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The Beatles’ albums ranked - submit your ranking

The jazz and blues stuff that influenced the 60s brit artists was pretty obscure and very unlikely to be played on the radio.
I guessing it got (re) discovered via kids digging deeper into what influenced the first wave of rock n rollers and Lonnie donnegan. It's underground status and scarcity probably inspired the obsession with it.
And cos it was pretty awesome music that represented a world a million miles away from drab, conformist post war Britain.
The it gets reimported to the US via the British invasion.
When the beatles first toured the us a reporter asks mc cartney where they going on their day off.
"were going to see muddy waters" he replies.
Reporter follows up with "oh, wheres that?"
 
The jazz and blues stuff that influenced the 60s brit artists was pretty obscure and very unlikely to be played on the radio.
I guessing it got (re) discovered via kids digging deeper into what influenced the first wave of rock n rollers and Lonnie donnegan. It's underground status and scarcity probably inspired the obsession with it.
And cos it was pretty awesome music that represented a world a million miles away from drab, conformist post war Britain.
The it gets reimported to the US via the British invasion.
When the beatles first toured the us a reporter asks mc cartney where they going on their day off.
"were going to see muddy waters" he replies.
Reporter follows up with "oh, wheres that?"
The Lomax's field recordings jump-started the revivals, afaik. And the elder Lomax wasn't above exploiting his "discoveries'.

The American music press seemed quite bemused at first, with the love shown for the blues.

Lomax the younger wasn't impressed when the genre went electric, though.
 
1 Rubber Soul

2 Sgt Pepper

3 Revolver

4 Help.

5 Abbey Road

6 White Album

7 Let It Be

8 Please Please Me

9 Hard Days Night

10 With The Beatles

11 Beatles For Sale.

Elder brother and two elder sisters were buying those albums during the 60s. Brother still owns the mono versions of Please Please Me and With The Beatles he bought back in 63.
As a kid back then, our house was full of music. Parents liked all the pop stuff. Mum, Dad and two elder sisters no longer with us, but hearing old songs from that era always brings back fond and happy memories.
 
The Beatles Albums Ranked. By me.

This is my ranking. Do yours.

1. Rubber Soul
This where the Beatles come into their own as songwriters and musicians. They had great songs before this, but not, I'd argue, truly great albums. I think it's their first not to have any covers. Earlier albums saw them rushing records out alongside their busy touring schedules. Here they seem to have had more time to spend on a finished product. (Although, charmingly, there are mistakes left in. McCartney said to Rick Ruben in McCartney 321 that their attitude was that if George Martin didn't notice, it got left in).

Rubber Soul is their stoners' album. They are smoking hash and including more countercultural themes into their work. There is more attention spent on their parts, and McCartney's bass throughout is terrific. The fuzz bass on Think For Yourself is great.

I'd argue too that Lennon's songwriting is at its peak here. In My Life is a masterpiece.

Right from the start there are surprises, including the deliberately misleading metre on the guitar intro to Drive My Car. It's hard to tell where the downbeat is once bass and drum are in, but it's certainly not where you'd initially expected from the guitar lines.

2. Revolver

For decades I'd have said this was my favourite, and had I done this list another day I might have put it at number 1. It's their best psychedelic album. I love the guitar sound. They were playing a new Vox tube and solid state composite amp at the time (they used it in Sgt Peppers too), and their guitar tone is beautiful.

The harmonies, by which I don't just mean vocal harmonies, are the best there had been in pop music until that time. Listen to the riff on Harrison's I Want To Tell You, and when the vocals come in, the piano hammers out a wonderful discord.

The lyrics are much more countercultural now, full of drug references and an urgency to share a different way of seeing the world. We've got backwards guitar, Indian inspired vocal ornamentation, and an end to side two that must have been a sonic shock to many Beatles fans at the time.

I think this is the peak of McCartney as a songwriter. In my view, Here, There and Everywhere is his best song.

