Hark! A Retrospective of Beatles Albums

One of the things that happened in 1970, the year of my birth, was the end of a rock band.

The Beatles in that moment were one of the biggest musical performers on the planet. At a level on par with Elvis in terms of rock and roll, at a level in popular music with maybe Sinatra or Ella, they were a band out of Liverpool that became a hit in the UK by 1962, a trans-Atlantic hit in the US by 1963, a global hit by 1964. They set the formula for rock acts as a four-man group: one on drums, one on bass, one on lead guitar, one on rhythm guitar/piano, with each of the bandmates leading or backing on vocals. Individually the band members - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr - were not exactly the best at what they did - although Lennon would become a good lyricist (just not on par with Dylan), McCartney a great melodist and arranger that truly did outclass everyone (including Brian Wilson), Harrison grew into a guitarist with excellent range and experimental skill (just not at a level of a Hendrix or Clapton), and Starr an effective drummer who could work at any level (be honest, not everyone can be Bonham or Peart).

Above all, the Beatles excelled at harmony, an aspect of music where different performers meshed what they were doing to form a beautiful work, each part complementing the whole. There are few acts that can achieve it at the level they did, and they excelled at it for 8 years... and then falling apart by April 1970. It ended an era of Sixties music, of harmony in general, and heralded a fractured age of music and culture for the Seventies, and haunted us well into the Eighties and beyond.

The Beatles never existed in my own lifetime - I was born in May - but by the time I was eight or nine I was old enough to listen to music on the radio and comprehend it, and they were a band that would bounce off the speakers of the local 98 Rock station as much as the easy pop stations my mom listened to. My first album I asked for was Sgt. Peppers because that was the one "everyone" was saying was the best album they ever made.

And then in December 1980 a madman assassinated John Lennon. On a personal note, this was during a period of my life starting in November 1980 where a series of murders and shootings both local and global shocked my 10-year-old self. By the time the Pope was shot in May 1981 I was firmly convinced there was something wrong with the human race.

And yet even with Lennon's death the Beatles remained a constant cultural presence. Their movies played on the local indy channel 44 ("Help!" in particular is a family favorite, quote a line to my brother and he'll start quoting the rest of the scene that line is from). I got so used to hearing Beatles musics during the anniversaries of Lennon's passing that I associate Beatles music to Christmas more than actual Christmas songs.

When CDs became the format of choice over vinyl, one of the first artists I fully got on compact disc was the Beatles when they did a big re-issue of the UK versions in 1987. Not even U2 or Led Zeppelin, or Police/Sting or Bruce Springsteen - my other big artists of my teen years - got that effort until years later.

When I did a review years ago of U2 albums, I debated my interest in reviewing the other artists in my life, and figured doing the Beatles... and then life got in the way (I blame trump). Well, with other issues pressing on me, I'd like to get a few things checked off my bucket list and so doing a big review of the Fab Four ought to do it.

Here's the deal: Previously with U2 I ranked albums by weakest efforts to epic efforts. This is a problem with the Beatles for two reasons 1) too many great albums and 2) this is a band that unlike any other evolved over the years from a rather simple rock/blues sound of the late 50s into a completely dynamic, broad-ranged, lyrically intense sound of the Sixties that honestly changed rock as a genre (they may have invented subgenres like Progressive, Metal, and Punk (!) rock) forever. In a way, you have to listen to the Beatles from the very beginning to the very end just to comprehend exactly what they did to make themselves the biggest band in the world...

