Obviously, 8th December 1980 was to become an infamous and tragic day in Beatle history, but 13 years earlier, it saw the release of that rarest of thing, a double EP. Magical Mystery Tour. No pop or rock band had ever released a double EP before, though they did exist in the jazz world.
It came with lavish packaging and a booklet comprising of stills from the film. The movie itself was played on British TV on Boxing Day to general head scratching amongst the largely unpsychedelicized public's black and white televisions, to whom it all seemed a bit odd. I wasn't allowed to watch "that rubbish" as my mam and dad had already decided that "drugs have made them funny."
America got a full album release, but Europe got the double EP and that seems much more cool. It peaked at number 2 in the UK singles chart (despite not being a single) behind Hello Goodbye.
The album wasn't released in UK until 1976 but the USA import sold well enough to get into the album charts at 31.
