Here are the three Beatles compilation albums of Earth-130 that cover the entirety of the band's career, beginning with their 1962 single "Love Me Do", and ending with 1981's Skywriting by Word of Mouth!
Side A (18:42)
1. Love Me Do - 2:24
2. Please Please Me - 2:00
3. I Saw Her Standing There - 2:52
4. Twist and Shout - 2:33
5. From Me to You - 1:58
6. She Loves You - 2:21
7. I Want to Hold Your Hand - 2:27
8. All My Loving - 2:07
Side B (19:22)
9. Can't Buy Me Love - 2:12
10. A Hard Day's Night - 2:34
11. And I Love Her - 2:30
12. Eight Days a Week - 2:43
13. I'll Follow the Sun - 1:49
14. I Feel Fine - 2:20
15. Ticket to Ride - 3:09
16. Yesterday - 2:05
Side C (19:23)
17. Help! - 2:18
18. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - 2:09
19. We Can Work It Out - 2:16
20. Day Tripper - 2:50
21. Drive My Car - 2:25
22. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) - 2:05
23. Nowhere Man - 2:40
24. Michelle - 2:40
Side D (20:01)
25. In My Life - 2:24
26. If I Needed Someone - 2:20
27. Paperback Writer - 2:19
28. Rain - 3:02
29. Eleanor Rigby - 2:11
30. Yellow Submarine - 2:40
31. Taxman - 2:36
32. Here, There and Everywhere - 2:29
In this timeline, the Beatles never bring in Allen Klein as their manager following Brian Epstein's death; instead, I imagine that someone within their inner group takes control of the stable, even ending up as CEO of Apple Corps. In addition to this, the band actually have more say as to what should be put on the compilations. George, in particular, would've advocated to have this voice heard. This compilation basically splits the difference between the original 1973 release and the 2023 expanded edition, with a few additions of my own ("I'll Follow the Sun", "Rain").
Side A (24:10)
1. Strawberry Fields Forever - 4:05
2. Penny Lane - 3:00
3. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - 2:00
4. With a Little Help from My Friends - 2:42
5. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - 3:28
6. A Day in the Life - 5:08
7. All You Need is Love - 3:47
Side B (25:00)
8. I Am the Walrus - 4:35
9. Hello, Goodbye - 3:24
10. Magical Mystery Tour - 2:48
11. Lady Madonna - 2:18
12. Across the Universe - 3:25
13. Hey Jude - 5:05
14. Revolution - 3:25
Side C (25:24)
15. Back in the U.S.S.R. - 2:46
16. Dear Prudence - 4:00
17. While My Guitar Gently Weeps - 4:45
18. Hey Bulldog - 3:12
19. Get Back - 3:15
20. Don't Let Me Down - 3:35
21. Let It Be - 3:51
Side D (25:03)
22. The Ballad of John and Yoko - 3:00
23. The Long and Winding Road - 3:34
24. Here Comes the Sun - 3:05
25. Come Together - 4:19
26. Something - 3:02
27. Octopus's Garden - 2:51
28. Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End - 5:12
There's not much I can say about this that I hadn't already for 1962-1966/Red. What I can add is that the compilations are released in 1972 to mark ten years since the release of "Love Me Do". Also, the songs that feature on Let It Be are placed earlier than the Abbey Road songs due to being recorded first.
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Side A (21:26)
1. It Don't Come Easy - 3:01
2. Jealous Guy - 2:38
3. Isn't It a Pity? - 5:01
4. Maybe I'm Amazed - 3:53
5. All Things Must Pass - 3:31
6. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) - 3:22
Side B (23:31)
7. Another Day - 3:41
8. I'm the Greatest - 3:21
9. Don't Let Me Wait Too Long - 2:57
10. Mind Games - 4:13
11. Big Barn Bed - 3:48
12. Living in the Material World - 5:31
Side C (23:32)
13. Junior's Farm - 4:23
14. #9 Dream - 4:47
15. Call Me Back Again - 4:17
16. Blow Away - 4:00
17. One of the Boys - 2:39
18. Wings of an Eagle - 3:26
Side D (24:24)
19. I've Had Enough - 3:02
20. I'm Stepping Out - 4:06
21. Take It Away - 4:16
22. You Can't Fight Lightning - 5:41
23. All Those Years Ago - 3:45
24. Nobody Told Me - 3:34
With this compilation, due to it being released following John Lennon's murder, he's not featured on the front, leaving just Ringo, Paul and George. However, John does appear on the rear cover, albeit his photo is in black and white to symbolize his passing. 1970-1981/Green is released ten years after its predecessors, and its release date is timed to mark what could have been John's 42nd birthday. Out of the song selections, six are credited to George, four of which are on the first disc alone, marking his increased songwriting presence in the group. Likewise, Ringo has four songs and John and Paul each have seven. Playing the three compilations back to back shows how much the group has evolved in just two decades.
But wait! It's not quite the end of the Beatles' story in Earth-130! For you see, they've put out one final album recorded in conjunction with the Anthology documentary, completing four John Lennon demos and recording new music in the process. The result was 1997's Now and Then. So imagine if you will...