So here we go, by the official United Kingdom release and 1987 CD Release to include the big non-album singles (the US releases shortened albums, inserted singles, and tried to generate extra albums from the leftovers to bump more sales):

Title: Please Please Me

Importance: The first official recorded album released 1963 (after becoming a huge live act across the UK in 1962). While they recorded a number of cover tunes and arrangements by other songwriters (a common thing for recording artists of the age), they also contributed a large number of their own songs, establishing themselves as songwriters in their own right. The recording session itself took a day - 12 hours - and essentially went through a regular set of their live performances. What this album is, in effect, an example of what it was like to attend a Cavern Club performance by the lads. Done while Lennon was suffering a fever, with his own voice cracking and shredding by the end when they recorded their cover of "Twist and Shout," this album represented the first stage of Beatlemania. And when it was released, it blew the doors off of everything.
Epic Song(s): "I Saw Her Standing There." "Please Please Me," "Love Me Do," "Do You Want to Know a Secret," "Twist and Shout"
Great Song(s): "Boys," "PS I Love You," "Honey"
Good Song(s): "Ask Me Why," "There's a Place"

Title: With the Beatles

Importance: While not a strong second album (few groups have a second album better than the first), this contains a number of cover tunes that filled their performance rotation on the road as well as several radio favorites like "All My Loving" and their cover of "Roll Over Beethoven." It does include Harrison's first written song for a Beatles album "Don't Bother Me," and it also involves one of the most iconic album covers - JUST LOOK AT THAT COMPOSITION OF SHADOW AND LIGHT - in rock history.
Epic Song(s): "All My Loving," "Roll Over Beethoven," "I Wanna be Your Man," "Money (That's What I Want)."
Great Song(s): "It Won't Be Long," "Don't Bother Me," "Not a Second Time"
Good Song(s): "All I Got To Do"

Title: A Hard Day's Night

Importance: TWANG! You know what I'm talking about. The opening chord to the title song that pretty much announces the band's presence with authority. As the soundtrack to the movie made as Beatlemania exploded across the planet, Hard's Day is arguably one of the key moments in the band's history. It's the first album filled entirely with new songs written by the bandmates themselves, half as part of the movie and the rest like a regular album (not filler, by the by). It's also the album that demonstrated improved harmony and vocals, greater range of music and melody, and lyrics that showed more introspection than "She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah." Where the first two albums were good, this is the first great album the band produced.
The movie itself is important to cinema history: forged as a faux documentary of a day in the life of the Beatles on tour, it contains absurdist humor to a barely-there plot - the lads have to watch over Paul's con artist grandfather (really an actor) - but also captures on film the frantic madness of Beatlemania. It was heralded as a brilliant work in its own right and went on to influence a lot of art films of the Sixties. The clip to "Can't Buy Me Love" of the four lads just running around a sports field can be viewed as one of the earliest music videos ever made.
Epic Song(s): "Hard Day's Night," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," "Can't Buy Me Love," "Any Time At All," "Things We Said Today," "You Can't Do That," "I'll Be Back"
Great Song(s): "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You," "Tell Me Why," "When I Get Home"
Good Song(s): "I'll Cry Instead"

Title: Beatles For Sale

Importance: If you can tell by the album cover, this is the point where the Fab Four was getting plain tired of the Beatlemania whirlwind of 1964. Notable as having more cover songs than usual - due to a lot of original work going into the previous one, and the lads recovering from a world tour - the original tunes reflected a growing melancholy, with the love songs starting to show regret and a sense by the band of being a product (the title is a dead giveaway) rushed to stores every day of the week. It's not their weakest album because the epic songs on here - "Eight Days a Week" especially - lift it above With The Beatles, but it not the game-changing album that the coming works will be. It's like they're getting their rockabilly feels out of their system.
Epic Song(s): "I'm a Loser," "Rock and Roll Music," "I'll Follow the Sun," "Eight Days a Week"
Great Song(s): "No Reply," "Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey"
Good Song(s): "Mr Moonlight," "Every Little Thing"

Title: Help!

