The Beatles Appreciation Thread

[gareth brown]

Listen to Let It Be... Naked.

.

 

[lazarus]

I prefer the track order of the original release, but most of the versions on Naked are superior, and getting Don't Let Me Down instead of Maggie Mae and Dig It is more than a fair trade.

If only they had included The Ballad of John and Yoko.

El Mel said his album rankings are kinda screwy, but my custom playlist of Let It Be (which keeps everything from the original but For You Blue, and adds the above two from Past Masters plus Old Brown Shoe) is either my #2 behind The White Album or #3 behind that and Revolver. I don't listen to either of the other versions anymore, and didn't buy the 2009 remaster.

I do listen to the official Pepper CD, but it wasn't The Beatles' choice to remove Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane from the album for single release, but the record company's, so I feel custom playlists should be fair game as well. Mine adds those two plus Only A Northern Song (recorded during the sessions), and with those I'd put Pepper considerably higher.

 

[DaveC]

so many spicy hot takes in this one from june 1970:

So in the End, The Beatles Have Proved False Prophets
By CRAIG MCGREGOR

June 14, 1970, Page 13
The New York Times Archives

SO the Beatles have broken up. Judging by their latest album, “Let It Be,” it's about time. This is not to denigrate their total achievement: it's a truism that the Beatles have been the most imaginative and most influential of all rock groups. But it seems there comes a time in the progress of any artistic group—whether it be a theater company, a movie co operative or a rock band—when it reaches some sort of creative impasse and has to decide whether to rethink its purpose and work out a new direction for itself, or split up.

Each of the Beatles has decided to go his own way. It”s probably just as well, even though the individual records they have cut so far have been mediocre. “Let It Be” is their least together album since “The Beatles,” a parodistic, two‐record conglomerate of pop sounds which was itself a sign that the Beatles' creative energy was beginning to flag. Parody is the most accessible and least demanding of all forms, be cause it is always easier to parody than to attempt something original, and on their new album at least three songs —“For You Blue” (a put‐down of country blues). “Dig It” (which I take to be a Stones spoof) and “Maggie Mae” (a self‐satire of their own skiffle past?)— are parodies. In fact, the whole album is a mish‐mash of different musical styles, including their own, thrown together with little of the feeling for development or structure which is evident in “Abbey Road,” and which made Sergeant Pepper” such a brilliantly unified masterwork. Of course, the album may make more sense as the soundtrack for their movie, also titled “Let It Be.” But even if it works there as a functional device, as music it is merely an example of triumphant eclecticism.

*

One could forgive the Beatles this: a good deal of rock is eclectic, and the Beatles have been among the most imaginative garnerers of musical traditions of the 20th century. What is harder to take is that their final statement should be so counterrevolutionary. I always thought that their earlier numbers, “Revolution 1” and “Revolution 9,” were less than heart‐felt; “Let It Be” proves it. The album is suffused with a kind of spiritual weariness, a sense of resignation, which extends from the lyrics of key songs such as “Across the Universe” (“Nothing”s gonna change my world”) and “Let It Be” to the Phil Spector mellow‐drama of “The Long and Winding Road” which, with its overripe harmonies and MGM melody, belongs back with Cole Porter and the thirties. It”s a tribute to the Beatles' understanding of their own music that they changed the title of the album from “Get Back” to “Let It Be”; that song, with its simple hymn‐like melody and almost Roman Catholic sense of resignation (“Mother Mary comes to me/ speaking words of wisdom/ Let be, let it be”), defines more than any other where the Beatles are right now.

And that is at the end of the road. For they have turned full circle, and returned to the music of Before The Revolution. If rock has any revolutionary significance at all, it is because it has rebelled against precisely that tradition for which “Let It Be” so clearly stands: the tuneful, sentimental, easy to‐listen‐to Tin Pan Alley ballad which dominated the world”s popular music from the twenties to the fifties, and threatens to take over again should rock ever lose its energy. Rock ‘n’ roll rescued us from that. Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and the others were a glob of phlegm spat in the face of that romance‐and‐roses world, a raucous, vulgar, high‐tension howl of defiance. That”s when the revolution started, and ever since rock has been trying to create a countertradition to the old discredited culture: a genuinely original and populist music that deals with the realities of the contemporary world—ghettos, Vietnam, do‐it yourself bombs, suburbia, phony idols, acid freak‐outs, warm guns and cold gropes, the love‐and‐agony of 20th century existential life—instead of the masturbatory fantasies which Tin Pan Alley imposed upon the people; a music which substitutes intensity, abrasiveness, and a fiercely joyful sense of rhythm for the lush and swooning song schmaltz of the past.

The Beatles have helped in that. They began as white imitators of black music, but even their imitations were unique —their version of John Lee Hooker's “Money” on their very first album is classic. Together with other British rock groups they revived the flagging rock ‘n’ roll impulse, which by then had petered out into a mess of Fabians, Pat Boones, Cliff Richards and late model, super‐soft Elvis, and made rock the pop music of the global village. In the process they created some enduring masterpieces, from the driving purity of “My Babe” (which always reminds me of jazzman Bunk Johnson, another revivalist who demonstrated classicism to a post‐classic audience) to the rich, multi‐textured expressionism of “I Am the Walrus” and “A Day in the Life.” Those and two‐score other disks represent the revolutionary stream in the Beatles' music.

