"Beatles Rarities, The" by The Beatles – ***

First released: 1980

There were actually two different versions of this album. The British version merely collected all of the leftover tracks that somehow didn’t make it onto UK albums back in the day, and for that reason, there was a necessity for this album. On CD, the two Past Masters volumes replaced this album, as the 1987 CD issues followed the UK pattern.

In the US, it was an entirely different animal. Even though there were a few left off the album tracks, the majority of the “rarities” on this were goofy things like extra brass on "Penny Lane" and different sound effects on "Don’t Pass My By" and "Helter Skelter". Was it worth it? Probably not, and most of these still haven’t made it onto CD, so there’s no real necessity for them. At the time of release, I passed over this as I had the UK album box and felt the slight variations were overkill. Still do.