Importance: Soundtrack - at least half of it - to their second movie, a more absurdist romp falling into camp, spoofing the growing spy movie genre of the Bond films (it includes a musical riff from the Bond movies to make it obvious). What's interesting here is the sudden jump from the earlier works that were up-tempo straight-up rockers to a more polished, multilayered sound (this is around the time the lads were learning to tinker with studio equipment). The songs themselves show greater improvement to the lyrics. And that's just the first half of the album meant for the movie. Side Two contains arguably one of the greatest song compositions in music history: "Yesterday," a moody aching song about love and loss that ended up in the record books as the most covered pop song of the modern era (only "Summertime" from the Porgy and Bess musical from the 1930s tops it as most covered song ever). What does it tell you when a band's "filler" material for a soundtrack album can be better than the hit songs of any other band's?
And as I mentioned earlier about the movie, it's the one that me and my brothers watched as pre-teens back in the day, and as such it influenced a lot of our sense of humor, cultural references, and so forth. Ask my brother Phil "Boys! Are you buzzing?" and he'll quote the rest of the movie from there I kid you not.
Epic Song(s): "Help!" "The Night Before," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," "I Need You," "You're Gonna Lose That Girl," "Ticket To Ride," "Act Naturally," "I've Just Seen a Face," "Yesterday,"
Great Song(s): "Another Girl," "Tell Me What You See"
Good Song(s): "It's Only Love"

Title: Rubber Soul

Importance: This is where a lot of fans start dividing the history of the band between BEFORE and AFTER. This is the album where the Fab Four delved hard into experimentation, adding new instruments than just the standard rock band set (say hello to the sitar), this is where they tried new things with the recording methods, this is where they started writing song lyrics that all weren't about falling in love ("Nowhere Man"). Above all, this is where rock and roll stopped being about the singles and more about the album reflecting an overall theme or mood. While the Beatles did and still would release standalone songs as part of the industry trends, this was the first time a band focused on a whole album as a piece of work (previously, albums were either full soundtracks, live recordings, or jazz jam sessions). The impact of this album can't be understated: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys heard it and realized what it meant, and responded with his band's contribution to rock evolution with the epic Pet Sounds.
On a personal note, this is the one I rank as their best album - with one glaringly problematic song "Run For Your Life," which in hindsight is a monstrous ode to domestic violence - of all time. People will argue Revolver, White Album, Abbey Road, even Sgt. Peppers. This is as close to poetry the boys will ever get IMHO.
Epic Song(s): "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood," "Nowhere Man," "Michelle," "Girl," "I'm Looking Through You," "In My Life," "If I Needed Someone"
Great Song(s): "The Word," "Wait"
Good Song(s): "Think For Yourself," "What Goes On,"

Title: Revolver

Importance: Where Rubber Soul expanded what the Beatles could do with rock and roll, this album is where they expanded what they could do with music, period. Going with a mix of every possible popular music format (and even classical music with "Eleanor Rigby") known at the time from Motown to Country, it even started a few like Psychedelic Rock ("Love To You" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"). This is where the band found a deeper - sometimes darker - meaning in what they were writing about. These are a lot of the reasons why a large number of critics and fans consider Revolver the best album the Beatles ever made... my take on it is that they were creating a mixed bag of sound styles, a roulette wheel of choices to listen to (hence the title, eh), while some of the songs stand the test of time there are some I can't abide. Sorry.
This is also where the band would take the fateful decision to stop touring. Granted, their live performances were getting harder to handle as the crowd sizes were losing the intimacy the lads enjoyed, while their changes in musical tastes were becoming harder to drag out of the studios into the open air.
Epic Song(s): "Taxman," "Eleanor Rigby," "Love To You," "She Said She Said," "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Great Song(s): "I'm Only Sleeping," "Yellow Submarine," "Good Day Sunshine," "For No One." "Got to Get You Into My Life"
Good Song(s): "And Your Bird Can Sing"

