The 2002 Silver album

By 2000 it seemed that just about every take of every song the Beatles had recorded or abandoned during the 1960s had been packaged and repackaged in various collections and anthologies by the music companies. It wasn't until the new millennium though that the BRC years started being mined for similar gold—or in this case, silver.

The Silver album gathered contributions by the individual Beatles that had not made it on to their big three BRC albums of new material, The Black Album, Moondogs and 45.

"Why not?" might be the first reaction of fans to this double-CD collection. Why hadn't these been released on earlier albums? Any other combo might have considered some of the productions unearthed on Silver their supreme achievements.

But the Beatles were not any other combo. However much they might have been proud of these attempts, they had even better music to choose over them.

Or did they? In the months since Silver came out, arguments have raged among fans and critics who prefer songs like "Mind Games", "Hi Hi Hi", "Wine Dark Sea", "Bangladesh", "Goodnight  Vienna", "Apple Scruffs" and "How?" to selected songs on the big three BRC albums. Some blame the controlling hand of the late Arnold Zonn for having kept their favourite Silver cuts off the earlier releases. Some point to intra-band politics, with a group of great song-writers fighting for tracks.

And others accept that for the most part this album contains perhaps not the greatest music the Beatles themselves had made over the past 30 years—but still some of the best music anyone has produced in that time.