The Beatles - often called the greatest rock and roll band of all time. It would be impossible to pull off a complete greatest hits collection without including dozens of their songs. The next best thing? The double-sided albums "1962-1966" (red album) and "1967-1970" (blue album).

As a new fan of the Beatles (I was born after the murder of John Lennon), it was this album that first allowed me to fall in love with the Fab Four. Sure, all of their hit songs aren't included. But it is a great introduction to the early years. More comprehensive than the "#1s" album, it features such classics as 'She Loves You', 'Yesterday', and 'Yellow Submarine'.

It's evident on "1962-1966" why the Beatles have become so well-loved. While their early songs don't feature the most though-provoking lyrics, the melodies are downright fun. It's hard to listen to a song like 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and not sing along. However, these master songwriters expanded their horizons beyond that seen in Motown; with tunes such as 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Michelle', they added a bit of continental flavor to mainstream rock.

Wondering what made the Beatles so spectacular? Or looking for a more comprehensive greatest hits collection? Check out "1962-1966". It truly showcases the best of the early years.

Being a big time Beatles fan since 1964. There is still no other band that gets as much play around my house. Great choice of songs here that any one would love to hear over and over again.

The "RED & "BLUE" albums are examples of stuff the record label was putting out. With no other reason except to offset the sales of Paul McCartney & John Lennon solo lp's. In their pitiful effort to force The Beatles back into reforming. (Along with lp's called, Rock and Roll Music & Love Songs) Notice they would always release them at the same time John or Paul had a new solo lp coming out.? Just buy the official Beatles cd's and all your dreams will come true, lol.

I know this is a compilation of various singles which occur on other albums, but I still like it. I was suckered in to the red, white and blue apporach. Having a chronological collection is nice...the evolution of their musical style is delightfully obvious.

I have to say The Beatles were the Hub of my music experience. This "Best of" offering for The mega band will have someone's choice of the greatest and/or most significant to them, leaving out many of the ones I would have chosen.
Beatles 1962 - 1966 has been around for decades and is still a good starter collection of their earlier sound.
This collection would, in a perfect world, be at least a 4 CD set. If you grew up with the "Fab Four" you understand. A mega set with all their albums is desired. This set does, however, provide the desired sounds and is convenient to rifle through their albums of those years.
Back then, we listened to every single cut on those albums and didn't start skipping songs untill the wierd eastern sounding stuff and then the cuts that obviously came from a drug infected mind about 1967 to their end as a group in 1970.
The album photo tells the story. They started out as clean cut guys in suits, rocking the house down with jams like we had never heard the likes of before. They were the vanguard of the "British Invasion" and music has never been the same. We did love them like no others.
Caution! You, as a result of getting this collection "In your life", may require "Meet the Beatles", "The Beatles Second album", "Something New, Something New", "The Early Beatles", "Hard Day's Night" (And get the movie!), Beatles '65", "Beatles VI" (We called it Beatles '66), "The Beatles Yesterday and Today","Help" (And get the movie), "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver". You have been warned.

Some way, somehow, four teenagers from lower middle-class families in Liverpool, England formed a rock band, called themselves The Beatles, and changed the world. Their music is love, it's rebellion, it's fun, it's sophisticated, it's thought-provoking, it's magical, it's silly, it's beautiful, it's rock n' roll, and it's GREAT. The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970 (Red and Blue) are both 2-CD compilations of the best of their music. It's all in chronological order and the song selection is on the mark. Get both of these collections (54 songs), listen to them often, and raise your kids on them (I do). This music will enrich your life, lift you up, make you happy, and give you hope when all hope is lost. The Beatles were, and still are, a very special gift to our world. Enjoy!

