I’m no expert as I’ve never bought an album in American retailers. Some things I can help you with:

We don’t have a lot of data about the tracklist, what we’ve seen in the preview photos is that there’s 44 lyric pages, each page usually has an entire song or at least half of it, so we can expect around 25-35 total songs for each version.

The album in essence, works like a “compilation” album for older music + 3 extra brand new tracks.

In both versions there’ll be 3 CDs, each CD with a set of older songs + 1 new songs out of the 3. What I understood from the whole project, is that each new song represents a brain of thought and ideologies respect to the different eras, so 1 song for each CD = 1 analysis (?)/belief/understanding of each era. We still don’t know the songs, but the 3 CDs will be on BOTH versions so we can expect the exact same songs this far.

For inclusions, the Standard (the expensive one) version has more, and it’s bigger. For what I’m guessing is most relevant, Standard has 7 photocards that come in every album purchased, all the same 7, as in an entire set. And then 1 random photocard out of 8. So 8 photocards to collect, and one set that’s always the same 7 photos.

Compact version comes with 1 random photocard out of 7 (a different type to the Standard, so different theme and selfies probably) it’s smaller but it’s almost 1/3 the price, so way more affordable and you’ll still get the opportunities to pull some member selfies.

For last, both include 1 random out of 8 (different sets for each versions, I assume, it’s still unknown) postcards. Which is like bigger more squared photocards. Not as “important” for physical buyers but still very exciting to see. I love both the Postcard and Photocard pulls the same.

So, If you want a cheaper version, Compact will do the thing because it’s just like any other regular album version, with its random inclusions: mini poster, 1 Photocard, 1 postcard per album.

If you can afford it, Standard version in one go will give you: 7 Photocards version A, 1 random Photocard (out of 8) version B, 1 Postcard, 1 big poster, and some new general, not random, inclusions that we don’t know much about (“The Art Of Proof”, “Photograph”, “Epilogue”).

If you plan to collect all the available photocards for a version, keep in mind again that each Standard album you buy comes with a general set of 7 photocards (like BE Deluxe), which is a LOT of repeated papers. If you want to collect, Compact will probably be the best choice and then buy Standard PCs separately.

If you want an album to stand in your room’s table, with a lot of inclusions at once that’ll still give you a random Photocard (-and you can afford it), go for Standard.