*

But there has always been another, softer, much more conventional side to them; it can be heard right at the start in songs like “Love Me Do,” their first big hit, and as time went on it became progressively stronger. Every album has had its quota of slushy, old‐form songs such as “Michelle,” “Girl,” “Julia”—the list is endless, and in each album the soft, lyrical nostalgic‐romantic tone has become louder until in “Let It Be” it has become, quite clearly, the dominant one. It is, I suppose, their native, white, British song background reasserting it self, and much of it seems to come from Paul McCartney, whose own album (titled simply “McCartney”) is comprised almost entirely of the sort of music rock set out to overthrow. Liverpool, the Cavern and that first ex plosive discovery of rhythm‐and‐blues which set the River Mersey afire are a long, long time ago.

So in the end the Beatles have proved false prophets. It could hardly have been otherwise. But it is a cruel paradox, and a damaging one for the new culture, that the most important gioup in rock should have been white instead of black, and English instead of American, and should finally have turned its back upon the revolution. For it is the black American who has created the music of the revolution; it is the black American who (as Norman Mailer prophesied years ago in “The White Negro”) has liberated the young white “hip” from the puritan, materialistic ethic of white WASP culture, and it is the black American who will probably have to map out, yet again, the direction which rock and the counter‐culture of which it is a symbol takes. It may be that in soul, or avant‐garde jazz, or in some other hot music still cooking in the ghettos, the future is even now being shaped.

Hot? It is the hot element in rock which is its really revolutionary quality, and which the Beatles have deserted. Contemporary popular music has virtually no precursors in Western culture; it is derived not from the main stream of Western music, which is fundamentally cool, but from the fusion of African and American musics which created in jazz, then in rhythm‐and blues, and then in rock the first authentically new musics of the 20th century. They are all hot, The hot concept has been gradually taking over the world's popular music ever since the 1920's, when hot jazz swept away the lingering remnants of Victorian mu sic hall songs and Edwardian art music and inspired a dozen dance crazes— from the cakewalk to the Black Bottom to the Charleston—which, In the con text of the times, were as uninhibited disco dances today.

The music, and the dances, were black; it was the start of the long (and ironic) process by which America's ex slaves were to free their own masters. But it was the white orchestras such as Paul Whiteman's, which imitated and cooled the original hot motif, that reaped the benefit. The same thing happened in the thirties and forties, when the hot riffs of the big bands dominated the pop scene; it was the white imitators like Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, who played a much gentler and mellower swing than Count Basie, who “sent” a generation of teen‐age jitter bugs. It wasn't until rock ‘n’ roll ar rived in the fifties that the final con quest of pop music by the hot concept began. And yet, once again, it was white imitators, the Beatles, who exploited the black man's music and final ly betrayed it.

*

The trouble is that every imitation, however sincere (whether it be by the Beatles, or Janis Joplin, or Joe Cocker), tends to modify and soften the original, to dilute the revolutionary potential of rock. It is probably an inevitable process, built into the nature of the act of imitation, and one which won't change until the original creators and their music achieve the pre‐eminence they deserve. Elvis started off hot, but quickly cooled down. So have nearly all the other white rock singers and groups, from the Stones to the current American exponents of “soft rock.” Now the Beatles have gone the same way. In any society which repressed its minorities less effectively than America the black breakthrough would already have occurred. . .and the Beatles would have been black, hot and less ready to betray. For the sake of the revolution, and all it stands for, that's one thing we can't let be.

 

[Danny Boy]

I semi-impulse bought the Super Deluxe White Album on Saturday.

I mean I knew it was out and I had thought about pre-ordering it, but when I saw it in the store I couldn't resist.

I've only listened to the original album so far.

 

[lazarus]

I too should have pre-ordered it from Amazon when the price was considerably lower. Really can’t afford it now for $140 and it’s killing me.

Hopefully can score a used copy or something down the line but with a collector’s item it’s less likely.

Here’s a great article about the reissue, and it points out that the loss of quality from all the mixdowns has now been eliminated:

The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album

 

[prbiker15]

Very pleased with the new mix, sounds fantastic.

 

[Danny Boy]

Here’s a great article about the reissue, and it points out that the loss of quality from all the mixdowns has now been eliminated:

Interesting. I have the CD from the 80s and the 2009 reissue. I will have to compare all 3 to see if I can hear the improved clarity.

 

[david]

The new mix is insanely good.

 

[david]

Even better with headphones on.

 

[DaveC]

i have a six hour flight on monday and i plan to listen to the whole super deluxe edition

 

[lazarus]

Well I managed to find a greatly discounted copy of the super deluxe or whatever it's called. My god, what a package. I never got the Peppers one so I can't compare, but this one is so lovingly curated. So many great photos, reproductions of lyric drafts (I loved seeing a full page of miniaturized pages from Paul's notebook from India with the colored sailboat on the cover). The essays are great at putting things into context, and of course all the liner notes about the individual tracks (including outtakes). Also nice that they threw in repros of the original fold-out poster and lyric sheet as well as the individual band member color photos, all in full-size.

I gave the official album a listen on headphones, and really Giles Martin and his team should get a special Grammy for this. It sounds absolutely pristine, with so many details rising to the surface that I never picked up on before. While I make fun of tracks like Wild Honey Pie and Honey Pie, the performances on this whole thing are out of this world.

For a long time, I'd deferred to the conventional wisdom that Sgt. Pepper's was the "Greatest Album of All Time" mainly due to its landmark status as an innovative, conceptual work of pop music. And I've always been partial to those artists who use the recording studio as a laboratory. However, I've also maintained that its songs weren't as strong as other Beatles albums, and the absence of Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane tempered its full potential. Many agree with this critique and find Abbey Road to be the more consistent combination of studio wizardry and composition.

