The Beatles UK Tape Cassettes

Last updated May 2008, see here for details

Introduction
This site has been born out of a sense of nostalgia rather than a reflection of a collectors market for UK Beatles cassettes, most of which have very little value anyway. It also has to be said that the UK Beatle cassettes did not have a very good reputation, mainly due to the curious decision by EMI to change the running order of the tracks (at least on the best known cassette versions available until the late 1980’s, See here.)

When I first began collecting The Beatle albums in the early 1980's, vinyl was already being dismissed as an old fashioned way of listening to music amongst teenagers. Tape Cassettes (or if you prefer, "Cassette Tapes"/ "Compact Cassettes"/ "Compact Audio Cassettes"/ "Musicassettes" etc. etc.) were free of pops and scratches and were easier to handle and by 1982 they were outselling vinyl. Yet I soon lived to regret the decision to buy the cassette versions once I saw the free posters given away with the vinyl White album and the booklet that accompanied Magical Mystery Tour.
A year or so after I bought the CD versions (by which time I'd just about gotten used to the correct running orders!) my old cassettes were banished to a dark cupboard. Some 10 years later I gave most of them away to a friend. Now, for all their faults, I do miss those old tapes which had once took pride of place in my bedroom.

A UK history of the Beatles on cassette
There are basically six different types of Beatle cassettes that were issued between 1968-1987, for some large scans see our Gallery, but note that the label designs didn't always change at the same time as the inlays.

The Original Beatle Cassettes (1968-69)
Phillips introduced the Compact Cassette Tape in 1964 but EMI did not release any Beatle album on cassette until four years later. Only three Beatles cassettes appear to have been issued before Paul McCartney announced that the band had split, the first was Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1968, The Beatles (white album) was issued in the summer of 1969 and Abbey Road came out towards the end of 1969 or early 1970.
Original pressings of the Pepper tape had green labels with a distinctive Parlophone logo. From some point in 1969 the labels were stamped with the new black boxed style Parlophone logo with EMI's logo above it. The White Album and Abbey Road tapes also had green labels but no Apple or Parlophone logo's.
Unlike on forthcoming 1970's Beatle cassette inlays, two of the initial cassette releases included some artwork other than just a reproduction of the front cover - the Pepper inlay foldover included black & white cut outs of the Beatles heads (as originally posed for the vinyl gatefold) whilst the Abbey Road foldover had a reproduction of a section of the back cover of the vinyl jacket.
As with all Beatles cassettes issued until 1987, the cassette boxes (or to use the correct term, the Norelco cases) were clear plastic at the front and around the spine area (to reveal the inlay cover) and black plastic at the rear. The actual cassette shells were usually white/light grey (some may have been issued in black).

White Inlays (1970-71)
Let It Be was the next Beatle tape to be issued, perhaps a few weeks after the vinyl release, and was likely to have been followed by Rubber Soul, Revolver and Oldies But Goldies. The winter of 1970/71 probably saw the first cassette editions of Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale and Help!. This left only Yellow Submarine unissued on cassette.
The 1970/71 cassettes had white inlays and, aside from the small reproduction of the front cover*, no artwork was included nor were the original liner notes. The tracklistings are printed on the reverse of the inlay, whilst the foldover offers a list of other available Beatles/solo cassettes. The tape labels were either green or yellow (more likely the latter).
All Beatle cassettes issued by EMI before 1987 were stereo including the first four albums which would later be issued in mono on CD and 'XDR' cassette. At the time these original versions were issued, cassettes were only just beginning to challenge the long established Reel to Reel tape** to become the second most popular method of listening to music, so I doubt many original cassettes were manufactured or sold. Although they probably wouldn't sound too good today, they should command a reasonable price and in time could become highly collectable.

*There appears to have been a dispute beginning in 1969 over whether to issue the Beatles cassettes with an Apple or Parlophone logo. As a result of this, some tapes were issued with neither. This dispute might also explain why the Parlophone logo was airbrushed from some of the original vinyl cover designs for reproduction on future 1970's cassette covers. I believe that Australian cassettes of "Let it be" (and probably "Abbey Road" too) had the same cat-numbers as the British cassettes and identical inlays, but the Oz versions had the old style Parlophone logo on the labels.

**Reel to Reel Tape was basically more difficult to handle than a cassette, you had to manually wind the leader tape from the 4-inch diameter pre-recorded reel through a bulky machine onto an empty take-up reel, rather like old Cine film. All the Beatlesalbums were issued on Reel to Reel in mono in card boxes at the same time or shortly after each release appeared on vinyl. Then, around 1968/69 they were all re-issued in stereo in plastic cases, the final Beatles albums were also released in this form but Reel to Reel never seriously challenged vinyl in the same way the cassette would do so in years to come.