Title: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Importance: Hailed as a work of art when it was released - Jimi Hendrix famously learned the entire album by ear over a weekend before performing the entire thing live - over the years Sgt. Peppers has diminished somewhat due to the hype fading. Originally conceived by McCartney as a concept album - a fake band's performance as part of a "live show" - the album itself had few interconnecting themes to it past the first two songs and a handful of others on the second side. Balanced between a baroque style that would help form Progressive Rock later on and the psychedelic elements of the previous albums, what makes Sgt. Peppers an epic work is the level of studio mastery behind it, a technical marvel of sound mixing and layers of music upon music, capped by perhaps the most powerful and best remembered Beatles song ever "A Day In The Life." It's that level of technical wizardry that also hurts its reputation among rock purists. This is where the album as a whole is weaker than hoped for... but the songs themselves are incredible works that never sink below expectations.
Epic Song(s): "Sgt. Peppers," "With a Little From My Friends," "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," "Getting Better," "Fixing a Hole," "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," "When I'm Sixty-Four," "Lovely Rita," "A Day In the Life"
Great Song(s): "She's Leaving Home." "Within You Without You," "Good Morning," "Sgt. Peppers Reprise"
Good Song(s): None. Wow.

Title: Magical Mystery Tour

Importance: Coming off of the experimental high of Sgt. Peppers, McCartney - slowly taking control of the band's direction while Lennon abandoned a lot of his earlier leadership - wanted to continue the experimentation with a movie project - a free-floating avant garde effort of taking cameras out on a road trip with circus performers and hoping something would happen - and with songs to fit the eventual results. What happened was a muddled affair and arguably the first big mistake the band made. The movie ended up having nothing happening, with bits of comedy that never panned out and a lackluster sense of a wasted effort. And while the songs from this project - some held over from Sgt. Peppers, others from an EP that merged into this soundtrack to create a full album - were rather good, a sense of self-indulgence was seeping in, a loss of focus from the tight, technical style the band was good at. There's still a lot of classic songs here - "I Am the Walrus" in particular a brilliant attempt by Lennon to fck with people who were taking the lyrics too serious (unwittingly giving them even more to obsess over) - but it's not the lads at their best. This is the point where the harmony was getting overwhelmed by the overt attempts at singular greatness...
Epic Song(s): "Fool On the Hill," "I Am The Walrus," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," "All You Need Is Love"
Great Song(s):"Magical Mystery Tour," "Blue Jay Way," "Baby You're a Rich Man"
Good Song(s): "Flying," "Hello Goodbye"

Title: The Beatles (AKA The White Album)

Importance: The album so iconic there's not even a cover for it (I kid. It's all-white except for the band's name). After the heartache of MMT not working out, the band attempted to take a holiday to India and find themselves studying Hindi mysticism, only to come back disgruntled from a troubled visit. Without much genuine focus, the lads tried to work on a new album but found themselves at odds with each other's frustrations and visions. Harrison was expressing his outrage at being limited to just two songs per album of his own work, which had been getting better but which Lennon and McCartney ignored. Starr was feeling abused and overlooked as the drummer (he had been coping with the criticisms of being the weak link in a great band, and felt like an add-on even though he was good friends with the band years before he was hired to replace Pete Best). Lennon was letting his new girlfriend Yoko Ono join in at the studio, throwing the other three for a loop because girlfriends and wives were previously not part of the process. Their regular producer George Martin lost control of them and the entire process. And nobody could agree on what songs should end up on the album.
The result was a double album of a lot of songs the band recorded with (and without) each other's help. Session performers show up here more than any other time in the band's history. Harrison famously brought in Eric Clapton as a guest guitarist (and also as someone for moral support in a hostile environment) on his epic song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." This result provided arguably the most diverse mix of music styles the band ever presented even more than Revolver... but it was also lacking the harmony that earlier albums had, and it was overwhelming to where audiences had no idea how to receive it. It took years later for fans to appreciate half of what the work represented, all the while noting how it contributed to new rock subgenres of Country Rock ("Rocky Raccoon"), Heavy Metal ("Helter Skelter") and Punk ("Revolution 1" but the uptempo single version) to songs about gender roles ("Ob-La-Di" where Paul flubbed a line but kept it in because it was funny, and most people accepted it).
And like a lot of double album projects, this one suffers from the guessing game of "What Should Have Been Left Out," where entire nations have figured out their playlist selections for what a single-album version would look like. Nobody can agree on one set.
This was the Beatles album of 1968, a year universally recognized as one of the most divisive and bloody years in American, European, and global history. This is where the cracks between the band's unity were showing. (This is also the album Charles Manson really shouldn't have listened to while on acid... oy)
Epic Song(s): Oh Good God do I have to list all of them? Sigh. "Back In the USSR," "Dear Prudence," "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Martha My Dear," "I Will," "Birthday," "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," "Helter Skelter," "Savoy Truffle,"
Great Song(s): "Glass Onion," "Bungalow Bill," "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," "Blackbird," "Rocky Racoon," "Don't Pass Me By," "Why Don't We Do It In the Road," "Sexy Sadie,"
Good Song(s): "I'm So Tired," "Piggies," "Julia," "Revolution 9," "Good Night"