The White Album has been my favorite Beatles album since I first got heavily into the band, but now I feel confident in saying it as objectively as I can: this album is what really deserves the crowning title that was bestowed on Peppers so long ago. This is a work coming from a band who already knew how to experiment and push the envelope, who were coming off a meditative excursion in what must have seemed an otherworldly place, who were grieving the death of their longtime manager and protector, struggling to find direction and unity in the aftermath. Despite the exaggerated rumors of divisions and conflict during the recording process, they made the initial decision to return to more of a live band sound, while still feeling free enough to use the wider palette and toolbox that Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour had given them. And it's this combination of immediacy, freedom, and sophistication that makes the album what it is. Where songs of intimate delicacy can stand next to balls-out rave-ups as well as idiosyncratic fantasies. It's a smorgasbord where every track doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to carve out its own identity. And so one can propose alternate or reduced tracklistings to try and streamline the thing, but that really would be missing the point. The album never gets repetitive despite its length and abundance of songs. I don't know that I could honestly say that about the Stones' magnum opus Exile on Main Street or Tusk or even Sign O the Times, which all have at least 10 less songs than The White Album does.

Now, do I think that as with Pepper, this album would have been greatly improved by its preview singles having been retained for the full LP (in this case, Hey Jude and the electric Revolution)? Sure. I've envisioned an alternate version where the latter opens Side 3/Disc 2 instead of Birthday, or where Hey Jude is a penultimate show-stopper before Julia on Side 2/Disc 1. But the difference is, The White Album already has enough great songs to stand on its own without them, moreso than Pepper does.

So yeah, this remains the document that proves more than any other what The Beatles were fully capable of. I can't imagine listening to it, particularly this updated mix, and actually making a case for any other band being better. Had they actually included Across the Universe (recorded in early 1968) instead of delaying it a year for Let It Be, it would have made a great title track for this double album, which seems to encompass everything that had come before, and everything in the world that surrounded it.

Masterpiece.

 

[DaveC]

revolver is better.

but great post.

 

[lazarus]

I should have mentioned that alongside Abbey Road as one that many fans prefer.

It's definitely high in my rankings, but still not up to the band's full potential IMO. I much prefer Paul's material on every album since.

 

[iron yuppie]

I still need to hear the demos collection from the White Album reissue.

 

[namkcuR]

Great post Laz. I don't rank the White Album quite as high as you do, and I can't justify spending the money on this re-release when I have the 2009 remaster, but I always love reading Beatles commentary here, especially well-written Beatles commentary, which yours always is.

Your post has also reminded me that, when I was on a Beatles kick a few months ago, I started writing an in-depth ranking of their albums. This has inspired me to finish it and post it. Coming up...

 

[namkcuR]

I'm actually going to do two different rankings - one of the albums AS IS, i.e. in their official form, no custom playlists or anything like that. The other will be how I'd rank them if I were using my custom running orders. That'll be later though, right now I'm just going to post my AS IS rankings.

12. With The Beatles

Other than All My Loving and It Won't Be Long, and maybe Not A Second Time and Harrison's Don't Bother Me, there's just not a whole lot here to come back to for me.

11. Please Please Me

I think PPM is very often dismissed out of hand. I don't care much for the covers(outside of Twist And Shout, which is deservedly legendary), but the original material here holds up: I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, Misery, Love Me Do, P.S. I Love You, There's A Place, Do You Want To Know A Secret. It obviously doesn't compare to why they'd do later, but it's good, enjoyable, lightweight pop fun.

10. Beatles For Sale

Again, I don't care much for the covers, but the original material on this album is often overlooked(outside of this place where it's looked on fondly). No Reply, I'll Follow The Sun, and What You're Doing are great, I'm A Loser and Every Little Thing not far behind, and Eight Days A Week is one of the biggest hits of the early years. Some obvious growth in production is present, and in terms of songwriting, it seems like a logical bridge between AHDN and Help, adding some musical flavors that maybe weren't there yet on AHDN.

9. Help!

The two soundtracks have always been my favorite of the early albums, they're head-and-shoulders above the others, and I go back and forth on which I prefer, but right now it's AHDN. The highs of Help absolutely point towards Rubber Soul - the title track, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, Ticket To Ride, It's Only Love, I've Just Seen A Face, Yesterday - and are perhaps better than a good deal of what's on AHDN), but there are just more tracks here that I don't exactly care for than on AHDN - Another Girl, Act Naturally(pretty easily my least favorite Ringo song), Dizzy Miss Lizzy.

8. Hard Day's Night

My favorite of the early albums. It's their first all-original album, and the first time the band sounds like more than just a passing fad. The title track is classic; If I Fell is perhaps one their best uses of harmony ever; And I Love Her and Things We Said Today are probably Paul's best songs to this point, other than All My Loving; Any Time At All is great hazy-sounding 60s rocker; I'll Be Back is a heartbreaking and underappreciated Lennon ballad; Can't Buy Me Love is peak Beatlemania, even if it's weaker than Paul's other entries here. The Harrison-sung I'm Happy Just To Dance With You is a fun, catchy, innocent love song.

I specifically think the ballads here - If I Fell, And I Love Her, Things We Said Today, I'll Be Back - are among the most haunting they ever wrote.

Both of the soundtrack albums are great, but I think listening to this one front-to-back is just a little more effortless and skip-resistant than Help, for me, right now anyway. It's just a great, solid album.

