Will ‘Beatles Anthology II’ Do as Fab as ‘I’?

Record executives are always talking up their big releases, so it’s strange to hear Bruce Kirkland, executive vice president of Capitol Records, trying to lower expectations about a big project coming from the company--especially considering that it’s from the Beatles.

But Kirkland says he has no delusions that the second two-CD installment of the Fab Four’s “Anthology” archival collection, due March 19, will generate the same kind of neo-Beatlemania that greeted Vol. 1 last November.

“It’s a marketing impossibility,” he says. “We’re not going to be able to match the [circumstances] that greeted the first record.”

Vol. 1 of the collection of studio outtakes and rarities sold a staggering 855,000 copies during its first seven days in stores, the third-highest debut week of any album since SoundScan began monitoring sales in 1991--and a record for a two-disc set.

But demand for Beatles product had been primed by a three-part ABC-TV prime-time documentary on the group and the record was released during Thanksgiving week, the traditional kickoff to the lucrative holiday buying season.

Without those advantages, even the most optimistic retailers say, Vol. 2 might not sell half as many copies during its first week out.

Kirkland’s not worried, though. Even without the TV show and the holiday frenzy, he still confidently predicts that Vol. 2 will debut at No. 1 and sell upward of 350,000 copies during its first week out.

And over time, he believes, this edition might prove more popular than the first, which has sold more than 3 million copies. Vol. 2 features outtakes and alternate versions from 1965 to 1967, which many Beatlemaniacs consider the group’s most exciting period. During those years the band released such landmark albums as “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Many music retailers agree.

“If the record industry is looking for instant success, it won’t find it in Vol. 2 because of the release date,” says Gary Arnold, merchandise manager for the Best Buy chain. “What it will find is long-term success because the music on this volume is much stronger than the music on Vol. 1.”

Says Kirkland, “The first volume in this series was about nostalgia and the historical element of the Beatles. Our job now is to sell the music, and the music only gets better. These are tracks that impacted people’s lives.”