Let's face it: this music is so much more fun than anything we've heard from anyone in so long...if ever...
These many great, truly immortal tunes, in just a couple years? Almost unimaginable. I still love the first few singles; the lyrics are as basic as they get, but there's so much joy in the music. Pure ear candy.
It just gets better from there.
My Mom gave me these when they were released. My 7 year-old brain immediately grabbed onto She Loves You and Can't Buy Me Love and so many others; great melodies never die, and I still love all of these tunes.
It's a trip seeing how fast they progressed. From She Loves You to Eleanor Rigby in two years? Surreal.
Maybe not the greatest rock band ever, but beyond question the greatest rock songwriters ever, and maybe the best pop writers, period.
Thanks, Mom!

This two-disc album is part 1 of the definitive Best of the Beatles album, the second part being The Beatles 1967-1970.
The Beatles 1962-1966 is a fantastic tribute to beautiful musicof this great pioneering band in rock and roll, which dominated the musical scene of the 1960's with one magnificent hit after another. Listening to the Beatles really has a feel-good quality about it. In fact all these songs are masterpieces in the history of music.
My personal favourites are:

I Want to Hold Your Hand
All My Loving
Hard Day's Night
Ticket to Ride
Yesterday
We Can Work It Out
Nowhere Man
Michelle
Paperback Writer
Eleanor Rigby
Yellow Submarine
Definitely a good choice for your first Beatles combination and an intro to why the 60's generation loved the Beatles so.
A good starter kit for new fans and a good piece of memorabilia for old fans revisiting the Beatles.

Great double album from the early days, I just love to listen to this cd and really feel the "sweet sixties" A great cd for everyone. The Beatles will survive forever !

These CDs sound great and are great sounds. If you do not have any Beatles yet and you know you will not buy all of their CDs then get this and it's blue brother 1967-70 and you can't go wrong. This album has a special place in my heart. I got the 8-track tapes back in 1973 when they came out and played them over and over and over. IMHO these are the best songs released in the first half of the 1960s by anyone. The state of Rock n Roll was on life support when these guys hit the scene in 1964 in the USA at least. They jump started RnR all over again and the rest is history. Like I said these are the best of the best so get these if you get anything. Rock on. Jim in So Cal.

Some great early hits and of course a fine cd, afterall it is the Beatles

We really liked the selections on this CD. They would have been nicer if the individual tracks were a little longer. The memories they brought back really made our week.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of the under 40 Beatles fans' journey with the Fab Four stated off here. It took me a week of the album lying around the house for me to get started on it and once I did, I was so pissed off for wasting that week NOT listening to it. It goes without saying that I was hooked from the beginning and not even 6 months from listening to it, it has already changed my life and the way I view music.

When I have kids, they'll be sure to grow up on The Beatles and the lagacy can live on for another 100 years through the next generation

I agree with JazzFan. Twist and Shout is another obvious omission. I plan on making my own Red and Blue expanded CDs to fill in the gaps, and call it 'The Purple Album'. LOL

Omissions aside, this is a GREAT double CD compilation. The Beatles are truly one of music's best bands.

For those of us who grew-up with the Beatles, this collection of their earliest "hits" is a great trip down memory lane.

to give this collection less than a 5 star rating seems impossible, given the fact that the beatles are the standard that all pop music since must be judged by. these tracks are phenomenal, really, a monument to human civilization. it seems impossible that four really young men from one little city in england could be responsible for this. it's also amazing that for once the masses recognized real talent.

I love the Beatles and really enjoyed this album, already have the later one. I was hoping for a few other songs on it like happy birthday to ya, but anything Beatles is great.

I grew up with these compilations,my sister practically wore them out!! Later shortly after Lennon was murdered...I became a fan when I got Magical Mystery Tour and a cheap vee-jay knock off of 1962-1963 stuff("Love Me Do","Please,Please Me",ect;)..for Christmas 1980.....well I was always familiar with the Beatles hits ...but not familiar as much with stuff "that didn't make the red/blue album".....so I listened to and bought alot of the Capitol stuff such as Beatles 65,Rubber Soul,Yesterday and Today ,ect;.....Long story short....I became a fan....................The Red Album as well as The Blue Album feature songs that were #1's on the charts,standout songs from albums,and singles (which alot went to #1)....Why I compare it to an 'all-star team' is because it has it's snubs..........."If I Fell" "I'll Be Back" "I Should Have Known Better" are definately 'snubs'...."What You're Doing" from Beatles VI/Beatles for Sale was a 'snub'......No George Harrison songs made the Red Album..."If I Needed Someone" and "I Want To Tell You" could be 'snubs'..........I'm not counting 'cover songs' such as "Twist and Shout" ...I agree that they don't belong on THIS album .....My point is.. they all can't make it....No matter how worthy ...Great compilation to start with.

