A Few New Tidbits for Beatles Fans : *** THE BEATLES, “Anthology 2”, Apple

What’s that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you . . . fool me twice, shame on me.

Last year’s “Anthology 1” was a wonderful history lesson drawn from the Beatles’ early days, but lots of fans soon discovered that it wasn’t the kind of album you’d play over and over--not if you had the more satisfying original Beatles albums, or even “greatest hits” packages.

Well, the word began filtering out of Apple that “Anthology 2” was going to be different. The music this time was going to be great . . . something that would stand up under repeated listening like (imagine!) an actual Beatles album.

It turns out, in fact, to be more table scraps--albeit a bit choicer scraps.

For anyone who wants to hear everything the Beatles did in the studio, these alternate and live versions of songs from 1965 to early 1968 are delightful--from the original demos of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “The Fool on the Hill” to the horseplay of “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” to the harmonic experimentation on “Got to Get You Into My Life.”

Mostly, however, these tracks simply reaffirm that producer George Martin and the Beatles chose the right versions to put on the original albums. The two previously unreleased tracks are so marginal you won’t be able to remember them. If this were a video, the advice to the average pop fan would be to rent, not buy.