7. Let It Be

This is a case where my custom version will be ranked higher. I never minded the Spector stuff at all, in fact in several instances I actually prefer it, but the omission of Don't Let Me Down hurts and I'm not a huge fan of the snippets and the chatter at the beginning/end of some of the tracks. The running order also is not great - I don't think Get Back is how you should end when you have Let It Be, TLAWR, and Across The Universe at your disposal.

There are a lot of great songs here - the four mentioned ones are all-timers - and in custom form it's another Beatle classic, but it just doesn't really feel like a finished album in this form.

6. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

I'm probably getting some side-eyes and raised eyebrows for putting Sgt. Pepper only at #6.

I can't for a minute deny its importance, its influence, its groundbreaking production, the fact that it fundamentally changed popular music from a singles game to an albums game, and that fact that it contains some absolutely classic, legendary songs, but for me, song-for-song, it's just not as strong as the albums I've ranked above it.

I feel like half the songs I wouldn't listen to outside the context of the album - With A Little Help From My Friends(I prefer Joe Cocker's version), Getting Better, Fixing A Hole, Mr. Kite(the LOVE Kite/I Want You hybrid kind of ruined it for me, because now I'm disappointed every time the end of the song doesn't morph into the I Want You riff), When I'm Sixty-Four, to name a few.

That said, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, She's Leaving Home, Within You Without You(I'm probably pretty much alone on that one), Lovely Rita, and A Day In The Life are all-timers for me, and the title tracks are fun too. If Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were on the album as intended, it would certainly be several spots higher than this.

5. Rubber Soul

Rubber Soul is, at once, both the definitive artistic statement of the band they were from 1963-65, and the thesis statement of the band they would be from 1966-69. It sort of stands alone in the Beatles catalogue. There was no psychedelic imagery or serious sonic experimentation yet - this was an album of more or less straight-ahead pop songs like they'd been doing, but with a jump in sophistication in songwriting and, more than that, production. For the first time, they attempted to make a cohesive album with its own identity with little worry about touring(they weren't done with it yet, but they would be soon).

It's also a near-perfect pop album. It's chocked full of warm, infectious melodies and harmonies, and a cozy, hazy vibe persists throughout. It's the only album of theirs to really evoke that folk-hippy aesthetic, imo(a few tracks on Help probably did, but this was album-wide), like, I get the feeling that the Mamas & The Papas' 'California Dreamin' or Dylan's 'The Times They Are A Changing' would fit right in here, and that unique flavor in the band's catalogue makes the album stand out.

In some ways it's the most effortlessly pleasurable listen in the catalogue, and for a lot of bands, it would be their greatest work - for a time I thought RS would be higher on my own list - but this is where I landed.

4. The White Album

I struggle to place the White Album. On the one hand, there are so many great songs here given the album's length, a majority of which are of a flavor distinct to this album - a lot of the album was written during the band's trip to India, during which they only had acoustic guitars to write on, and that's reflected in the final product. It was a marked shift - after the towering landmarks of production that were Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album was, in large part, their lo-fi album(maybe it wasn't really lo-fi, but it imitated that sound). These songs are full of gorgeous melodies while being emotionally direct/vulnerable and in many cases instrumentally sparse. It's some of the greatest work they ever did, imo.

On the other hand, the album's length also means there's more filler than any other Beatles album(at least from Rubber Soul onward). The composition of the running order is also problematic. The album is top-heavy, and as a result, the second disc can feel like a let-down after the first. There is also a lack of cohesion/identity. The album's harder material - USSR, Happiness, Birthday, Yer Blues, Helter Skelter, etc - can sometimes feel out of place next to the softer material that dominated the album(that's not a slight on the quality of those songs - Helter Skelter, Happiness, and USSR are classics - just their fit/placement), and the experimental Revolution 9 feels like it would've been more at home on Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour.

Whereas I can listen to any other Beatles album from Rubber Soul onwards straight through without a problem(ok, maybe not Let It Be in its official form), it's more difficult to do with the White Album. Laz and others might think I'm missing the point by being bothered by the lack of cohesion, but I can't help it.

So, with a modified running order(and there's various ways to do it, imo), it would almost certainly rank higher, but as is, I have trouble putting higher than this. At the same time, there's just too many great songs here for it to be lower than #4.

3. Magical Mystery Tour

I know technically it wasn't an actual album, but it is in the standard discography now, and MMT seems pretty popular here, so I don't think I'll catch too much flak for saying this, but I enjoy it more than Sgt. Pepper. More than any other Beatle album, even Sgt. Pepper, it creates its own colorful world. It's like the aural equivalent of watching Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.

The title track sets the mood perfectly.

Fool On The Hill is one of Paul's more underappreciated songs - it's just an absolutely classic, beautiful melody, and it somehow creates a mood that is both sad and happy at the same time. Love it.

The Flying/Blue Jay Way combo is an aural feast, the former conveying pure peace and joy, and the latter being perhaps George's best use of the sitar.

Hello Goodbye and Penny Lane are two of the most infectious singles they ever put out.

Strawberry Fields and I Am The Walrus didn't just push the envelope, they set it on fire and threw it out the window. I'm not sure I've ever heard a song that sounds more ahead of its time than Strawberry Fields. I swear, I can hear fucking Radiohead in that song. I can hear Climbing Up The Walls and The National Anthem, 30+ years in Strawberry Fields' future.