Esta recopilación de la primera época de The Beatles (desde el primer álbum (1962) hasta Revolver (1966)) tiene una maravillosa colección de canciones pero, como indica el título del comentario, en mi opinión, podría ser mejor. Y me explico...
a) ¿Cómo es posible que en un álbum de este tipo no tengan cabida canciones tan maravillosas como "I'll be back", "No reply", "I'm looking through you" o "Here, there and everywhere", por citar algunos ejemplos? (De hecho, estoy seguro de que esta última canción estaría entre las veinte favoritas del 75% de los amantes de The Beatles) Si es por espacio, hay que decir que las canciones que aparecen en estos discos a duras penas pasan de dos minutos y, consecuentemente, había hueco para muchas más. Además, el disco azul (1967-70) tiene 28 canciones y podrían haber puesto, al menos, otras tantas en este álbum. Si alguna vez se realiza una nueva edición de estos discos, podrían poner, al menos, las cuatro canciones indicadas como extras. (Y aún así, no duraría lo que el álbum azul).
b) Creo que algo en lo que muchos fans están de acuerdo es en el hecho de que Revolver es uno de los mejores trabajos de The Beatles y, sin embargo, en esta recopilación sólo está representado por dos canciones: "Eleanor Rigby" y "Yellow submarine" (¿¿¿¿????). (Intuyo que por el hecho de ser las dos canciones del single extraído del álbum) Aunque es cierto que las otras 24 canciones son fabulosas, a mí me parece más representativo del trabajo de Lennon "Tomorrow never knows" que, por ejemplo, "You've got to hide your love away"...
De cualquier manera, si alguien quiere tener el mejor resumen de la carrera discográfica de The Beatles, este álbum, tal y como está, junto con el disco azul (1967-70) forman la opción perfecta. (Aunque lo ideal sería tener toda la discografía oficial del grupo porque en todos los álbumes hay piezas maravillosas que no caben en estas recopilaciones) (Además es imposible hacer un resumen acertado de la MÚSICA de The Beatles con menos canciones)

WOW,THIS IS AS GREAT AS THE FORTY LICKS AND LED ZEPPELIN'S ZOSO.THE SONG LOVE ME DO HAS TO BE ONE OF THE FINEST SONGS EVER MADE.ONLY PEOPLE WITH GOOD TASTE LISTEN TO THE BEATLES WHO ARE AS GOOD AS LED ZEPPELIN,THE WHO,PINK FLOYD,THE ROLLING STONES,AC/DC,BOSTON,STEVE MILLER AND QUEEN.VERY VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.FORGET DIRE STRAITS,FORGET NIRVANA,FORGET FOREIGNER,THE BEATLES ARE THE BEST.

MY GOD!! THIS IS EVEN WORSE THAN THE FORTY LICKS OR ZOSO OF THE ROLLING STONES, AND LED ZEPPELIN. THE BEATLES ARE ONE OF THE MOST OVERRATED, STUPID, LAME, AND LOUSIEST BANDS OF ALL TIME.
LOVE ME DO HAS TO BE ONE OF THE LOUSIEST SONGS I HAVE EVER HEARD.
ANYONE WHO LISTENS TO THE BEATLES MAY HAVE NO TASTE IN MUSIC. EVEN METALLICA IS BETTER THAN THESE LOOSERS. GET THEM, AND AVOID ALL ALBUMS FROM THE BEATLES. THEY ARE JUST AS BAD AS OTHER LOUSY BANDS LIKE LED ZEPPELIN, ROLLING STONES, WHO, BOSTON, LYNYRD SKYNYRD, BLACK SABBATH, PINK FLOYD, QUEEN, STEVE MILLER, AND AC/DC. GET ANY ALBUM FROM GREAT BANDS LIKE DIRE STRAITS, METALLICA, NIRVANA, GUNS N' ROSES, GREEN DAY, AND FOREIGNER INSTED.

