The corrected cartoon

Remember this cartoon? It has been around since 2014. That final panel was recently updated to say 2018.

This cartoon has been floating around on social media since 2014 at least, and is a satirical statement on the vinyl revival, at the same time telling the story of the development of mainstream audio carriers. The artist has chosen the iconic "Meet The Beatles" to illustrate his point. Still, as a Beatles fan I have always tried to make corrections whenever false information has been published. I have resisted commenting on this cartoon for years, but I finally gave in.

Cartoon with comments

The real publication years for the various editions of the "Meet The Beatles" album wouldn't have illustrated the development of mainstream audio carriers well enough.

Basically because when The Beatles' official CDs were going on release back in 1987, the British editions were the only ones deemed good enough, so the US "Meet The Beatles" wasn't released until 2006 - when the record company felt a need to further milk the market without offering anything really new.

This US album was never released as mp3-files in an official capacity, as the streaming files and other digital releases have been concentrating on the British albums.

There was no vinyl edition of "Meet The Beatles" in 2014, and the 75th anniversary edition listed in 2016 by Capitol Records as a future release hasn't materialised yet, so the most recent vinyl edition is from 1988.

Finally, I wanted to add reel-to-reel tapes to the collection. Please note, there were no mini-disc, digital compact cassette or DAT tapes of "Meet The Beatles", but then again those formats never took off.

Final edition