Even Your Mother Should Know - for some reason people seem to dislike that song - is a pleasant enough little McCartney ditty(I do think it's placed wrong in the running order though).

All You Need Is Love is like the Beatles' philosophical manifesto, and is guaranteed to put a smile on your face(especially when you remember that John was high as a kite during the recording). Perhaps my favorite part of this track is at the very end when Paul starts singing 'she loves you yeah yeah yeah' over the outro, because it really drives home how fast the Beatles were evolving and how incredible what they were doing was. It sounds like he's calling back something from twenty years prior, but it really was not even four years between She Loves You and All You Need Is Love. Almost as if the Beatles had moved popular music forward twenty years in under four.

So it probably shouldn't really even be an album, and if it is, Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane probably shouldn't be on it since they originated with Sgt. Pepper, but at the end of the day, it's the one thing that Capitol got right with their 'U.S.' albums, piecing together these disparate parts from the time period and creating something, well, magical.

2. Revolver

There has been a movement in recent years in which Revolver has started to be seen as a greater album than Sgt. Pepper(which had been the typical #1 for years and years), and I am on board that train. I think it contains much of the sonic experimentation that Sgt. Pepper did, but is less weighed down by concept and just has more classic tunes on it.

Revolver boasts three of Paul's greatest tracks up to that point in Eleanor Rigby(one of his greatest ever, really), For No One(such a simple, mournful, emotional melody) and Got To Get You Into My Life(I love those horns). Here, There, and Everywhere and Good Day Sunshine are also good.

George comes into his own with Taxman(I love the coughing '1 2 3 4' intro, and 'If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold I'll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet' is one of my favorite Beatle lyrics), Love You To(his first full-on sitar excursion), and I Want To Tell You.

But it's John's work here that really lifts Revolver to #2. He created such a distinct, pop-psychedelic sound on his songs here - I'm Only Sleeping, She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing, Doctor Robert(the non-album Rain is also cut from the same cloth). John accomplishes something remarkable with these songs, in that they're simultaneously infectious pop songs, and also ground-breaking sonic excursions that would influence rock music for decades to come.

And then Tomorrow Never Knows as the closer remains one of the coolest, most evocative recordings ever.

Some of my very, very favorite Beatle tracks right there. John was arguably at the peak of his powers during the band's psychedelic era of 66/67, and it really shows on this album. Mix that with the aforementioned McCartney and Harrison triumphs? Come on.

Revolver is a stone cold classic.

1. Abbey Road

The swan song has always been my favorite. It's sort of peculiar, in that there are probably several Beatles albums with a higher quantity of great songs on them - half the album is comprised of fragments of songs stitched together, after all - but there is something intangible about this album that makes me unable to remove it from the top spot.

The way it starts with the immortal Come Together bassline and ends(and ends their career!) with the equally immortal "and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make".

Harrison's shining twin towers in Something and Here Comes The Sun.

Ringo's childlike wonder in Octopus's Garden.

Lennon's dark, brooding opus I Want You.

The incredible harmonies of Because, the 'Sun sun sun' bridge of Here Comes The Sun, and the 'she's so heavyyyyyy' bridge of I Want You.

The Moog. I know some thing it's dated, but I think it's charming, I think it gives the album such a unique, instantly recognizable sound.

The exhilarating chaos and perfect order of the medley, one feels-like-you've-known-it-forever melody after another in quick succession, creating a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

The album art, the cover parodied perhaps more than any other album cover ever.

That classic 'Chris Farley Show' sketch from SNL in the early 90s when Paul was the musical guest, and Farley memorably asked him, "At the end of the song, it went 'And in the end, the love you take is equal to*the love you make'...Is it?" That's a dumb reason, but it's something I always think of.

And it's also the role the album plays in the band's story. After all the discord and internal struggles of 1968 and the early months of 1969, reaching a head with the abandoned Get Back sessions, where the band got along so badly they couldn't even finish the thing, just several months later, they come together(pun intended), probably knowing it was over, embrace studio production again, and like a phoenix from the ashes, this beautiful, warm album, this farewell, rises. It's fucking poetic.

It'll probably always be #1 for me, both for its substance and for the sentimentality of it.

 

[lazarus]

Always enjoy your long reads, even if I don’t agree with everything. Glad you acknowledge John as the MVP of Revolver.

 

[nielsgov]

I agree with laz, I always enjoy your long posts, namkcuR.

Hereś my ranking in which I've put a lot less effort. I also haven't listened to the early records.

1. The White Album
2.Abbey Road
3. Sgt. Pepper
4. Rubber Soul
5. Magical Mystery Tour
6. Revolver
7. Help!

 

[DaveC]

within you without you is a top 3 song on sgt pepper's don't @ me

 

[LemonMelon]

Magical Mystery Tour over Sgt Pepper is one of those hot takes I will always support.

 

[MrPryck2U]

Magical Mystery Tour over Sgt Pepper is one of those hot takes I will always support.

I don't think it's much of a hot take. MMT has got plenty of great tracks to stack up against Pepper.

 

[namkcuR]

FYI it looks like the White Album set is on Spotify now(I don't know if it's been there for awhile or what but I just noticed it there for the first time today), all of it. So if you don't want to drop all that money on it, you can stream all of it.

 

[lazarus]

...in lower quality!

 

[cobl04]

How much does this reissue cost Laz? Your post has got me keen to buy it. I've always held Abbey Road to be my fav, followed by Sgt Pepper, but I honestly haven't thought about it in that long, and White Album has always been the one I enjoy most and return to the most. Riotous fun and just so many great songs.

