The Beatles - best albums

I can't believe you missed out I Will. I got married to I Will.
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Does your wife know this?

While My Guitar Gently Weeps is the best Beatles song ever, possibly the best song ever.
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It’s an amazing song, but I’d rate it slightly lower than you for two reasons. First there’s George’s usual preachy and slightly ropey lyrics... “I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping”, there only to rhyme with “weeping” but managing to convey slight disdain for humanity at the same time...

Secondly it’s not fully a Beatles song, in that half its brilliance comes from an incredible Clapton guest performance.

Then possibly Octopus's Garden.
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I hope that’s a joke...

Paul was consistent, but he wasn't a patch on George and Ringo when they had some really good ideas. Or John, even when John had an off day.
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I’m more of a John fan, but that’s crazy talk. Most of the good stuff on Revolver is Paul – Eleanor Rigby, Here There And Everywhere, For No-One, Good Day Sunshine, Got To Get You Into My Life... loads of the other classics too - Yesterday, Paperback Writer, Penny Lane, Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, Let It Be, Get Back, Back In the USSR, Blackbird, Helter Skelter, your I Will... Plus all the genuinely co-written early stuff and later ones like All You Need Is Love. I’m not mad about Michelle, Long and Winding Road or Hello Goodbye but they’re highly regarded too.

George wrote some good songs but after being in the enviable position of spending his formative years with the two greatest songwriters alive, how many truly great songs did he write? While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, Here Comes The Sun... that’s it.

Ringo’s a spaz
 
Ringo was the luckiest person in popular music imo.
 
If anyone wants to buy a brand new 'Beatles in Mono' boxset (containing all their albums newly remastered) send me a pm and I'll give you a good price.
 
spinoza said:
Paul was consistent, but he wasn't a patch on George and Ringo when they had some really good ideas. Or John, even when John had an off day.
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Yeah, that's just nonsense.

Especially when the two songs Ringo's most known for (A Little Help from My Friends and Yellow Submarine) were both written by Paul.
 
Plechazunga said:
Does your wife know this?
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Yeah. She married some Take That song before she met me, so we're even.

Plechazunga said:
It’s an amazing song, but I’d rate it slightly lower than you for two reasons. First there’s George’s usual preachy and slightly ropey lyrics... “I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping”, there only to rhyme with “weeping” but managing to convey slight disdain for humanity at the same time...

Secondly it’s not fully a Beatles song, in that half its brilliance comes from an incredible Clapton guest performance.
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A purist, I see. I agree the bit about sweeping the floor sounds like he was casting around for a rhyme to "weeping", but that's when I usually lean back and let the tune wash over me.

Plechazunga said:
I hope that’s a joke...
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Only partially, I'm afraid. It's the first Beatles song I'm going to teach my children. It's also the only song I've ever listened to underwater.



Plechazunga said:
I’m more of a John fan, but that’s crazy talk. Most of the good stuff on Revolver is Paul – Eleanor Rigby, Here There And Everywhere, For No-One, Good Day Sunshine, Got To Get You Into My Life... loads of the other classics too - Yesterday, Paperback Writer, Penny Lane, Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, Let It Be, Get Back, Back In the USSR, Blackbird, Helter Skelter, your I Will... Plus all the genuinely co-written early stuff and later ones like All You Need Is Love. I’m not mad about Michelle, Long and Winding Road or Hello Goodbye but they’re highly regarded too.

George wrote some good songs but after being in the enviable position of spending his formative years with the two greatest songwriters alive, how many truly great songs did he write? While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something, Here Comes The Sun... that’s it.

Ringo’s a spaz
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Fair points. I've never enjoyed Paul's great music (even though there's an awful lot of it) as much as I enjoyed the two songs I mentioned earlier, and John's. He's got longevity and consistency, which George and John didn't. Ringo may be a spaz, but he wrote a song about an octopus.
 
My favourite one's Sgt.Pepper's, followed by Rubber Soul. Those are the only ones I can listen to from start to finish without skipping over any tracks, except for that gash George Harrison track on Sgt.Pepper's with the bland sitars that aims for an Indian meditation soundtrack sensibility but succeeds only in being perhaps the standard bearer for shit tracks on great albums.

I'm also probably the only one on earth who not only doesn't think that 'Being For the Benefit of Mr.Kite' is shit, but actually rates it as their favourite track on that album.

I have to admit, the only other Beatles stuff I've got is the '1' compilation, and 'Let it Be' and the White Album.

I just found Let it Be to be a really forgettable album on which the title track is the only real standout in a line-up that is otherwise pretty insipid IMO. At a push, I'd nominate 'One After 909' as a better than average track, but the rest of it doesn't hold a candle to their best stuff.