All Gold Inlays (1971-73) [re-issued with subtle variations until the mid-1980's]
All of the regular UK Beatle albums (plus Oldies but goldies but excluding Yellow Submarine) began to appear in the shops with all-gold inlays in late 1971 or early 1972. White inlays may have still been produced concurrently for a time with the colour of your inlay depending on which factory it was printed at until gold became standard. As with the white inlays, there was no artwork on the gold inlays except for the front cover. The tracklistings were now printed on the gold coloured foldover whilst the reverse of the inlay was now blank except for a copyright/printing notice and the assurance that; "This stereo 'Musicassette' also gives genuine monaural reproduction."
Magical Mystery Tour* was added to the Beatles cassette catalogue in 1973, this being the first British release of the American compilation although it evidently used the German master as it contained stereo versions of "Penny Lane", "Baby You're a Rich Man" and "All You Need is Love". The British Parlophone vinyl edition of Magical Mystery Tour was not issued until 1976 (and this used the U.S. master and therefore contained mono versions of the aforementioned songs). The 1973 'Red' and 'Blue' compilations were also issued on cassette shortly before the next change of inlay design as they too had the all gold look.
The all gold inlays were originally accompanied by the same old yellow** labelled tapes before the label colour was changed to white. In 1973 Dolby noise reduction was introduced to contemporary solo cassettes (which appears to have co-incided with the introduction of white labels) but the Beatles cassette albums were not manufactured with Dolby until later in the decade by which time labels had been dropped in favour of printing the details directly onto the cassette shell (including a Dolby logo) but the inlay design remained unchanged***. The ink colour on the Dolby shells varied, deep pink or a bright blue appear to be the most common but my copy of Revolver had brown ink and I've also seen some with black ink. All "direct ink" versions included a Parlophone/EMI or silhouetted Apple logo. There are also different shades of gold inlays in circulation, the earlier prints have a darker metallic look to them which reveal fingerprints and commonly suffer from surface erosion to the foldover caused by the cassette rubbing against the gold paint when taken in and out of the case, later versions (probably first seen around 1976) are a lighter yellowy-brown. Mid 1980's pressings of the gold cassettes added a bar code to the back of the inlay and the IE number was dropped from the spine, the tape shells were now a creamy yellow printed with black ink.

*Curiously, "Magical Mystery Tour" was given the catalogue number TC-PCS3077 which places it in-between "Rubber Soul" (TC-PCS3075) and "Revolver" (TC-PCS7009).

**Some people describe the yellow labels as "yellowy green". In comparison to the original late 1960's green labels, the early-mid '70s labels do appear to be a bona-fide yellow but they may actually be bordering on a chartreuse yellow.

***The Dolby version of "Let it be" has the words "Apple Records" added to the inside foldover and the Apple and Dolby logo's make an appearance on the back flip. I suspect these subtle changes also occurred on some other dolby re-issues. I have yet to see any white labelled Beatles cassettes with a dolby logo - this would suggest that Dolby versions of the Beatles albums first appeared in late 1976 or shortly afterwards.

All gold & 'Circular EMI' inlay designs include the legend "Also available on 8 track cartridge" - this early-mid 1970's rival to cassette was easily beaten off - particularly in Britain - and became obsolete by the end of the decade.

Gold Top with Circular EMI Logo (1973-1976)
Yellow Submarine was the last of the regular British albums to be released on cassette and this had an inlay design first seen with EMI tapes in mid-late 1973; a gold band across the top third of the inlay and the 1970's circular EMI logo in the top right corner. The Dolby noise reduction logo also made an appearance on the front and spine and there was a paragraph of advise about Dolby on the inlay reverse (alongside the customary copyright/mono playback notices). Regrettably, the front cover of the vinyl sleeve was once again the only artwork to be included on the 'Circular EMI' tape inlays.
Yellow Submarine was the only original Beatle album to be issued in this style, but there were a good number of solo Beatle albums released in this form as well as the 1976 Rock 'n' Roll Music compilation*. Original copies of Yellow Submarine probably have white labels.

*Rock 'n' Roll Music was issued as a "double play tape", the compilation was later split into two separate volumes for budget MFP labelled re-issues in 1980.