 

[DaveC]

everyone should get really stoned and listen to the 2018 mix of the white album through good headphones.

 

[LemonMelon]

The White Album is such a good weed record. It's solid sober, but damn does Rocky Raccoon, Piggies, Bungalow Bill, etc. take on a new level of enjoyment when you're high af.

 

[phanan]

Finally got around to listening to the White Album remix, and it delivers. While it doesn't have the same impact as the Sgt. Pepper remix (since that original mix was inferior to begin with), the improved clarity, the fullness of the low end, and just the overall wider stereo experience make this a must own.

As for the extras, hearing the Esher Demos in such pristine quality is a revelation, and getting the unedited version of Not Guilty, with the additional guitar work, is essential.

One complaint though - why not include Hey Jude and Revolution here? They are part of these sessions and instrumental to the history of this album. It's not like there wasn't enough room, and they added Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane to Sgt. Pepper without any issue.

Other than that, a fantastic package.

 

[phanan]

I'm actually going to do two different rankings - one of the albums AS IS, i.e. in their official form, no custom playlists or anything like that. The other will be how I'd rank them if I were using my custom running orders. That'll be later though, right now I'm just going to post my AS IS rankings.

Nice read. I look forward to seeing your custom order lists.

Regarding the early albums, I do disagree with your dismissing of their cover songs. Not saying all of them work, but they really did put a stamp on several of them, to the point where their version is considered the definitive one. You mentioned Twist And Shout, but I'd also argue that Money, Rock And Roll Music, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey, Slow Down, and others are in the same vein.

Obviously that's not the case with all of them (looking at you, A Taste Of Honey and Mr. Moonlight), but there's enough there to warrant inclusion. Tweaking those early albums with the singles at the time, but keeping the good covers, makes a huge difference.

Take Please Please Me for example. If you remove Chains and A Taste Of Honey and replace them with From Me To You and Thank You Girl, what is already considered a classic album is even better:

1. I Saw Her Standing There
2. Misery
3. Anna
4. From Me To You
5. Boys
6. Ask Me Why
7. Please Please Me
8. Love Me Do
9. P.S. I Love You
10. Baby It's You
11. Do You Want To Know A Secret
12. Thank You Girl
13. There's A Place
14. Twist and Shout

The same is true for their other early albums. Take out only the covers that don't work, insert singles that were recorded at roughly the same time, and you've got yourself some great early stuff (not that it wasn't great to begin with).

 

[namkcuR]

Thread bump!

Remember the post I made two and a half months ago where I typed out my "As Is" ranking and said I'd do one for my custom albums later? It's later.

So, first of all, Sgt. Pepper and MMT are one album in my custom ranking, so instead of 12 albums, there are 11 on this list.

Second, my bottom five albums remain unchanged on they list, so 11-7 are WTB, PPM, BFS, Help, and HDN respectively.

That said, here we go...

6. Rubber Soul

Previous "As Is" position: 5

My custom Rubber Soul is simply the album with Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out plugged in at what I feel are the positions where the flow works the best.

To be honest, I had a hard time deciding between this and my improved Let It Be for 5/6 on this list. Song-for-song, this is probably stronger, but there's just something about LIB, the way I listen to it, that I can't quite put my finger on, that gives it a (very) slight edge.

Anyway, everything I said in my first post about Rubber Soul still stands, it's just even better with that double A-Side added in. It's a near-perfect pop album. I know I said that before, but it bares repeating.

1. Drive My Car
2. Norwegian Wood
3. You Won't See Me
4. Nowhere Man
5. Think For Yourself
6. Day Tripper
7. The Word
8. Michelle
9. We Can Work It Out
10. What Goes On
11. Girl
12. I'm Looking Through You
13. In My Life
14. Wait
15. If I Needed Someone
16. Run For Your Life

5. Let It Be

Previous "As Is" position: 7

The problems with the official Let It Be are as follows:

1. Poor running order(IMO).

2. The absence of Don't Let Me Down(and to a lesser extent Old Brown Shoe).

3. The studio chatter and the snippets, which I feel don't add much.

4. This isn't a problem for me, but a lot of people don't love the Spectorization.

So my custom order seeks to remedy all of the above. In the past, I usually favored the originals over the naked versions, but in listening closer to naked, I've come to the conclusion that outside of the title track and TLAWR, there isn't THAT much of a difference between the two versions of any of these songs. Even the title track, even with the muted solo, I've come around on. So with that realization, I've recently been using all 'Naked' versions, with the exception of TLAWR(and the two Past Masters tracks, obviously).

With regard to TLAWR - I've historically always preferred the album version with all the Spectorization, and I've never been able to get into the 'Naked' version, for a couple of reasons:

1. I love Macca's vocal take on the album version, and the 'Naked' version is a different take entirely. It's not bad, it's just different, and I'm way too attached to the original take, especially that last partially-under-his-breath 'yeah yeah yeah yeah' at the very end. The original is just a better vocal take imo.

2. The instrumentation bugs me in the 'Naked' version. It's all too muted. It's one thing to take out Spector's stuff, but why tone down all the other instrumentation like that that had nothing to do with Spector? A lot of the percussion and piano have a plastic-y quality to my ears. Particularly the last instrumental break which, I've said this before, sounds like a toy piano.

All that said, the album version is not the version I've been using lately either. I've recently discovered the 'Anthology 3' version of TLAWR. It's the exact take from the album version but without the Spector stuff(but retaining, for the most part, the rest of the instrumentation from the album version).