This red album is a great collection of their early 1962-66 hits, and obviously goes perfect with the blue collection of later 1967-70 hits. These are the sets to get if the "1" disc isn't enough for you, the casual fan. My single complaint is that each disc here is only 31 minutes short, but on the bright side we still get 26 hits in all, with lyrics. Unlike the blue collection, this could easily have been put on one disc, with many songs added. Still, the highlights are here from "Love Me Do" to "Yellow Submarine". Maybe one day we'll get a 27 track companion to the "1" disc.

I can't say anything about the music that's already been said - so let's just focus on the collection itself. It's as close as there will ever be to a definitive but small collection of the first half of the band's run. Every song on here is a radio staple. This is a really valuable collection, although I can admit it's not a value in itself. I don't understand why EMI has to be so crazy with these albums - they'll make a much bigger profit if they take even a small amount off normal prices.

The tag "digitally remastered" means that the songs were taken from the digital masters made sometime in the 80s and not from the analog tapes made in the 60s. Some people take this as a major sound quality improvement. The quality here is somewhat better than on the back catalogue CDs released a few years before this but it's not drastic at all.

Anyone who doesn't have these songs needs to look no further than here. 1967-1970 is a good investment as well, aside from also not being a value at such a price tag.

What's the worst thing you can say about the Beatles? During the British Invasion, at the height of "Beatlemania", they're wasn't much. They made the most kick ass tunes, they made girls scream and parents blush. They had hair like no one else, with a heavy accent. If you hadn't heard a Beatle song, you had to be pretty much on an island somewhere.

The Beatles are one of those bands that recorded great music year after year, until their demise. However, to see them in their early years (1962 - 1966) was something really special. They were young and loving it, and made songs that people in love - or out of it - could relate to. They had been together for so long, and so their early effort really showed them trying to prove themselves in the mainstream. And it worked.

This album has all of that goodness packed in. It's got "Help", "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", "All My Loving", "Love Me Do", "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Want to Hold Your Hand.". I can go on, man, but what's the point. If you need the Beatles at their youngest, you NEED this album.

The only flaw is the sound quaility. We have people in space, but we can't make "Eight Days a Week" sound better than a live feed from a radio. Sad thing is, the songs on Disk 1 (which were REAL early for the Beatles) are not graced with good quaility, although any media player will signal a 320 kbps. Which is sad, because the songs just so fine.

FIRST THOUGHTS: I HAD THESE ON VINYL LPs & NOW I HAVE THEM AGAIN ON CD

IN A NUTSHELL: CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER - STEREO - LYRICS IN A BOOKLET

If you are a Beatles fan and you want to have their music on hand you have several options. You can either purchase each individual album on CD or Vinyl LP, or you can purchase the Red and Blue CD anthology collections. The CD here is the 'RED' CD anthology.

While it is true, that a few of the tunes are not in stereo, they collectively sound rather good for pop music recorded in the 1960s. While the sets may seem a bit pricey, they are a solid representation of the best Beatle's tunes presented in chronological order.

ONE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF THE TUNES

By hearing the best tunes in the order they were made one can get a feel for how the Beatles evolved and became over time, more complex and introspective in their musical interpretations [my opinion].

AND ABOUT THE BOOKLET?

In side the double-case, you will find a very useful booklet which includes all the lyrics for all 26 tunes included in the set, plus some interesting photos of the Beatles.

