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The Beatles’ albums ranked - submit your ranking

(1) Revolver

(2) White Album

(3) Rubber Soul

(4) Abbey Road

(5) Hard Day’s Night

(6) Let It Be

(7) Sgt. Pepper

(8) Please Please Me

(9) Beatles For Sale

(10) Help!

The fact they made all these within a 10 year span is pretty staggering to me. What a group they were/are.
I think that’s what a lot of people forget - not only the quality but the innovation in just that timescale.
 
I know the Abbey Road medley is just a random jumble of whatever half-finished stuff they had lying around to pad out an album with but that just goes to show how extraordinarily creative they were at their peak, and how good McCartney's ear was.
 
Well I've come full circle on this. In 1982 when i first discovered the White album i would have put it and Revolver right at the top. But as years have gone by I've realised that my regard for those two albums rests on just a few tracks. Then i went through my massive Rubber soul phase, but can barely bring myself to listen to it these days.

Now I rate the early albums above the later ones. Let it Be is poor, does anyone disagree? Abbey Road is mostly annoying, I guess because at heart it is a McCartney album. As discussed on another thread, the White album is a very good EP, as is, imo, Revolver. Revolver might be two eps, a McCartney one and a Lennon/Harrison one.

My favourite Beatles single remains "Strawberry Fields, Forever." I can listen to it endlessly even after all these years.

But back to my favourite albums - and I don't care who disagrees, I won't be arguing.

1. Help!
2. Hard Days Night
3. Revolver
4. With the Beatles.
5. Beatles For Sale

and there I shall leave it.

(there are two albums I haven't mentioned but I wouldn't really rate either).
 
I remember being aware of them in the 80s but they seemed ancient to me. Although weirdly the mid-80s would've been only 20 years after Beatlemania, it was like something really old fashioned to my eyes.
The 40s looked pretty ancient from the point of view of the 60s. The difference was that people listening to the Beatles -- or indeed other popular beat combos, m'lud -- weren't looking back to the music of the 40s. At all.
 
The 40s looked pretty ancient from the point of view of the 60s. The difference was that people listening to the Beatles -- or indeed other popular beat combos, m'lud -- weren't looking back to the music of the 40s. At all.

I suppose the equivalent today would be like looking back at stuff like Girls Aloud or 50 Cent. But they feel like last week to me. #old
 
The 40s looked pretty ancient from the point of view of the 60s. The difference was that people listening to the Beatles -- or indeed other popular beat combos, m'lud -- weren't looking back to the music of the 40s. At all.
Pretty sure they were. In fact plenty of talking heads BBCFour type programmes have 60s musicians saying how when they went to New York you could still see the 30s and 40s jazzers playing the clubs.

Remember also King of the Delta Blues was released in the 60s.
 
Pretty sure they were. In fact plenty of talking heads BBCFour type programmes have 60s musicians saying how when they went to New York you could still see the 30s and 40s jazzers playing the clubs.

Remember also King of the Delta Blues was released in the 60s.
Isn't Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour completely about looking back to previous eras - "it was 20 years ago today", etc? etc. Them and the Kinks - probably lots of other bands I can't think of right now. Edit - Bowie, Small Faces, The Who....
 
Isn't Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour completely about looking back to previous eras - "it was 20 years ago today", etc? etc. Them and the Kinks - probably lots of other bands I can't think of right now. Edit - Bowie, The Who....
Yup. A big part of psychedelia is that nostalgia thing. Nostalgia for old music forms, nostalgia for childhood themes, nursery rhymes, nostalgia for a probably mythical innocence. All used as a contrast to modernity and knowing cynicism.
 
Yup. A big part of psychedelia is that nostalgia thing. Nostalgia for old music forms, nostalgia for childhood themes, nursery rhymes, nostalgia for a probably mythical innocence. All used as a contrast to modernity and knowing cynicism.
That's what I was trying to get at, didn't have the right words, but you did!

I keep think of more - The Band certainly ploughed that furrow too in the US.

And as for Jazz, well Jazz is constantly referring back to its past. And you hinted about the 60s blues revival which was all about looking back to the 30s and the 40s - even bringing back many of the original artists who's careers had ended some time before.
 
The fact they made all these within a 10 year span is pretty staggering to me. What a group they were/are.

This is what i can't get my head around. in fact prior to 1966 I can't actually hear any of the Beatles members' individual styles either, which makes me suspicious they didn't have session musicians working on the down low. A few have come out of the woodwork and made claims that they worked on Beatles records, but to date such an idea still sits in conspiracy theory land.
 
I know the Abbey Road medley is just a random jumble of whatever half-finished stuff they had lying around to pad out an album with but that just goes to show how extraordinarily creative they were at their peak, and how good McCartney's ear was.
I think they’d basically got bored of the whole thing by that point.
 
1 - Sgt Pepper. Day in the Life is probably the best track they ever wrote and nothing else touches the magic of For the Benefit of Mr Kite.

2 - Magical Mystery Tour. Technically an EP but it deserves the second spot.

3 - Revolver. Tomorrow Never Knows is a killer track.

4 - Yellow Submarine. Despite me not being fussed about the title track the rest are crackers.

5 - Rubber Soul. Isn’t it good?

6 - Abbey Road. Despite some great tracks I find there’s a lot of filler.

7 - The Beatles (White Album). Again lots of filler.

And then the rest.
Any album with piggies, blackbird and revolution 9 - not to mention helter-skelter - goes straight in at number 1. Plus it plays well backwards
 
Pretty sure they were. In fact plenty of talking heads BBCFour type programmes have 60s musicians saying how when they went to New York you could still see the 30s and 40s jazzers playing the clubs.

Remember also King of the Delta Blues was released in the 60s.

But most of the kids listening to the 60s musicians weren't listening to the jazzers as well. That's the difference.
 
But most of the kids listening to the 60s musicians weren't listening to the jazzers as well. That's the difference.
Possibly. I have no way of knowing. Although born in the 60s, I was only a wean.

I know my Dad liked Manfred Man, the Small Faces, the Corries, the Clanceys and trad jazz. But he was a bit older than “a kid”.
 
But most of the kids listening to the 60s musicians weren't listening to the jazzers as well. That's the difference.
The "kids" were paying whatever they could afford for genuine American records be they jazz, blues, country, rock n roll - particularly in cities with major docks, and ships coming in from the US, like Liverpool. And rock n roll had existed since the 40s so, sorry, i think the "kids" were listening to music as far back as the '40s, as far as they could get hold of them.
 
The "kids" were paying whatever they could afford for genuine American records be they jazz, blues, country, rock n roll. And rock n roll had existed since the 40s so, sorry, i think the "kids" were listening to music as far back as the '40s, as far as they could get hold of them.

Maybe it's a cultural difference. I grew up in the US.
 
The "kids" were paying whatever they could afford for genuine American records be they jazz, blues, country, rock n roll. And rock n roll had existed since the 40s so, sorry, i think the "kids" were listening to music as far back as the '40s, as far as they could get hold of them.
If you look at the music which occupied the charts, a great many people were listening to utter bilge
 
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