The 'Naked' version to me, sounds, in its own way, overproduced. The 'Anthology 3' version sounds like the album version pre-Spector. I think it is far superior to the 'Naked' version, and thus I am using in on my list because there aren't any other Spectorized tracks in this running order, so it fits better than the album version would have.

I'm interested in peoples' opinions on this though. Listen to the 'Anthology 3' version and tell me it's not better than the 'Naked' version.

Anyway...here's the running order, all 'Naked' versions unless otherwise specified:

1. Get Back
2. I've Got A Feeling
3. Dig A Pony
4. Old Brown Shoe(Past Masters 2)
5. I Me Mine
6. Let It Be
7. Two Of Us
8. For You Blue
9. The Ballad Of John And Yoko(Past Masters 2)
10. Don't Let Me Down
11. The Long And Winding Road(Anthology 3)
12. Across The Universe

I feel this is a tighter running order that makes more sense, starting with the energy of Get Back/I've Got A Feeling/Dig A Pony, side A ending with a showstopper in the title track, side B starting with the poignant two-part vocal singalong of Two Of Us, and ending with an impassioned 1-2 punch of a finale in Don't Let Me Down/TLAWR, and Across The Universe acting as a gorgeous coda.

The removal of the studio chatter and addition of Don't Let Me Down, Old Brown Shoe, and The Ballad Of John And Yoko add more meat to the bones as well.

I did cut One After 909, because it just doesn't do much for me.

I mentioned when talking about Rubber Soul that I had a hard time deciding the placement of it and this for 5/6, but that ultimately LIB had a slight edge for reasons that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I think it's because RS is a very polished pop album, whereas LIB, while it may not be stronger song-for-song, is more of a soulful, rougher-around-the-edges work, and there's more pain in it, given what the band was going through, and that gives it a more poignant emotional punch.

4. Revolver

Previous "As Is" position: 2

So this one fell two spots. Not because it got any worse - it got even better, in fact - but just because some of the albums that were below it got better too. Simple as that.

My custom Revolver is the original album plus the Paperback Writer/Rain single. I just slotted them in between Good Day Sunshine and And Your Bird Can sing, as I feel they flow well there

Not too much else to say - the explanation for it dropping two spots is really about the albums above it now, so I'll write more ahead. Suffice it to say, that this can be considered their fourth best album is a good indication of just how incredible they were.

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I'm Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here There And Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine
7. She Said She Said
8. Good Day Sunshine
9. Paperback Writer
10. Rain
11. And Your Bird Can Sing
12. For No One
13. Doctor Robert
14. I Want To To Tell You
15. Got To Get You Into My Life
16. Tomorrow Never Knows

3. Abbey Road

Previous "As Is" position: 1

No changes to Abbey Road as there's nothing to add and it's the hardest album to mess with the order of anyway.

Goddamnit. I love Abbey Road so much and I came really close to still leaving it at 1 despite the improved Sgt/MMT and White Album, but I had to be honest with myself. It will always be my #1 of the official albums, but I had to bump it a little here.

2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band & The Magical Mystery Tour


Previous "As Is" position: Magical Mystery Tour was 3, Sgt. Pepper's was 6

I have previously stated my opinion that Sgt. Pepper's is a bit overrated, and that MMT is one of the most purely enjoyable runs of music they ever put out. Well, here's the thing - the way to 'improve' Sgt. Pepper would be to add Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, but if you do that, you're weakening MMT and altering its identity to something closer to the EP it originally was rather than the full LP. My solution was simply to make them into one album. One long, glorious, psychedelic trip of an album. Which I know isn't exactly an original idea, but nonetheless, that's what I did.

I've used every track on both albums, with the exception of 'Baby You're A Rich Man'(I just think it's a step below the rest), and I went ahead and added 'Only A Northern Song' in as well. Twenty-four tracks in total. It clocks in at 76 minutes, so it still fit on one CD.

I spent way too much time figuring the running order out.

Penny Lane slots in perfectly between Getting Better and Fixing A Hole.

She's Leaving Home segues into The Fool On The Hill immaculately and then the Fool-Flying-Blue Jay stretch from MMT stays in tact, with Blue Jay and Within You being a natural fit. Only A Northern Song completes the Harrison trio and finishes side A. There is an effect of starting with direct punches like Lucy, Getting Batter, and Penny Lane, and then getting progressively spacier until the end of side A, which I like.

Side B starts with the MMT title track, and then again, goes through a series of straight-ahead Paul stuff like 64, Your Mother, and Hello Goodbye, before getting progressively spacer as side A did. This time, it goes into the final John-heavy portion of the album, after he'd been largely neglected up to this point. I'm sure some might not be wild about one person's stuff all being clumped together, but this is what made sense to me from a flow standpoint. I think the flow in that All You Need/Mr. Kite/Strawberry Fields/Walrus stretch, the way they blend into each other, is perfect.

I love the effect of the end of Walrus going into Lovely Rita, to me it echoes the effect of getting spacier and spacier until that ascending string ending of Walrus and then 'coming down' with the sing-song-y Lovely Rita.

Sgt. Pepper's original Rita/Good Morning/Reprise/ADITL ending is in tact.

I worked on this a lot and I think it's a really good running order. There's the ebb-and-flow dynamic of going from straight-ahead to spacier back to straight ahead back to spacier back to straight ahead, etc. I also love the effect of sort of having one climax after another towards the end, with Strawberry Fields, Walrus, Reprise, and finally ADITL.