Title: Yellow Submarine

Importance: By this time the Beatles were burning out and unwilling to keep up with commitments, one of which was making another movie or two. Tied up with real-life woes, they agreed to let an animation team make a movie based on the Revolver song "Yellow Submarine," along with various other songs between Rubber Soul and Magical Mystery Tour that would fit the dream-like psychedelic elements the directors were aiming for. Not having any good hope for it - they hated the television animated show made early in their career - the lads created songs they felt - at the time - perfunctory and beneath their efforts. The result was an album that was part greatest hits and lukewarm new hits... which in time still sound incredible because it's the fcking Beatles. "All Together Now" sounds like a children's tune to teach kids how to rhyme and harmonize, but it has a quality far above other songs of its ilk. The movie itself became a popular hit in its day and lives on now as a drug-trip classic.
This is, on a personal note, the movie where me and my brothers learned to roll the tongue when we say our "R's".
Epic Song(s): "All Together Now,""It's All Too Much," "All You Need Is Love" (originally a single but added here)
Great Song(s): "Only a Northern Song," "Hey Bulldog,"
Good Song(s): Eh.

Title: Abbey Road

Importance: This wasn't the next album project after White Album or Yellow Submarine, but it was the next one fully recorded and released. Coming at the moment the band fell apart during the disaster of the "Get Back" sessions, this was the album where the four agreed to return to the oversight of producer Martin and focus on a work they mutually understood was going to be their last. This was also a recording at a time when the studio equipment had gone through an upgrade, allowing for a "softer" sound that still provided incredible effects to their playing styles (Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was recorded with similar equipment). While it has fewer of the psychedelic elements of the last few albums, it does carry a few tunes that would fit right in to the Progressive Rock that would dominate the early Seventies. A notable element to this album was McCartney's growing love of medleys - having one song blend into another and then another - that would cover most of the songs on Side Two of the album. The songs themselves reverted lyrically back to the Rubber Soul/Revolver era of a simpler poetic aim. In particular, Harrison's "Something" - an ode to his then-wife Patti Boyd, who probably has more songs written about her than any other woman since Helen of Troy - was hailed by Frank Sinatra (who mistakenly attributed it to Lennon/McCartney) as a great love song.
The impact of Abbey Road wasn't fully understood when it came out in late 1969 and early 1970. The New Sound caught most fans off-guard, who wouldn't be able to warm up to it until they heard later works by other bands to compare them with. It wasn't until the Eighties - after Lennon's death - that the album was recognized as a classic on par - or even better than - Revolver or Sgt. Peppers. It's now at the top of a debate - between Hard Days, Rubber Soul, Revolver, and this - as the best album the band ever made.
Culturally speaking, the album cover itself has a major impact. Photographed as the band is (symbolically) walking away from their recording studio at Abbey Road, the poses, outfits, and surrounding items (the VW Beetle!) was obsessed over, analyzed, parodied, and more (partly for the "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy rumors, but also for every sign of what the Beatles were doing as they were breaking up). That part of road is now the most famous street crossing in the world. People visit it as a pop culture Mecca and it's designated a historic heritage site. It's still a working road so... Just watch out! OH! She came in through the bathroom window... okay I'll stop...
Epic Song(s): "Come Together," Something," "Octopus' Garden,"  Here Comes the Sun," "You Never Give Me Your Money," "Mean Mr. Mustard / Polytheme Pam / She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Medley)," "Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End"
Great Song(s): "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," "Because," "Her Majesty"
Good Song(s): "Oh Darling," "Sun King"