"Full Height" Covers (1977-1982)
1976/77 saw the introduction of "full height" inlay covers, which sometimes meant losing the left and right edges of the original artwork (as in the case of the 1979 UK cassette release of the American compilation Hey Jude) or filling up the space above/below with something in harmony with the look of the vinyl cover (as illustrated left by the 1980 compilation The Beatles Ballads).
No standard 1960's Beatles album was issued "full height" but a number of compilations were. These new designs still had a uniform look - in as much as the lettering on the spine and the basic layout of information was standard across all EMI tapes. This style continued until the mid 1980's when inlays finally began to expand into full colour multiple-foldover designs that attempted to appear as striking and unique as their increasingly lavish vinyl counterparts.

Compilations on Cassette 1977-1987
The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl 1977, Love Songs* 1977, Rarities 1978 (initially only as part of The Beatles Collection** box set), Hey Jude 1979, The Beatles Ballads 1980, Rock 'N' Roll Music Volume 1 1980***, Rock 'N' Roll Music Volume 2 1980***, The Beatles Box 1980****, Reel Music 1982 and 20 Greatest Hits 1982.
* Love Songs was issued as a "double play tape"
**The Beatles Collection was a box set containing all of the Beatles regular albums (excluding Magical Mystery Tour but adding a new 'exclusive' compilation entitled Rarities) the box set was made available in both vinyl and cassette form on 2nd December 1978, but owing to demand (as well as unscrupulous dealers taking the albums out of the box and selling Rarities for an extortionate price) Rarities was officially made available separately from October 1979 with the cassette version appearing a month later.
***Rock 'N' Roll Volumes 1 & 2 were budget priced "Music for Pleasure" re-issues of the originally combined 1976 double album.
****The Beatles Box was an eight LP/Cassette mail-order compilation, it was made available again in 1987 but this time on cassette only.

Marks & Spencer's "Their Greatest Hits" Compilation
In November 1984, the high street retailer Marks & Spencer released The Beatles: Their Greatest Hits on cassette only as part of an exclusive Beatles package that also included a book (mostly featuring material first published in the "Story of Pop" series in 1973) . As with all Marks & Spencer products, the cassette was branded with a St Michael logo and, although the cover was a new design (see here), the contents was a track for track replica of Oldies But Goldies (presented here in the same order as the vinyl edition, not the re-arranged order as found on all previously available cassette versions of the 1966 compilation). The set was only on sale at larger branches of M&S and for a limited period of two months, it was then re-promoted the following year (again for a limited period).

The Orbis Cassette
Collectors of the magazine series "The History Of Rock" were also offered the chance to collect a series of mail order albums in either vinyl or cassette format, The History Of Rock Volume 26 - The Beatles (released in December 1984) was a 'double play tape' which combined Oldies But Goldies on one side with The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl on the other, the cover was a minimalist design matching the other volumes which would total 30 in number.

Heineken "Only The Beatles" Compilation
In July 1986, Heineken Beer launched a promotion in which you could order an exclusive Beatles compilation (on cassette only) in exchange for Beer can ring pulls. The tape included a previously unreleased stereo version of Yes It Is (later included on Past Masters). Within weeks of the offer first being made, Apple sued and the tapes were withdrawn resulting in Only The Beatles becoming perhaps the most collectable Beatles cassette of all.

XDR [eXtended Dynamic Range] Cassettes (1987-)
The "XDR Quality System" tapes were the final generation of UK Beatle cassettes, they were issued during the same year the Beatles albums were first issued on Compact Disc (1987 - see article below) and, for the first time, all the cassettes presented the tracks in the correct running order*.
The XDR inlays were mainly white but included all of the original artwork found on the back covers and gatefolds of the vinyl editions. Sgt. Pepper was the exception as this boasted a full height cover and a red foldover/spine as well as a reproduction of the gatefold. The White Album, which had previously been issued as a single "Double Play Tape", was now issued on a pair of cassettes (so like the vinyl version, it was now spread over 4 sides).
The XDR tape shells were clear plastic with details printed in white ink (including a Parlophone logo) and the cassettes were all housed in completely clear boxes (front AND back). As with the CD's, original XDR tapes (including The White Album through to Let it be) did NOT include any Apple logo's on the inlay or the shell, it was only from around 1992/93 that re-pressings of Beatles cassettes and CD's began to include the full colour Apple logo's.
By 1993 Compact Discs (which had been introduced to the High Street a decade earlier) were outselling cassettes. With the advent of Mini Disc, CD-R and MP3 players at the turn of the Millennium, the cassette era was now at an end.

*Incredibly, Capitol in the USA inexplicably used the old re-arranged orders for the first 7 XDR cassette albums.