The White Album is a bit of a mixed bag really. There's some belting tracks on it but also some I wish had never happened, Bungalow Bill being the example that immediately springs to mind.

I used to own a copy of Abbey Road but I've lost it. I may have to buy/download another one. That's one album in the modern musical canon that I definitely need to get familiar with.
 
Melbourne Red said:
My favourite one's Sgt.Pepper's, followed by Rubber Soul. Those are the only ones I can listen to from start to finish without skipping over any tracks, except for that gash George Harrison track on Sgt.Pepper's with the bland sitars that aims for an Indian meditation soundtrack sensibility but succeeds only in being perhaps the standard bearer for shit tracks on great albums.

I'm also probably the only one on earth who not only doesn't think that 'Being For the Benefit of Mr.Kite' is shit, but actually rates it as their favourite track on that album.

I have to admit, the only other Beatles stuff I've got is the '1' compilation, and 'Let it Be' and the White Album.

Let it Be is just a really forgettable album on which the title track is the only real standout in a line-up that is otherwise pretty insipid IMO. At a push, I'd nominate 'One After 909' as a better than average track, but the rest of it doesn't hold a candle to their best stuff.

The White Album is a bit of a mixed bag really. There's some belting tracks on it but also some I wish had never happened, Bungalow Bill being the example that immediately springs to mind.

I used to own a copy of Abbey Road but I've lost it. I may have to buy/download another one. That's one album in the modern musical canon that I definitely need to get familiar with.
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Let It Be is anything but a forgettable album to be honest.
 
Jopub said:
Interesting that nobody seems to have listened to anything prior to Revolver

As polished mature musicians at the height of their game Revolver is a good place to start but if you want some of the best pure fun driven perfect pop masterpieces in the whole of rock music then A Hard Days Night is simply a masterpiece. Help and With The Beatles is fantastic and of course Rubber Soul. Even the first effort Please Please Me has some excellent tracks

The later albums are of course fantastic too but it has to be said that once the LSD got a firm hold the quality, although often wonderful, can be hit and miss as the White Album and Let It Be show

Still imo the best of them all

For consistency throughout out all their careers together / albums they are imo unmatchable
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Excellent post, you sum it up very well. I like bits from all the albums but I actually feel that Abbey Road is one of the weaker ones as the splicing and dicing of various songs together does not tend to work. They tried it earlier with "A Day in the Life" which worked surprisingly well but they couldn't repeat this happy accident and, after a decent first half, the second half sounds like what it was; a few rough, half finished tracks. Even a bit amateurish for such a professional act.
 
Plechazunga said:
Something like:

USSR
Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness Is A Warm Gun (best song ever written?)
I'm So Tired
Blackbird
Why Don't We Do It In The Road?
Julia
Yer Blues
Sexy Sadie
Helter Skelter
Long Long Long
Revolution

Hmm... Macca wouldn't be happy, that's only about three of his. Maybe "I Will" should be in there.

It would be a class album, but I'd really miss a lot of songs... Glass Onion, Bungalow Bill, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Piggies, Rocky Raccoon, Cry Baby Cry... maybe not absolutely top-notch songs but they add so much to it. That's the thing about the White Album, it feels right as a great big sprawling messy canvas. Kind of like Exile On Main Street and London Calling... I wouldn't really want to tidy them up.

Whereas to me Pepper's always felt like the album that would be perfect if it only contained more good songs and less shit ones.
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Cry baby, cry is a brilliant track.
 
Melbourne Red said:
I just found Let it Be to be a really forgettable album on which the title track is the only real standout in a line-up that is otherwise pretty insipid IMO. At a push, I'd nominate 'One After 909' as a better than average track, but the rest of it doesn't hold a candle to their best stuff.
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AdZzUtd said:
Let It Be is anything but a forgettable album to be honest.
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I disagree. It's a nice record. Laid back for the most part but songs like One After 909, Get Back, and I've Got a Feeling really kick it.

To top it off John name drops Matt Busby on Dig it. It doesn't get much better for United fans in music.
 
I bought Revolver today - it's very good I must say.

Now I have to pick the second one. Rubber Soul and Abbey Road are what I'm leaning towards, although I don't know which of them to pick. Stg Pepper looks good but I'm not sure.
 
You need to get all their albums really (and they are available in remastered boxset form ;)).
 
MikeUpNorth said:
You need to get all their albums really (and they are available in remastered boxset form ;)).
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I'd love to, but I have no money for it now. I will pick up another album on Friday and perhaps one next week. That's all I can buy until the end of year.

I listened to Abbey Road today and liked it, but I'd probably like other ones too. Just don't know which ones I'd like most and have no time to listen to them all day long.

How do Abbey Road, Rubber Soul compare to Revolver?
 
Revolver is easily my favoritem and also happens to contain my favorite track 'Tommorrow Never Knows' masterpiece of a song.

