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.
) was back in 1975 on Rutland Weekend Television..