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1. Free as a Bird - 4:25
2. Any Road - 3:52
3. The World Tonight - 4:04
4. Grow Old with Me - 3:21
5. Rising Sun - 5:27
6. Flaming Pie - 2:29
7. Real Love - 3:54
8. Little Willow - 2:58
9. King of Broken Hearts - 4:44
10. Now and Then - 4:08
11. Beautiful Night - 5:04
12. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - 2:34
Total length: 47:00
Following the release of the Beatles' Skywriting by Word of Mouth, the three remaining members continued their solo careers to varying degrees of success. Ringo Starr's first post-Beatles album, Old Wave, was released two months after 1970-1981/Green, but it did not sell well, and he went into a recording hiatus, taking up a gig in narrating for a certain television show based on a series of children's books. By the end of the 1980s, Ringo had sobered up and was back on tour with the first incarnation of what would become the All-Starr Band, but did not release another solo album until 1992 with Time Takes Time, what some would say was his greatest post-Beatles work.
George Harrison would put out Gone Troppo in 1983, which also didn't make much of a dent in the charts, and afterward put his focus on Apple Films for the next few years. It wasn't until 1987 that he returned to the music scene with Cloud Nine, backed by the single "Got My Mind Set on You", with Electric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynne acting as producer. This collaboration would lead to two albums with the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, also featuring Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison (the latter of whom would only partake in the first album, dying towards the end of 1988). After going on a Japanese tour with Eric Clapton, George would finish up his follow-up album, Portrait of a Leg End, released in the summer of 1992.
It was Paul McCartney who would be the most prolific of the ex-Beatles, first releasing duet singles with Stevie Wonder ("Ebony and Ivory") and Michael Jackson ("The Girl is Mine", "Say Say Say") before putting out War and Peace, which critics considered his greatest work since Band on the Run nearly ten years prior. Paul would release a further four albums between 1985 and 1993 (Give My Regards to Broad Street, Flowers in the Dirt (with Apple stablemate Elvis Costello), Return to Pepperland, Off the Ground), and even went on tour a few times. And yet, this combined activity between Paul, George and Ringo would not be enough to get people to forget the Beatles...
During 1992 and 1993, the surviving Beatles along with insiders Neil Aspinall, Derek Taylor and George Martin would be interviewed by Jools Holland for what would become known as The Beatles Anthology, and there were talks about writing new songs for the project. They asked Yoko Ono if John had any unfinished material that they could work with, and she provided Paul with cassette tapes containing four songs. "Free as a Bird" was the first song of these to be worked on, with Jeff Lynne being brought in to produce. "Now and Then" was considered to be the next of John's songs to work on, but it was temporarily shelved in favor of "Real Love". "Grow Old with Me" was left untouched; however, George Martin would be called in to provide an orchestra for the recording. "Now and Then" would eventually be completed as the final song for the album, even providing the title for it.
In between work on John's songs, Paul and George each brought in a few songs of their own; George had written up "Any Road" around the time of Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, and "Rising Sun" whilst on tour in Japan, but had saved the songs for what he believed would be a "special occasion". Paul, meanwhile, brought in the rocker "The World Tonight", the jokey "Flaming Pie", the melancholic "Little Willow" (written as a tribute to Maureen Cox, Ringo's ex-wife, who died in 1994 from leukemia) and the big closer "Beautiful Night", which he first started work on in 1986. Ringo would also provide vocals for the coda to "Beautiful Night", as well as the lead for his own composition "King of Broken Hearts", completed with help from Paul and George, making it the only Beatles song to be credited to all three.
Now, eleven songs would've been enough for what would become the Beatles' final album, ending their career on a big note with "Beautiful Night". However, it was George who got the last word (and laugh) by singing lead vocals on a cover of "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", first recorded by Cab Calloway in 1931. "We didn't want to end [Now and Then] on a big note," said Paul in a USA Today interview. "It was a trick similar to what we did on the end of Abbey Road with 'Her Majesty', a surprise to deflate any pomposity."
Released following Anthology 4, which comprised of studio outtakes and demos recorded between 1970 and 1980, Now and Then was met with mostly positive reviews from critics, with some calling it a heartfelt tribute to John Lennon; it would even be compared to Queen's Last Horizon from 1995, which also culled from archival recordings of the band with Freddie Mercury in the 1980s. Other reviews were more mixed or negative, criticizing Now and Then as exploiting the Beatles brand even further following the Anthology documentary, with some saying that it didn't even compare to Skywriting by Word of Mouth, much less any of the Beatles' 60s albums. But regardless of what one's opinion was on Now and Then, it would be nominated for Album of the Year in 1998, marking the Beatles' first nomination since 1983, but lost out to Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind.
As the 1990s - and therefore, the 20th century - drew to a close, Paul McCartney, George Harrison (having just survived his ordeal with cancer) and Ringo Starr had a renewed fondness for their old group, and sometimes, the three of them could be seen together, reflecting on the good old days. They did not, however, plan to record again as the Beatles, not without John Lennon, but they always found the time to work on each others' solo work.
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