OK, Harrison moaning about tax might not be very becoming, but it's a great song and right from the opening count-in you know you're in for something special.

3. Abbey Road

Lennon famously didn't rate it. He thought it was too slick. I kind of see what he means, but it's got Harrison's great songs on it. McCartney's bass on Something is a masterclass in how to serve a song. Busy when it needs to be, leaving space where that's called for, supporting the harmony in interesting ways that never detracts from the melody.

There's also I Want You (She's So Heavy). That mesmerising riff and the inclusion of non standard (for rock) chords.

Even the novelty songs sit nicely in the running order. Ringo can sing all he likes about Octopuses. He's Ringo fucking Starr.

4. Let It Be

Production wise, a bit of a mess. Some of the playing is sloppy. (Lennon's bass work on The Long and Winding Road is not up to scratch. He is clearly loaded, and has checked out). Spector's string arrangements are syrupy. They'd have been far better letting George Martin do it. But that all said, it's great. They're jamming with their old friend Billy Preston, and they're a damn good rock band.

5. Sgt Peppers

It's difficult to place this one. The cultural significance it embodies is literally phenomenal. But am I going to stick it on the turntable of an afternoon? Probably not. But then I was 2 years old when it came out. I don't "get" it in anything like the way listeners would have at the time. I can though appreciate the soundscape they sculpted, all on a four track. I've got more recording power in a free app that came with my phone that they had to record that groundbreaking album on!

Listen to Lucy In the Sky. The bass line totally lifts the chords. The disorientating tonal centre Lennon was going for is enhanced beyond measure by McCartney's bass. I remember as a youngster knowing the chords in the song book I'd bought were nothing like I was hearing on the record. And that's mainly to do with what McCartney does.

They wanted Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane on the album, but the record company had demanded singles that weren't going to be reproduced on an album. (Interestingly, their US label, Capitol, had the opposite opinion). I think it would have benefited the album to have had those songs and maybe not a couple of others. But taken as a body of work, the album and that double A-side is quite an outpouring of creativity.

6. The White Album

See other thread. Flawed but fascinating.

7. Beatles For Sale

Their songwriting is becoming more reflective and starting to move away from boy meets girl love songs. Still replete with covers, but an album I will stick on the player in it's entirely.

8. All the others.
I concur.

Although, I also have a soft spot for Beatles Live at the Star Club Hamburg :thumbs:
 
Jennaonthebeach said:
I love how ouirdeaux has completely ignored me on here like I am some sort of unperson. Does s/he have me on ignore? Wonder why?
Without wanting to cause a rumpus, I have to disagree - please see post #89 where they reply to you. You may even recall replying back in post #95.
 
This track backed by Ringo and Lennon is arguably more interesting and forward looking than what either of them was doing at the time:



I have to say I prefer avant-garde music when it's done by people who took the time to learn how to do normal music first. Your Scott Walkers and your Sun Ras.
 
Ah, there are two meanings of the word “producer”. I meant the film term, since I see the Ruttles as more than just a record.
Ah, there are two meanings of the word “producer”. I meant the film term, since I see the Ruttles as more than just a record.
Oh I did take that into consideration...
Lorne Michaels (Saturday Night Live etc...) company were the producers..
Harrison had no official credit as a producer as far as I can see..
He had a supportive role no doubt..
Yes - I too see The Rutles as more than just a record..
Their genesis (nowt to do with Daleks :)) was back in 1975 on Rutland Weekend Television..
 
I have to say I prefer avant-garde music when it's done by people who took the time to learn how to do normal music first. Your Scott Walkers and your Sun Ras.
It’s arguable that she did - working with John Cage in the 50s. I think she gets shoved into a certain box I.e. riding the coat tails of a Beatle, when she was pretty successful ploughing her own individual artistic furrow long before. I think it’s only now she’s starting to be recognised as the innovator she was - even if her stuff is pretty Marmite 😀
 
Try this some time.

