Greatest Hits Volume 1

Side 1	Side 2
1. Please Please Me	1. Twist and Shout
2. From Me To You	2. Roll Over Beethoven
3. She Loves You	3. All My Loving
4. I'll Get You	4. Hold Me Tight
5. I Want To Hold Your Hand	5. Can't Buy Me Love
6. Love Me Do	6. You Can't Do That
7. I Saw Her Standing There	7. Long Tall Sally

Pressing & Mastering

Format	First Issued	Side 1	Side 2	Parts
Mono	7-Jun-66	✎XAPAX 73	✎XAPAX 74	AU
Stereo	22-Feb-68	✎YAPAX 1015	✎YAPAX 1016	AU
Stereo	2-Feb-82	✎YAPAX 1015-2 AP	✎YAPAX 1016-2 AP	AU

Sleeve Information

Code	Circulated	Comments
AU1	Jun-66	Mono catalogue number only; flipback sleeve; non-laminated
AU2	Feb-68	Mono + stereo catalogue numbers; flipback sleeve
AU3	69	Stereo catalogue number only; flipback sleeve
AU4	Dec-69	Stereo catalogue number only; non-flipback sleeve; stereo EMI footer on rear cover

Overview
Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Volume 2 began as a single Australian compilation project in early 1966. EMI (Australia) assembled the selections together and requested stereo tapes from EMI UK for recordings missing from its library. Their shared origin explains both the absence of post-1965 hits and the use, across the two volumes, of the 1965 stereo mixes of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘Day Tripper’ and ‘We Can Work It Out’, rather than the November 1966 remixes prepared for A Collection of Beatles Oldies.

Volume 1 initially appeared only in mono. Most tracks were folded down from the stereo production master; ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I’ll Get You’ were true mono because stereo mixes were unavailable when the compilation was assembled.

The stereo edition did not appear until February 1968—twenty months after the mono release and a year after Volume 2 had reached the market in both formats. The reason for the delay remains unexplained. It also accounts for the Volume 2 sleeve advertising only a mono Volume 1. For the eventual stereo release, EMI (Australia) substituted the fake-stereo version of ‘She Loves You’ prepared in Britain in November 1966.

The artwork also points back to the project’s 1965-era foundations. Its design borrowed elements from the American Beatles VI and German The Beatles Beat sleeves.

By mid-1973, Volume 1 had sold more than 100,000 copies. Despite the many later greatest-hits collections and themed compilations, both Australian volumes remained in print and sold steadily until EMI (Australia)’s local vinyl production ended in November 1990.

Allan Parsons recut Volume 1 at Studios 301 in February 1982 using Maxicut. These cuts are associated principally with black Parlophone labels, although they also occur on late Orange Style 'C' labels: mastering preceded the introduction of the silver/black design by a few months.

The Australian compilations also travelled beyond Australia. EMI (Australia) supplied mono mothers for Volume 1 to HMV New Zealand, which pressed domestic copies as PMCM-7533 and additional copies for export to Australia. Stereo mothers for both volumes went to EMI South East Asia, where the albums appeared as S-LPEA 1001 and S-LPEA 1002 for Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.