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Ranking the Beatles albums 12-1 (1 Viewer)

Alex P Keaton said:
Fantastic writeup overall.   I love this album.   Just listened to the whole thing again over the weekend because of this thread.  Reactions to your writeup:

1.  The opening chord.  My cousin is a really amazing bass guitarist who loves the Beatles.  He's the guy who really got me hooked on Harrison.  Anyway, he's talked with me a lot about he and his buddies sitting around trying to match the opening chord.  I loved hearing him talk about it, because it convinced me he was both passionate about and dedicated to music.   

2.  If I Fell......has always been one of my favorite songs for whatever reason.  Mrs APK and I sing along with all music, but in particular we like to goof around with different harmonies, sometimes flip-flopping who takes the melody and who sings harmony.  Sometimes we flip in the middle of the song (which is annoying).   This is the one single song I have the most trouble sticking to the harmony.  It's not even close.  And it pisses me off.  Even Mrs APK, who is a far superior trained singer than me, struggles with it.   It annoys us both.  But we still love the song.

3.   Anytime At All.  Always enjoyed this song, particularly the way he pronounces it "At...Tall" with a hard "T" sound.   Gives it more force.  It brings up both positive and negative nostalgia for me, because it's one of my random guilty pleasure karaoke songs (positive) and I vividly recall being decently drunk at a karaoke spot in Chicago and hitting on some girl I met that night, punctuating the point by singing this song.   Unfortunately, I was married (no kids yet) and made a complete ### out of myself because there were like 7 or 8 people there with me and most knew my wife.   Needless to say, a great reminder (negative) of alcohol intake leading to poor judgment.  But.....plus side, the song was a hit!!   Ah, the good old days weren't always good.

Keep the writeups coming.  Love to hear your take on these albums and songs.  
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I got together with a couple of buddies of mine and we did the opening chord and it was close, but not quite.  Story of every musicians life who ever played it.  I think what George Martin played on piano is our missing piece.

If I Fell, harmonies are REALLY hard.  Especially John's bit, IMO.So exquisite how they fit together.  As I said, this is a quirky little song

Any Time At All is also one that I really like.  I like how the song starts with Ringo.  Also love the part "when the sun has faded away, I'll try to make it shine...."  I also like the solo which has always sounded a bit unique to my ears.  I am a bassist and really a strictly rhythm guitar player so I'm not really good at breaking that down.  Other than hearing George Martin and Harrison playing together, it still seems to be something a bit strange and unique in it.  Better musicians than me feel free to comment.

 
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Guido Merkins said:
#6 The Beatles

The most famous double album of them all.  Quickly dubbed “The White Album” because of its white cover, this album was meant to the be antithesis of Sgt Pepper and it was.  Pepper was put together, the White Album was a mess.  Pepper was colorful, the White Album was dark.  Pepper was high fidelity, the White Album was raw.

The Beatles got back from India in 1968 and decided to make an album.  With Brian Epstein having died the year before, suddenly the Beatles were cast in the unfamiliar position of having to play business man.  Before, their only job was to make music and “be Beatles.”  Now, business disagreements found their way into the studio and their was tension.  George described the sessions for the White Album as the “rot beginning to set in.” 

Their time in India resulted in them having A LOT of songs.  The decision was made, therefore, to record them all and put them on an album together.  Since there were so many, this resulted in a double album.  Just to get this out of the way, I DO NOT think that it should have been one single album.  That’s a common exercise among Beatles fans and it’s fun to speculate, but the fact is, there are too many really good songs to make one single album.  Yeah, you could trim several, but that’s STILL too much for a single album.  I’d actually be more for putting other White Album era songs on the album instead.  Wild Honey Pie is crap and Sour Milk Sea would have been a much better choice, for example. Also, the reason why the album is loved is because of it’s uniqueness as a double album in their catalogue.  In many ways, the Beatles set the stage for many double albums in the future.  They would mostly all be kind of messy, diverse sets of music.  BTW, on the remixes of the White Album in 2018, the Esher Demos were released.  Well worth a listen as the Beatles went through most of the songs for the White Album in demo form before recording the album.  It’s almost like having “The White Album, Unplugged.”  Good stuff.

As krista kind of hit early in her Beatles song rankings, the White Album has some less than excellent songs.  Revolution #9 and Wild Honey Pie aren’t even “songs” per se.  Wild Honey Pie is, at least, short.  Revolution #9 is too long and a kind of sound collage.  Not a big fan of Piggies either with all the snorting.  It’s the only one of the 4 George Harrison songs on this album that I don’t love.  Honey Pie is another Paul 20s style jazzy number.  Like the guitar, but not sure why Paul needs another one of these.  Rocky Raccoon sounds unfinished and not that great anyway, but it’s passable.

The other issue I have with the album is that it almost sounds like each of the Beatles first solo album.  Not nearly as many harmonies as is typical on a Beatles release.  Like each of them are using the others as a backup band.