COMPLETE PLAY LIST

Disc: 1
1. Love Me Do
2. Please Please Me
3. From Me to You
4. She Loves You
5. I Want to Hold Your Hand
6. All My Loving
7. Can't Buy Me Love
8. Hard Day's Night
9. And I Love Her
10. Eight Days a Week
11. I Feel Fine
12. Ticket To Ride
13. Yesterday

Disc: 2
1. Help!
2. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
3. We Can Work It Out
4. Day Tripper
5. Drive My Car
6. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
7. Nowhere Man
8. Michelle
9. In My Life
10. Girl
11. Paperback Writer
12. Eleanor Rigby
13. Yesterday

BOTTOM LINE: EXCELLENT PRODUCT - A LITTLE PRICEY BUT I BOUGHT IT & LOVE IT

ALSO RECOMMENDED: BLUE ANTHOLOGY CD ALBUM - 1967-1970

THE BEATLES 1962-1966 is a compilation album covering the first four years of the band's commercial existence. Often referred to as "The Red Album," this with THE BEATLES 1967-1970 ("The Blue Album") is the quintessential Beatles "Greatest Hits" collection. They were both released in 1973 as double albums to chronicle the band's career. The double album THE BEATLES ("The White Album") is of course part of the formal Beatles discography. Capitol has chosen to re-release them all as twin CD collections in keeping with the initial vinyl releases. This profit-driven decision did drive up the purchase price, but critics of this policy need to consider that neither The Red Album nor The Blue Album are absolute "must haves" for a Beatles collection. If price is a consideration, simply give these two a pass and buy the original albums.

The true drawback to The Red Album is that a devoted Beatles fan will own (or want to own) the entire formal disc collection. Therefore, these compilations become somewhat extraneous.

Still, they are worth having, even if just to listen to in the car, or for variation. The Red Album has several slightly different mixes than the original release recordings or other Beatles collections, and purists or pundits will want them.

For casual listening, The Red Album is an excellent Beatles sampler. It carries the band from the innocent monaural days of "Love Me Do" all the way to the psychedelic era of "Yellow Submarine." We get to hear The Beatles mature and grow, experiment and experience. For anyone who was there, this is an encapsulation of the early '60s.

As an aside, another excellent collection is 1976's hard-to-find THE BEATLES ROCK 'N' ROLL MUSIC, which provides us with early Beatles covers of other performers' material.

Remembering, as I do, the first time I ever heard, "I Want To Hold Your Hand," circa the summer of 1964, sitting in the backseat of my father's 1960 Impala convertible, The Red Album becomes my private time machine. It is amazing how far The Beatles came in just four short years, and how they managed to bring us with them.

Together with The Blue Album this collection IS the Magical Mystery Tour.

The Beatles hit the music scene in 1962, and by 1964 had conquered America and the world. The Beatles were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. They were four energetic, exciting, and witty young men from Liverpool, England who made fast jingly guitar tunes that the world fell in love with overnight.

The compilation covers the Beatles' greatest hits from 1962 til 1966, a period when the boys were considered more appealing to the teenyboppers and known for their straight-out pop tunes. The best of them are here: the sweet 'love' songs penned earlier on by Paul and John together: Love Me Do, Can't Buy Me Love, All My Loving, And I Love Her, and She Loves You; the earlier solo songwriting efforts of John and Paul: John's blatant cry for help Help!, mesmerizing Nowhere Man, experimental Norwegian Wood (the song that introduced the Indian sitar to the music world), rocking A Hard Day's Night, self reflective In My Life, Dylanesque You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, and naughty Girl; Paul's solo debut Yesterday, melodramatic Eleanor Rigby, rocking Drive My Car, beautiful Michelle, optimistic We Can Work It Out (which features John's memorable 'pessimistic' lyrics "life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend..."), and strange Paperback Writer.

The following time period between 1967 til 1970 saw the fab four evolve into more experimental and sophisticated (and intoxicated) musical artists, with both George Harrison and Ringo Starr having songwriting credits of their own. But, it's difficult to appreciate the second half of the Beatles' legacy without enjoying the first half first!

