...as picked by lil 'ol Sammy Jo here. It had to happen, I guess...
My Top 5 List of Beatles Albums.
5 'Help!' (1965)
The soundtrack to the movie. There's so much ground covered on this platter. From the title track (a plea from John Lennon who was going through a bout of depression at the time), 'The Night Before', 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away', 'Another Girl', 'You're Going To Lose That Girl', 'Ticket To Ride', 'Yesterday'...all wonderful songs.
Cool movie too!
4 'Abbey Road' (1969)
Iconic album. Iconic title. Groundbreaking in it's own way. One of the first, if not THE first, albums recorded on a transistor based desk, rather than the usual, for the time, valves. One of the first acts to embrace the Moog Synthesizer, one of the first to string along a bunch of songs to make a suite of music.
Some great, late era songs on here. 'Come Together', 'Something', 'Oh Darling', 'Octopus's Garden' 'I Want You...', 'Here Comes The Sun' and THAT Suite. Fitting ending to The Beatles career.
3 'Rubber Soul' (1965)
Wonderful album. It has 'Drive My Car' ('Beep, Beep, Yeah!'), 'Norwegian Wood..', 'You Won't See Me', 'Nowhere Man', 'Think For Yourself', 'The Word' (my fav on this album), 'Michelle', 'In My Life' and 'Run For Your life' (my other fav on this platter). At this point, The Beatles were banging out albums with very little fat on them. Pretty much every tune is a must listen.
2 'Revolver' (1966)
It's a tough call between No 2 and No 3. There's been many a pub 'debate' over this. To me, it depends on the day and what way the wind is blowing. Today, naturally, it's is blowing in this direction.
Clear production, some great songs, and wonderful performances. What have we got? Well, there's 'Taxman', 'Eleanor Rigby', 'I'm Only Sleeping', 'Here, There & Everywhere', 'Yellow Submarine', 'She Said She Said', 'Good Day Sunshine', 'And Your Bird Can Sing', 'For No One', 'Got To Get You Into My Life' and my personal fav, 'Tomorrow Never Knows'.
1 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (1967)
As an album, it works really well. The premise of the whole thing was that the Beatles had stopped touring and decided to just do studio work. They had the novel idea of 'sending the album on tour' Cool idea, I think you will find. So that was the start.
Honestly, for a 40 minute album, I play it all the way through, never skipping a track. It's brilliant. The best album ever? Big claim. Maybe.
We have the title track, 'With A Little Help From My Friends', 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds', 'She's Leaving Home', 'When I'm Sixty Four', 'A Day In The Life' as the most well known, I guess, but I love 'Within, Without You' and 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite' too...and who could forget 'Getting Better'? Oh...so that's the whole album then? Yep!
The album comes out and, just a few days later, Jimi Hendrix opens his show with the title track....in front of a Beatle...can't ask for any better accolade than that.
So...there you have it. MY take on the Fab Four. Your fav not on there?
@rachelsj Interesting! I just read up some stuff on Jimmy Nicols - the stand in drummer. Quite interesting! Apparently the debauchery in Holland was quite something...between him and John Lennon...
..oh, and the track 'Getting Better' (from '...Pepper..') is based on a saying that he'd used to say to Paul Mc...
@SammyJo Agreed, their all-time, and arguably the #1 all-time album ever put out. I've got a personal attachment to the album and in particular, the single of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
@BiasForAction Interesting! Well....I am planning on doing something for the 'White Album' soon. I did this list for 'The Best Of Guns' N Roses : Use Your Illusion' collective, stating there was too much chaff on them, so I condensed it down to a single double album. I'll try to do that with the 'White Album' too. Just...takes time! Lol!
@gurlwatcher22 'Beatles For Sale' is a good album....the '1965' one, not heard of. The problem with them - and the Stones - are that different regions, their record companies screwed around with tracklistings and album titles in those regions that it's hard to know which album is which..
@ArtieKat Sadly, not in their top 5....I think I had 'A Hard Day's Night' at No 6, then 'The White Album'....too much music, not enough quality. Actually, I've edited down the 30 tracks to just 17 that I regularly play....53 minutes....not a double album.
As a lifelong fan, it's so tough to rank them. White Album, Pepper, and Revolver have all been in my top spot. Plus, the truncated US versions of things like Revolver muddied the water a bit. I also prefer the mono version of Sgt. Pepper; there's so many neat little things they did and the band was there for those mixes. They were not there for the stereo!