Cassette Singles
The first release of a Beatles single on tape did not occur until 13th July 1987 when EMI added a cassette version of All You Need Is Love/Baby You're A Rich Man to the the list of formats being made available to co-incide with the single's 20th anniversary (EMI had been issuing anniversary picture discs of each Beatles single since 1982, there were a handful of 12" singles too). Both sides of the All You Need Is Love single were recorded onto each side of the short-play cassette (apparently in mock mono!) but the tape did not prove popular enough to warrant EMI issuing further cassette versions of the remaining Beatles singles until 12th August 1991 when all 22 singles were issued in one go, a display case was produced but this was not officially on sale to customers who were expected to purchase them all separately. In keeping with the 3" CD re-issues, the true mono single mixes were used for the cassette singles up to and including Get Back/Don't Let Me Down whilst the covers for these cassettes (housed in slip case boxes rather than Norelco cases) matched the 3" CD Single sleeves (therefore Hey Jude/Revolution had the 'Mad day out' parrot photo rather than the Revolution promo-film shot that was used on the 1980's vinyl picture sleeve). In 1994 the four track BBC Radio sessions EP Baby It's You was released on cassette, Free As A Bird/Christmas Time (Is Here Again) and Real Love/Baby's In Black were issued as two track cassette singles in 1995 & 1996.

Beatles Monthly Book Magazine April 1983 - "Letters from Beatle people"
WHY CHANGE THE ORDER?
Dear Johnny (Editor),
I have a serious complaint to make against EMI regarding the sequence of songs on the original Beatles' LPs issued in cassette form. I don't know if the matter has been raised in these columns before, but I think it is an absolute disgrace that the order of numbers on many Beatles tapes has been tinkered with.
As far as I am concerned, each original Beatle album is a work of art, and no one should be allowed the license to rearrange it in any way. But even if one doesn't subscribe to that idea, it is nevertheless a fact that the memory of certain LPs is etched into the mind in a particular way, and should not be distorted, especially without good reason. For example, I always associate the beginning of Revolver with the coughing/tuning sounds before the lads launch into "Taxman"; but when I recently purchased the tape of Revolver, I was appalled to find that it began with "Good Day Sunshine", which actually should be the first song on Side Two!
The same treatment has been meted out to other albums, though the excuse of balancing out the sides doesn't hold. EMI has every right to issue new albums of incongruous Beatle songs every year, but could they please leave the originals alone, concentrating on keeping them in the market rather than playing around with the order of songs?
Mahir Ali, Oxford.
Editors reply: We quite agree, Mahir. None of the Beatles albums have one side particularly longer than the other, so there is no reason why the original running order of albums should be altered when they are issued on cassette. As you say, the Beatles planned their albums carefully from start to finish (one of the reasons why they disliked the American issues of their early tracks) and I would have thought that they would have been horrified to discover that the original order of the songs has been altered.

Beatles Monthly Book Magazine November 1987 - "Beatles '87 - A Diary of Recent News and Events"
By Mark Lewisohn
Stuck for a Christmas present for a Beatles fan? Hardly likely, bearing in mind the glut of new product on the market! But there's more. As predicted in the July issue of this magazine, EMI Records has turned its attention to the cassette marketing of Beatles product. Now that U.K sales of this format far outstrip sales of vinyl, EMI has certainly made the right move. Until now the Beatles' cassettes were shoddily packaged, with good to poor audio quality, and - amazingly - album songs in the wrong order (this was standard practice in the early Seventies, to make the musical content of equal length on both sides of a tape). The entire set of thirteen Beatles albums is being reissued by EMI (U.K.) on November 19, all manufactured on high quality XDR tape, all taken from the same digital masters featured on the compact discs, and all including whatever there was in the way of sleeve notes or photographs on the original LPs. In keeping with the CD issues, the first four cassettes are in mono (the remainder are in stereo). Catalogue numbers as follows: "Please Please Me" (TC-PMC 1202), "With The Beatles" (TC-PMC 1206), " A Hard Day's Night" (TC-PMC 1230), "Beatles For Sale" (TC-PMC 1240), "Help! " (TC-PCS 3071), "Rubber Soul" (TC-PCS 3075), "Revolver" (TC-PCS 7009), "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (TC-PCS 7027), "Magical Mystery Tour" (TC-PCS 3077), "The Beatles " (TC-2 PCS 4501), "Yellow Submarine" (TC-PCS 7070), "Abbey Road" (TC- PCS 7088) and "Let It Be" (TC-PCS 7096). ("Sgt Pepper" has been available in the XDR range since June 1.)