The full order:

1. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With A Little Help From My Friends
3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Penny Lane
6. Fixing A Hole
7. She's Leaving Home
8. The Fool On The Hill
9. Flying
10. Blue Jay Way
11. Within You Without You
12. Only A Northern Song
--
13. Magical Mystery Tour
14. When I'm Sixty-Four
15. Your Mother Should Know
16. Hello Goodbye
17. All You Need Is Love
18. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
19. Strawberry Fields Forever
20. I Am The Walrus
21. Lovely Rita
22. Good Morning
23. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise
24. A Day In The Life

1. White Album

Previous "As Is" position: 4

The White Album, after much deliberation, moves to the top spot with my custom version.

For White Album enthusiasts, that may make you happy, but that said, not everyone is going to like what I've done to the White Album, but hear me out.

My broad, general feeling about the White Album's place in the discography has evolved over time, but recently, it's that after the towering feats of production that were Revolver/Sgt. Pepper/MMT, and due to the fact that a lot of the White Album was written in India where they only had acoustic guitars to write with, this was their left-turn of a lo-fi album.

I love Helter Skelter, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, and Back In The USSR as much as the next person, but I have come to the conclusion the White Album's core identity is, rather than the anything-goes smorgasbord it's always been portrayed as, a collection of delicate, sensitive melodies and harmonies that were originally produced with sparse instrumentation and don't really need more than that. I believe that is what it is at its core. I have tried to create a running order that reflects this thesis. It's 23 tracks long, clocking in at 69 minutes.

In doing so, I have made extensive use of bonus material from the 2018 release, and I've also used a couple tracks from Anthology 3.

I have to comment on some of those alternate versions specifically...

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Anthology 3 version loses the piano as the whole thing is played just on an acoustic guitar. It's also played with what I feel is a bit more of an aggressive, driving rhythm. The result is that, imo, the 'old-timey' sound that some find so irritating is far less present and the melody shines that much more. As an added bonus, John's 'ob-la-di-bla-da brother!' at the end is a nice segue into 'Revolution 1' which is the next track in my running order.

Honey Pie - I probably wouldn't have included this song at all if it had to be the album version, but the Esher Demo from the 2018 release is played entirely on acoustic guitar and, like Ob-La-Di, it results in the 'old-timey' aspect of it being nearly absent imo, which makes it much better.

Everybody's Got Something To Hide and Yer Blues - these two are essentially electric on the album, but the versions I've used from the 2018 release are acoustic versions and fit with the rest of the material better imo.

Martha My Dear - the version from the 2018 release without the strings fits better.

Sexy Sadie and I'm So Tired - again, I wanted the toned down versions so the melodies could shine.

Bungalow Bill - this version lacks the 'extra' effects, the clapping, Yoko's vocal, et al. More bare.

Piggies - the biggest advantage here is that the version I used doesn't have the stupid pig noises at the end. I feel this version allows the pretty melody to shine without the theatrics of the album version.

Junk - It wasn't actually on the album but the demo is there on the 2018 release and I like the song and it fits so I added it. I did think about putting the 1968 Across The Universe on there, but the song is already on my LIB and I didn't want to double-dip.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The full electric version obviously wouldn't fit this. There are some acoustic versions on the 2018 release, and there's also the Love version, but most of these versions end up having some orchestration dubbed in. The Anthology 3 version I used is the most naked to my eyes, and it's haunting.

Hey Jude - I originally wasn't going put Hey Jude on here, as I feel that the regular version is too 'big' in sound to fit in with the rest of the material(the way I'm presenting it), but then I found this demo version on the 2018 release, and it was perfect for this, as it's less polished and lacks all the big instrumentation at the end(it's just guitar and piano). It acts as the big finale.

Good Night - I love this demo from the 2018 release, as it replaces the orchestration with guitars, which makes it fit what I'm doing much better. Acts as the coda to the big 'Hey Jude' finale.

Here is the running order(which, again, I spent way too much time figuring out)(no parenthesis means it's the album version):

1. Dear Prudence
2. Glass Onion
3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da(Anthology 3 Version)
4. Revolution 1
5. Everybody's Got Something To Hide(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
6. Cry Baby Cry
7. Honey Pie(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
8. Martha My Dear('Without Bass And Strings' from 2018 Remaster)
9. Sexy Sadie(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
10. I'm So Tired(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
11. Yer Blues(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
12. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill('Take 2' from 2018 Remaster)
13. Rocky Raccoon
14. I Will
15. Piggies(Anthology 3)
16. Blackbird
17. Mother Nature's Son
18. Junk(Esher Demo from 2018 Remaster)
19. Julia
20. While My Guitar Gently Weeps(Anthology 3 Version)
21. Long Long Long
22. Hey Jude('Take 1' from 2018 Remaster)
23. Good Night('Take 10 With A Guitar Part From Take 5' from 2018 Remaster)

Since this running order takes from such a variety of sources, I've provided a link to my Spotify playlist of it if you want to give it a try:

https://open.spotify.com/user/21eq5...TWDz8pGt2p9CqiDDyr1?si=VbJMJW11Q2-WIlkp4oxenA

I feel that I've given the album a core-identity and made it more cohesive, and in this form I think it's one of their biggest achievements.

I know that some will disagree with my entire approach here, but this is what I felt.

Here's hoping you found at least some this interesting.

 

[DaveC]

taking helter skelter and happiness is a warm gun off the white album (and not at least adding either of them to another album) is unforgivable.