian albums. Some of these titles were also released in the USA and other countries worldwide (Red and Blue albums, White album), but some were unique to Canada (the purple splash Sgt Pepper's and the gold Love Songs).

A Canadian pressing plant employee seems to have experimented with different colour options (it is not known if this was an order that came from above or if it was a personal experimentation), but this resulted in a few amazing one-off unusual versions of these albums. Most interesting is the Hollywood Bowl copy that never has otherwise never seen an official coloured vinyl release. Below are the documented copies, but keep in mind there can (and probably are) more of these out in the wild today. Unfortunately, details on these pressings are limited as the worker who experimented with them has sadly passed away, but many of the ones listed below were originally found in the same collection, taken from the same source (the employee in question).

Unusual Format: Reel to Reel Tapes

The reel to reel format (aka Open Reel) was at the height of its popularity in the early 1960s (although still marginal compared to LPs). It offered an impressive sound quality (still praised today as the closest one could get to an original tape master), but remained pretty cumbersome to use. With no surprise, with the arrival of more user-friendly formats such as cassette and 8-track tapes, their commercial viability quickly declined. By the late 1960s, reel-to-reel albums were significantly more expensive than other formats, and their musical content was largely restricted to genres catering to affluent audiophiles willing to navigate the complexities of open-reel threading. The advent of Dolby noise-reduction technology further closed the quality gap between cassettes and reel-to-reel, hastening the latter’s decline, and by 1976, prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes had virtually vanished from both record stores and hi-fi retailers.

Capitol of Canada did offer prerecorded Beatles reel tapes, from 1964 up until around 1968 on their traditional 7" white box Capitol series, and later in 1970 when they reissued most of their catalogue on the 5" Gold Box Series. These were not very popular, being aimed mostly at the audiophile market (that was usually more interested in jazz and classical), so very few of these tapes have been sol, and these are extremely sought after by collectors today.

The United States produced the complete catalogue in both 3 3/4 IPS and 7 IPS tapes, while Canada only produced 3 3/4 IPS tapes on selected titles (with the exception of Revolver which was at 7 IPS). Canada possibly imported these other titles not produced domestically, and unfortunately, none of the unique Canadian Beatles albums (Beatlemania, Twist and Shout or Long Tall Sally) were ever realeased on the reel tape format. Below is a list of the documented Canadian Beatles reel tapes.