Title: Let It Be

Importance: In terms of getting a sense of what the forces were that pulled the Beatles apart, the documentary film about the "Get Back" sessions that led into the Let It Be final product would give you a better understanding. This album wouldn't show it other than underscoring the lack of quality this has compared to other works (including the ragged mess that was the White Album). Hastily produced and without final input of the band, what comes out are songs that could have done with more thought ("Across the Universe") or done with less overlayering ("The Long and Winding Road"). Released post-breakup with little fanfare, Let It Be suffers a reputation as an unwanted stepchild of an album, even though it contains some heartfelt and touching performances. The highlight songs are the ones recorded for the Rooftop Concert, a cultural milestone and Trope Codifier that showed the Fab Four just plugging in, rocking out, and in a rare moment in that tempest enjoying themselves (bringing up the sad What If the Beatles had tried to perform live again for real before the breakup would be permanent).
Epic Song(s): "Two of Us." "Dig It," "I Got A Feeling," "For You Blue," "Get Back"
Great Song(s): "Across the Universe," "I Me Mine," "Let It Be," "One After 909"
Good Song(s): "Maggie Mae," "The Long and Winding Road,"

Title: Past Masters Volume I

Importance: Not an actual album released between 1963 to 1970, this is the CD-only release in 1987 to cover the single-only songs the Beatles released early in their career. While the albums mattered, the singles did too: The only other way to list them here would be to list the confusing American-release albums, which we kinda don't want to delve into. What is great about this two-part set are the songs, most of them genuinely great hits that could have fit on the original albums if only the 33 RPM size of vinyl allowed more room (CD technology would). As the albums reflect, the singles also track the evolution of the Beatles' sound and style, from simple Fifties-era rock to the more progressive style they'll create by 1965. Consider "I Feel Fine": the opening sound is feedback, a sound John recognized could be controlled just as easy as plucking guitar strings. This is the first time any artist did that in a song. Mindblowing.
Epic Song(s): "Love Me Do," "She Loves You," "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "I Feel Fine," "She's a Woman,"
Great Song(s): "From Me To You," "Long Tall Sally," "I'm Down"
Good Song(s): "Thank You Girl," "Slow Down"

Title: Past Masters Volume II

Importance: Where Volume I covered the early years, this volume covers the experimental years where the Beatles relied less on singles to survive. As the later albums reflected, these songs would range from baroque to obtuse to weird. From songs protesting their very nature of writing love songs ("Paperback Writer" came about because McCartney's aunt asked why he wrote only 'silly love songs') to actual protest songs ("Revolution"), to songs that heralded the divisions breaking the band apart ( "You Know My Name Look Up The Number").
Epic Song(s): "Day Tripper," "We Can Work It Out," "Paperback Writer," "Rain," "Lady Madonna," "Don't Let Me Down"
Great Song(s): "Inner Light," "Hey Jude," "Ballad of John and Yoko," "Old Brown Shoe"
Good Song(s): "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)"

And that's all she wrote... except for the archives from the Anthology series... and the missing 29-minute track of "Helter Skelter"... and all the other things we see we miss every day...

And In The End/
The Love You Take/
Is Equal To the Love/
You Make/
ahhhh ahhhhhhhhhhh!

(pause)

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl/
But she doesn't have a lot to say/
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl/
But she changes from day to day/
I want to tell her that I love her a lot/
But I gotta get a bellyful of wine/
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl/
Someday I'm going to make her mine/
oh yeah/
Someday I'm going to make her mine...

(end of album) (end of Beatles in their lifetime) (insert crying here)