Recommended

A

Like so many other Beatles fans born after their breakup (multiple decades, in my case), this is where I was first exposed to the Beatles. My parents owned (and still own) a vynil copy of this, and I remember listening to it obsessively, constantly replaying tracks such as Please Please Me, Can't Buy Me Love (that particular band of the vynil is probably worn out by now!) and Drive My Car. And then I used to sing Beatles songs at school, which would often earn me stares from several fans of MTV. Shortly after, I blew most of my hard-earned money on Beatles CD's. Sorry...
Anyway, the music...OF COURSE IT'S GOOD! OK, maybe All My Loving is very skippable...and Revolver was DEFINITELY under-represented. (TWO cuts? Gimme a break!!!) However there are so many GREAT songs on this collection, it should be bought by any music fan!!!!

I grew up and learned my english with this album when I was a kid. I bought this album so my kids could do the same, one generation later.
All themes are classical, sound is good, some of the songs have the voices on one channel and the music on the other so you can "sing along".
A CD everyone should have at home, You will never get tired of listening to it.

Oooopssss....The Beatles are one of the most overrated rock bands of all time. Their music is just OLD! Whoever said this album was great must been SMOKIN' because this stuff is BORING.
I'm sick of people calling the Beatles the greatest rock band of all time. There are several other rock bands better than the Beatles. Listen to my 3 favorite bands of all time. They are Green Day, Dire Straits, & Guns N' Roses, & they are the BEST.
Buy any album from them and stop wasting time with the BEATLES!
HAHA.

What can I say... it's The Beatles! I trully love this album and jam out in my car every chance I get. It's such a shame I was born in the wrong era. I would of love to have seen and hear The Beatles for the first time on T.V. Gotta love Paul, Ringo, John and George.

The people here who think if this was just one CD, we would save a few bucks need to wise up. CD's cost PENNIES to press, what costs the money is the royalties of the songs. 1 CD or 2 CD would make little diffrence as the royalty payments whould be the same, you'd save 50 cents at the most, get a weaker cd case, and only one cd, crammed with 20 plus tracks, so any stracthes will cause more dmagae to the album as a whole. Quit while your ahead people. 26 classics, one great double collection....

I first listened to this on tape one weekend over 25 years ago. Since then, I always wanted my own copy but put off getting it until recently. This is a 2 CD boxed set, though I had always remembered the tape being just 1 hour long. It turns out they put about 1 half hour of material on each disk. For those too young to remember (and I'm just old enough), this might give you some idea of what it was like to play an LP, when you had to turn the record over every half hour in order to hear the whole album. I think it was probably packaged this way in order that they could call this "The Red Album," while calling the '67-'70 collection (which is two hours of material on two disks) "The Blue Album," and market both with the so called "White Album" (actually called "The Beatles" 1st released in 1968, with all original material, some of which also can be heard on the "Blue Album"), and jack up the price of what should be just 1 CD worth of material. Let me be clear. My complaint has to do with marketing and packaging, not with content. Never with content. The content deserves at least 15 stars, but Amazon won't allow that many.

So, if you are a true Beatles fan, this is a must-have. Many of the tracks can also be heard on "1," from a few years ago. If not for the overpriced packaging (although the liner does contain some great early photos, and lyrics to all the songs), I would have given this 5 stars.

This is an awesome cd, brings me back to the music of my childhood; they really were the best!! I highly recommend this cd, the music cannot be beat.

This 2cd is great. It contains most singles from 1962-66 period.
There are some songs which missed on this 2cd (some songs from Revolver), but I think it is real best of and this is best way for beginners.
There is 1967-70 Blue album which I recomended too.

Here is a collection from the Beatles earlier years.There is some fantastic songs here that made them world famous.
There is so many number one hits here.
The ideas they had for songs was remarkable.
Only a few songs from each album as well as the singles which did not appear on the albums,this makes a great buy.
My problem with "Best Of" albums is that i want to hear the whole abum,like Please Please me fo example.There is some great songs left off this CD,but how do u fit them all on.
Great song writing and of coarse the Beatles were the masters when it came to precision.