Wake up and play "coming up" by Paul McCartney one day then have fun for the rest of the day trying to get that high pitched "coming up" vocal out of your head.

Coming up :D
 
i was winding up my final school year when Sgt Pepper was released. i found The Beatles songs hugely attractive, mainly due to their chart singles, which got (a lot) of pirate radio airtime. However, much of their work was unknown to me - my family had no record player (we were council estate not well offs) and dad was antagonistic to pop culture full stop, so forbade anything that smacked of 20th C modernity.. i think it was Lucy in the Sky which i heard first, its magical soundscape drifting up into my classroom from the floor below one dinner time when things had become loose in school due to rapidly approaching end of term. What the actual Fuck is this strange and enchanting gloriousness that i hear from what had been moptop safe and cuddlies!! It was a transformative moment. Many things changed in my life thereafter - consciousness accelerated and expanded in the redcogs head. When i fianally got hold of a grammaphone and a copy of SPLHCB and played it til the grooves were vanishing i was set fair on a path towards questioning almost every aspect of traditional life and culture in south west England and the world. Even the more simple 'message' of 'She's Leaving Home' was actually about some real life experience other than the much more commonplace love kissie kissies and marriage type songs which still prevailed. i had finally understood that lyrics and writing and literature and music had meaning and importance. Thanks Beatles. Thanks the 1960s.

Just to finish, obviously SPLHCB is number uno for me. but i love all the cannon. Also, people should know i speak with some authority in this field - in the 1990s i won a pub quiz on the subject of The Beatles, scoring 20 out of a possible 20, beating my nearest rival by half a point (he was a university lecturer no less!) because i gave the full title of Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite in answer to some question about said song, where the lecturer rather lazily had only offered the truncated Mr Kite! Obviously therefore my judgements on this matter will carry way more weight than anybody elses :thumbs: 🤣
 
Even the more simple 'message' of 'She's Leaving Home' was actually about some real life experience other than the much more commonplace love kissie kissies and marriage type songs which still prevailed.
I’ve was looking at something the other day that thought its message was “conservative”. It isn’t. It’s a documentary story about a young woman moving out of her parents’ house to be independent, something that lots of young women were doing at the time. It documents both the daughter and the parents’ sides of the story. There’s nothing “conservative” about it. It’s kitchen sink.
 
I love how ouirdeaux has completely ignored me on here like I am some sort of unperson. Does s/he have me on ignore? Wonder why?

Sorry, didn't mean to. What have I ignored? I can't see anything since our exchange about whether awareness of American 40s-50s music might have differed by location.
 
Obviously l have heard of the Beatles but I have never really sat down and listened to them.
I had/have the john peel fundraiser LP Sgt Pepper Knew My Father, and that was/is genuinely the most familiar I am with their songs.

SO. . . . just earlier this year I bought a Sgt Pepper (Beatles) CD from a charity shop for 50p. It's quite strange hearing the original tracks and not the covers. I was so used to Frank Sidebottom doing Mr Kite that it seems really odd to have Lennon doing it for real. . . but it's alright. Good work guys.
I taped a few more Beatles songs off my dad when I visited . . . also ok, and rather jolly accomplished for boys of their age. Good job. Not really my bag, but I can appreciate the mastery

Oh. I also heard Maxwell's Silver Hammer for the first time yesterday. I always thought the title sounded like something by Big Black or similar to Sonic Youth's 'come and smash me said the boy with the magic penis' . . . . but it doesn't, it's like an oompa song. I don't really like it.

I can't put any albums in order because I have only heard one so far.
 
Oh. I also heard Maxwell's Silver Hammer for the first time yesterday. I always thought the title sounded like something by Big Black or similar to Sonic Youth's 'come and smash me said the boy with the magic penis' . . . . but it doesn't, it's like an oompa song. I don't really like it.
That’s McCartney for ya.
 
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