Red, Blue, or Just a Matter of Bleeding Beatles Fans White?

OK, Beatles fans: Do you want it historical or do you want it cheap?

The question surfaces with the CD release of the Fab Four’s famous “Red” and “Blue” greatest-hits albums.

The collections were originally issued in 1973 as double vinyl and cassette album packages--with the red package featuring the hits from 1962 to 1966 and the blue one covering 1967 to 1970.

EMI Records has opted for history. They’ve released each collection as a two-disc CD set, though you can fit all the music from the “Red” album on a single disc--and still have time left over. CDs hold about 80 minutes of music and the album only runs 63 minutes. (The “Blue” album runs 99 minutes.)

The issue isn’t academic. A single-disc album sells for about $16. The two-disc sets, however, carry a $33.98 list price.

Is EMI right, or just greedy?

“These albums had always been doubles,” says David Hughes, vice president of communications of EMI Records in London. “That was what the buyers would expect.”

Not necessarily so, says Pete Howard, editor of the compact disc newsletter International CD Exchange (ICE) and an avid Beatles memorabilia collector.

“There’s no question a lot of consumers and fans are upset that they’re buying a two-CD set that holds a total of 60 minutes,” he says. “Usually these things just boil down to money.”

There is precedent for the situation--and it involves some pretty historic albums.

The Rolling Stones’ 66-minute “Exile on Main Street,” often named as one of the half-dozen most prized rock albums ever, was originally a double album, but Columbia decided to make it a single CD. Other classic double-vinyl albums that have also been released as single CDs: Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” and the Clash’s “London Calling.”

But EMI apparently feels the Beatles are in a class by themselves.

Declares EMI’s Hughes, “We won’t ever see Beatles recordings at discount prices.”

However, there is some good news from the Beatles world.

Hughes says there is a bonanza of coveted Beatles material--including previously unreleased (though much-bootlegged) outtakes, live and home demo recordings--heading our way.

The first volume of the projected anthology series is tentatively scheduled for next fall, with it and subsequent sets to include both a CD and a video.

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OOKY . . . KOOKY . . . DEAD?: Guess who album producer Ralph Sall first thought of when it came to doing the theme for the upcoming “Addams Family Values” film.

No, not Michael Jackson, who was ultimately tapped, only to bow out of the project a few weeks ago.

Sall’s first thought was those favorites of children everywhere: the Grateful Dead.

“I mentioned the idea to Jerry (Garcia) and he even played the old theme on stage during a Dead concert,” says Sall, who produced the 1991 Grateful Dead tribute album “Deadicated” as well as soundtracks for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Encino Man.”

But the idea was shelved in favor of inviting some of the day’s hottest contemporary urban artists to do old R&B; songs that somehow relate to the idiosyncrasies of the Addams Family.

“Teen-agers are into these artists, and the parents, these are their songs,” says Sall. “The idea was to have something like the movie itself with wide demographics.”

The lineup includes Shabba Ranks’ version of Sly & the Family Stone’s 1971 “Family Affair,” H-Town’s interpretation of the Isley Brothers’ 1969 “It’s Your Thing” and Brian McKnight doing the 1978 Lee Dorsey hit “Night People.”

And who inherited the lead slot vacated by Jackson? Tag Team, who fused the original Addams TV show theme and the rap duo’s own recent hit “Whoomp! (There It Is)” as “The Addams Family (Whoomp!)”

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EAZY STRIKES BACK: Eazy-E, the founder of N.W.A., is taking audio and video revenge against former group-mate Dr. Dre, who has had bad things to say--both in the press and in the courts--about his now-dissolved relationship with Eazy. Eazy’s new mini-album, “It’s on (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa” and its first single, “Real (expletive) G’s,” both in stores this week, are full of trash talk about Dre, including charges that his claims to “gangsta” authenticity are false. The video for the song features the same actor that impersonated Eazy in Dre’s “It’s Nothin’ but a G Thang” video, this time being chased by a crowd of people in Compton.

Rap journalists James Bernard, senior editor of the Source magazine, and Alan Light, music editor of Vibe, agree that Eazy scores on some of his verbal punches, but they say this release still leaves him far short of the respect that Dre, as well as former N.W.A. member Ice Cube, have earned.

“He gets some good digs in there,” says Bernard. “He gets good points across, but the music’s not there and the lyrics are not there, so the points will get lost.”