With the release of The Beatles Anthology 4, has the well run dry? Maybe, maybe not.

First of all, if you think that The Beatles are overrated and aren’t the greatest and most influential rock group of all time, stop reading right now. This column isn’t for you because, well, you’re completely wrong. Go away. But if you care deeply about The Beatles, stick around because we must talk.

Over the course of their short existence (1962-1970), The Beatles recorded 213 songs, 188 of which were original, along with 25 covers.

Since their breakup, an additional 100 or so recordings have been unearthed and officially released via expanded deluxe editions, box sets, live albums and the Anthology series, the fourth of which dropped last Friday (Nov. 21), in concert with an expanded version of the Anthology documentary series now streaming on Disney+. All eight previously released episodes have been remastered, and a ninth has been added. There are rumoured to be a few more songs in a vault somewhere, but that’s about it. And as far as we can tell, all film and video that’s worth using has been used.

But 55 years after their breakup, the well may have finally run dry.

Don’t take it from me, either. Giles Martin, the son of legendary producer George Martin and the person in charge of managing The Beatles’ recordings, says there isn’t much left in the vault. “Very little,” he said recently. “I think we’ve done most of it. That’s the answer. Reissuing Anthology 4 is probably a good sign. It’s been 50-60 years, and yet people still want more. I tell them, ‘Go listen to the albums.'”

Fans started kvetching the moment the track listing for Anthology 4 was made public, quickly pointing out that 23 of the 36 recordings have already been released somewhere. However, 13 are previously unreleased, which, in itself, is interesting.

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All the songs do sound better, thanks to the magical MAL AI “de-mixing” technology that allows engineers to zoom in and isolate specific sounds via machine learning. We hear this with recordings from Shea Stadium and in Washington in 1966. Is John Lennon’s voice a little too low in the original murky mono mix? Separate it from the noise, spruce it up, and remix. Same thing with Ringo Starr’s drums or any other part of the recording. Nothing is being added or re-created; it’s just some very clever audio spelunking that turns up some buried treasure.

The overall impact is music that is louder, fuller, and material that sounds much, much better on headphones and earbuds, which is the way so many people listen to music these days. That, to me, is an important selling point. Stereo separation, even with the songs that were recorded in mono, is impressive. In other words, it all sounds more modern.

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Another interesting thing about these collections is the studio banter between the members of the band. Off-hand comments, jokes, jibes, quips and other bits of conversation take us inside Studio Two at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) when The Beatles were at their creative peak. I, for one, enjoy eavesdropping on their in-studio relationships.

We also get to hear how songs evolve over multiple attempts. Free as a Bird, the track released in 1995 with vocals John left behind, sounds far superior in the new remixed version. Subtle details lost in the original recordings are now audible.

So is there anything left? Fans will tell you that there’s a Cavern session still to be unearthed. Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings and the AI wizard who brought us the fantastic Get Back documentary with all its brilliantly upscaled audio and video, is rumoured to be working on material recorded from The Beatles’ residency at the Star Club in Hamburg in 1962, which should appear as a documentary sometime in the not-too-distant future. The first set of shows in April and May featured Pete Best on drums, which would be interesting to compare with the shows from November and December after Ringo joined the band.

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The legendary and mythical Carnival of Light, a track commissioned for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave held in London in early 1967, is still unavailable anywhere except on increasingly hard-to-find bootlegs, although the internet can be your friend, as usual.

Among hardcore fans, Twist and Shout (Take 2) is often discussed as historically important. The version will all know from Please Please Me was the band’s first crack at the song. When they tried again, John’s voice was completely shredded, so it’s allegedly a tough listen. But hey, it’s still The Beatles, right? Surely some analysis can be done about how John threw himself into the song.

I’d love to hear the alleged 27-minute recording of Helter Skelter that was saved from The White Album sessions. Maybe a full MAL-ized recording of the Shea Stadium gig. Same thing with the final show at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Bootlegs of that gig are rather sketchy, so an AI upgrade (a la Get Back or Now and Then) would be welcome.

So yeah, maybe we’re at the point where we’re digging through the dregs at the bottom of some very old barrels. But no band has ever inspired the sort of obsession we’ve seen with The Beatles, something that now extends through seven decades. Any prospect of hearing anything that’s never been before the public is still pretty thrilling. Besides, there’s the collecting side of this. There are obsessives like me who just want to own as much Beatles product as possible. It’s not as if I’m going to sit down and listen through to some of these collections, but I do like knowing that if I really wanted to go deep into The Beatles, perhaps when I’m in my dotage, I can. The Anthology series offers a total of 191 tracks available for study.

There’s something else that’s not discussed. If you’re on the business side of things, there’s another reason to keep releasing this material. Each new master re-ups copyright protection, extending the period of time that The Beatles’ music will stay out of the public domain. As it stands today, no one will be able to touch their music without seeking permission until 75 years after the last member dies. If — God forbid — Paul and Ringo shuffle off this mortal coil tomorrow, the material on Anthology 4 will remain protected until the year 2100.

So is Apple Corps milking The Beatles for all their worth? Absolutely. Wouldn’t you?

Some fans will consider any alteration of the classic records akin to blasphemy and apostasy. Fine. As Giles Martin says, “Go listen to the albums.” Me? Give me everything you’ve got for as long as you can.

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