The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" Parlophone PCTC 255 1/1 12" UK 1st +book 1976

	£		60
	$		80

The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" Parlophone PCTC 255  UK 1st press Stereo Compilation, Vinyl, LP, housed in a gate-fold sleeve, which includes a 24-page full colour picture book. The sleeve has a white '?' printed on rear cover below the catalogue number. The LP was released in 1976.
The vinyl appears to have been lightly played and is in great shape. It played through beautifully on my elderly stereo - no hop, stick or jump. Similarly, the gate-fold sleeve shows minimal signs of wear and is in great condition - no rips or writing. The spine is intact and legible. The booklet is still attached and is also in great shape - again, no rips or writing. Matrix / Runout  Side 1 : YEX 959-1 R HTM 1 Matrix / Runout  Side 2 : YEX 960-1 G HTM 1
"Magical Mystery Tour" is a record by the Beatles that was released as a double EP in the United Kingdom and an LP in the United States. It includes the soundtrack to the 1967 television film of the same name. The EP was issued in the UK on 8 December 1967 on the Parlophone label, while the Capitol Records LP release in the US occurred on 27 November and featured an additional five songs that were originally released as singles that year. In 1976, Parlophone released the eleven-track LP in the UK.
When recording their new songs, the Beatles continued the studio experimentation that had typified "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the psychedelic sound they had pursued since "Revolver". The project was initiated by Paul McCartney in April 1967, but after the band recorded the song "Magical Mystery Tour", it lay dormant until the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, in late August. Recording then took place alongside filming and editing, and as the Beatles furthered their public association with Transcendental Meditation under teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The sessions have been characterised by some biographers as aimless and unfocused, with the band members overly indulging in sound experimentation and exerting greater control over production. McCartney contributed three of the soundtrack songs, including the widely covered "The Fool on the Hill", while John Lennon and George Harrison contributed "I Am the Walrus" and "Blue Jay Way", respectively. The sessions also produced "Hello, Goodbye", issued as a single accompanying the soundtrack record, and items of incidental music for the film, including "Flying". Further to the Beatles' desire to experiment with record formats and packaging, the EP and LP included a 24-page booklet containing song lyrics, colour photos from film production, and colour story illustrations by cartoonist Bob Gibson.
Despite widespread media criticism of the Magical Mystery Tour film, the soundtrack was a critical and commercial success. In the UK, it topped the EPs chart compiled by Record Retailer and peaked at number 2 on the magazine's singles chart (later the UK Singles Chart) behind "Hello, Goodbye". The album topped Billboard's Top LPs listings for eight weeks and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1969. With the international standardisation of the Beatles' catalogue in 1987, "Magical Mystery Tour" became the only Capitol-generated LP to supersede the band's intended format and form part of their core catalogue.
"Magical Mystery Tour" was ranked at number 138 in Paul Gambaccini's 1978 book Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums, based on submissions from a panel of 47 critics and broadcasters. In 2000, it was voted 334th in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In his book The Ambient Century, Mark Prendergast describes it as "the most psychedelic album The Beatles ever released" and, along with "Revolver", an "essential purchase". He ranks the album at number 27 in his list of "Twentieth-century Ambience – the Essential 100 Recordings". In 2007, the album was included in Robert Christgau and David Fricke's "40 Essential Albums of 1967" for Rolling Stone. Christgau wrote in an accompanying essay: "Because it begins with the lame theme to their worst movie and the sappy 'Fool on the Hill,' few realize that this serves up three worthy obscurities forthwith – bet Beck knows the sour-and-sweet instrumental 'Flying' by heart. Then it A/Bs three fabulous singles."