Magic Mystery Tour and The White Album would be the next two down.
 
Agree that 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is one of the best Beatles tracks. It's hard to believe it's the same band that did 'Love Me Do'. And in such a short period of time for that transition to happen.
 
It's completely timeless, if you didn't already know you would be unable to pin it to a specific decade.
 
They have so many good albums that I don't even know which I prefer. Just listened to a few tracks off Sgt Pepper and they were ace too, though I probably liked Abbey Road more. I'll probably try White Album now - it costs more but has 30 tracks on it so it evens out.
 
Sarni said:
I bought Revolver today - it's very good I must say.

Now I have to pick the second one. Rubber Soul and Abbey Road are what I'm leaning towards, although I don't know which of them to pick. Stg Pepper looks good but I'm not sure.
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Rubber Soul captured what the 60s sounded like, imo.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Rubber Soul captured what the 60s sounded like, imo.
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Agreed Dwayne. Rubber Soul had that sort of folky/hippie thing going on, whereas Revolver had a much harder electric guitar sound to it. Revolver was a very innovative album, but Rubber Soul epitomises the time.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Agree that 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is one of the best Beatles tracks. It's hard to believe it's the same band that did 'Love Me Do'. And in such a short period of time for that transition to happen.
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Something about Tomorrow Never Knows is similar to Rain, the B-side of Paperback Writer... probably the drumming and loops... but Rain is an absolute virtuoso performance from Ringo, I don't know what they gave him that day but he never came close to that again.
 
brewlio said:
Agreed Dwayne. Rubber Soul had that sort of folky/hippie thing going on, whereas Revolver had a much harder electric guitar sound to it. Revolver was a very innovative album, but Rubber Soul epitomises the time.
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Just listening to it. It's probably even better than Abbey Road.

fecking hell, did they even have a bad one?
 
Sarni said:
fecking hell, did they even have a bad one?
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Beatles+-+Get+Back+-+2nd+Glyn+John%27s+Mix.jpg
 
So I now bought Abbey Road and Rubber Soul. Must admit that I like both even though they are different.

Great band indeed.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
If anyone wants to buy a brand new 'Beatles in Mono' boxset (containing all their albums newly remastered) send me a pm and I'll give you a good price.
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Not a sales associate of Mike but its well worth buying (or downloading) the difference is at times quite fantastic.

Is it weird that I kept the old versions on my ipod aswell as the new ones?
 
Decotron said:
Not a sales associate of Mike but its well worth buying (or downloading) the difference is at times quite fantastic.

Is it weird that I kept the old versions on my ipod aswell as the new ones?
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It's not weird but I'm sure it's a pretty massive pain in the arse when you're shuffling and your 8 different versions of 'Come Together' keep coming up when you're already a bit sick of the song.
 
datura said:
I am not a great fan of Sgt Pepper. If I was to buy 3 it would be Revolver, Rubber Soul and Abbey Road.
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That's a good list for a newbie.

I'd just avoid the White album as a new listener..

For me the best of the earlier albums is A Hard Days Night..
 
Sarni said:
They have so many good albums that I don't even know which I prefer. Just listened to a few tracks off Sgt Pepper and they were ace too, though I probably liked Abbey Road more. I'll probably try White Album now - it costs more but has 30 tracks on it so it evens out.
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I'm a huge Beatles fan and love 90% of their stuff but i've never liked the White album..

It always baffles me when people say it's their favourite. But each to their own..
 
Plechazunga said:
If they'd bundled all their psychedelic stuff of that period together....
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This is a very good idea, and it inspired me to create the following playlist:


Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
A Little Help From My Friends
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
I am the Walrus
Penny Lane
Being for the Benefit of Mister Kite!
The Fool on the Hill
Strawberry Fields Forever
Eleanor Rigby
Old Brown Shoe
Hey Bulldog
It's All Too Much
All You Need Is Love
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
A Day in the Life

Not all of the songs are "psychedelic", but they have (in my opinion) the same spirit, and they work very well together. A lot of great Beatle songs are of course not included, and there are some which not everyone would mention straight away, but what an album this would be!
 
Most people think Sgt. Pepper is the best one, but for me, the best has always been 'The White Album' and I think more people are starting to see just how great that album was.

Abbey Road and Revolver are up there but I think The White Album is outstanding.
 
datura said:
If I was to buy 3 it would be Revolver, Rubber Soul and Abbey Road.
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Same here, my favourite 3.

I used to have a 1975 850cc Mini back in the 80's with a cassette player and a tape with Revolver on one side and Rubber Soul on the other which I played to death. Whenever I hear those albums it takes me back to that car, exploring obscure country roads.

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window off Abbey Road, the way it comes in is just sublime.
 
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