THE BEATLES The Capitol Albums Volume 1 EMI ***

If you're going to be an anorak about any band, it might as well be The Beatles. When the band's albums were released on CD back in 1987, they were all standardised for worldwide release, meaning that a good few "foreign" editions of their work which only ever appeared on vinyl or cassette were deleted. Rescued now, though, are the four first US albums: Meet The Beatles, The Beatles Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65 (despite the latter's title, all were released in 1964). The albums, unlike their UK releases, include all the singles. In addition, many of the tracks are given a full-on echo studio effect treatment - back then, stacking on loads of studio effects was a way of "Americanising" a British band's sound.

It's perhaps unnecessary that two versions of the same song appear throughout, the first in stereo (or duophonic, if you want to argue the toss) and the second in mono - all rather pointless even for your common or garden Beatles obsessive. There's plus points for including miniature replicas of the original album covers, but the 48-page booklet really doesn't tell us anything new. The songs you'll be familiar with, all performed here with brio and bluster. This really is the sound of a band going to the toppermost of the poppermost.