This weekend’s New York Times ran a piece detailing how the record industry has dithered and continually failed to release several long-awaited Beatles’ projects. It also mentioned how fans and collectors have forged ahead and put together unauthorized bootleg projects, some of which the Times calls “curatorial masterpieces.” In particular, the article highlights the Purple Chick label, which “has assembled deluxe editions of each commercially released [Beatles] album, offering the original discs in their mono and stereo mixes, along with the singles (also in mono and stereo) released at the time, as well as every known demo, studio outtake and alternative mix.” Some of Purple Chick’s include “Beatles Deluxe” (which covers 10 CDs); “A/B Road” (which gives you 96 hours of the “Let It Be” sessions); and a series of BBC radio performances.
So how do you get this stuff? It’s a question that Rolling Stone asked rhetorically when it recently gave another positive review to Purple Chick recordings. And it answered the question with this: “Google is your friend: Try searching ‘purple chick and megaupload’ to get started.”