Despite these minor complaints, the fact is, there are A LOT of good songs on this album.  I want to say I read an article that claims that a poll taken of Beatles fans consistently puts the White Album at the top of the list as fans favorite album.    That really doesn’t surprise me because the album has something for everyone.  The music is so diverse as to not be believable.  Jazz, rock, country, blues, spirituals, psychedelic, acid rock, avant guard, photo metal, reggae, folk…….it has it all.  The sound is definitely more raw than Sgt Pepper, but that was the point.  To be a departure from Pepper.  Even the white cover was supposed to be the opposite of the colorful Pepper cover.

The more well known tracks like Back In The USSR, Helter Skelter, Ob la Di Ob la Da, Birthday, Blackbird and the FANTASTIC While My Guitar Gently Weeps featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar keep the album moving, but there are so many great lesser known tracks.  I’m So Tired, Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Mother Nature’s Son, Sexy Sadie, and Savoy Truffle, among others.  

Some lesser known tracks that I really like are Long Long Long, which might be George’s first song about God (the 2018 mix really did wonders for this song, you can now hear it).  I love the gentleness of the song.  Love the lyrics.  Love George’s voice.  Happiness Is A Warm Gun by John is another great one.  Like 3 songs in one.  Dark mood is great, great John vocal, and some harmonies on this one.  I also really like Paul’s I Will.  Great guitar.  Great vocal.  Classic McCartney.  And John’s song to his mother Julia is fantastic.  Great guitar playing, lyrics and vocals.

Overall, this is yet again, another Beatles masterpiece.  Yeah, it’s messy and flawed, but it works because that’s what it’s supposed to be.  As Paul said, “It’s great….It’s the bloody Beatles White Album….It sold.”

  1. Back In The USSR - Paul
  2. Dear Prudence - John
  3. Glass Onion - John
  4. Ob La Di, Ob La Da - Paul
  5. Wild Honey Pie - Paul
  6. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill - John
  7. While My Guitar Gently Weeps - George
  8. Happiness Is A Warm Gun - John
  9. Martha My Dear - Paul
  10. I’m So Tired - John
  11. Blackbird - Paul
  12. Piggies - George
  13. Rocky Raccoon - Paul
  14. Don’t Pass Me By - Ringo
  15. Why Don’t We Do It In The Road? - Paul
  16. I Will - Paul
  17. Julia - John
  18. Birthday - Paul
  19. Yer Blues - John
  20. Mother Nature’s Son - Paul
  21. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - John
  22. Sexy Sadie - John
  23. Helter Skelter - Paul
  24. Long Long Long - George
  25. Revolution 1 - John
  26. Honey Pie - Paul
  27. Savoy Truffle - George
  28. Cry Baby Cry - John
  29. Revolution 9 - no vocals, but a John song
  30. Good Night - Ringo
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I have a hard time of where to rank this. It has some of my favs on it but also has alot of their worst songs too.

My fav lesser known songs from here are I Will, I'm so Tired,Everybodys got Something... and Cry Baby Cry.

 
Raging weasel said:
I have a hard time of where to rank this. It has some of my favs on it but also has alot of their worst songs too.

My fav lesser known songs from here are I Will, I'm so Tired,Everybodys got Something... and Cry Baby Cry.
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I actually think that's why there is such a divergence of opinion on it.

One of the things I would love to see after I am done is everyone's rankings.  My guess is the White Album will probably be one of the more polarizing.  

It truly has some of their best work and also some of their absolute worst.  I don't think any other Beatles album has more filler than the White Album and I don't think it's particularly close.

 
Guido Merkins said:
OK, 2 posts today, the next album then a preview of the Final 4

 

#5 A Hard Day’s Night

This may also be another surprise, but yes, I think A Hard Day’s Night is better than the White Album.  I think A Hard Day’s Night is the Beatles first masterpiece.  I think 97% of all artists don’t have an album even close to this level of quality.  And I don’t care that it’s one of the early albums or the “Beatlemania” albums.  It’s unbelievably good and underrated as a set of songs and has rarely been equalled by anyone.

In 1964, things were going very well for the Beatles.  They had achieved a world wide celebrity that no other pop group or artist had ever achieved.  They were everywhere.  And yet, people kept waiting for them to flop.  Why?  Because things of this size ALWAYS flopped.  Nothing could burn this bright for long.  It took too much energy.  So, in an effort to cash in, somebody had an idea to make a movie.  Low budget and a quick payday.  That it would be a good film was never considered.  Just another bad rock n roll film that the kids would eat up.  Only problem is, the movie WAS good.  For many reasons it might be considered the best rock n roll movie of all time, but one of the main reasons was the music.

Under tremendous pressure to create songs, John and Paul wrote 13 songs, enough to fill the entire album.  With the tremendous pressure you would think it would show, but surprisingly, it didn’t.  13 well crafted songs and written by Lennon and McCartney.  A Hard Day’s Night is a QUANTUM leap from the Please Please Me and With the Beatles.  The growth of them as musicians and songwriters was unreal.  IMO, if you thought the Beatles were still a flash in the pan after hearing these songs, you were missing the forest through the trees.

No mention of this album would be complete without that famous chord that opens the album.  It has astounded and confused people since in was created.  There are sites dedicated to this search. Youtube also has a much of videos. Pretty sure the guitars are George on a 12 string playing an F with the G on top and bottom, Paul playing a D on bass and John playing Dsus4.  But George Martin also has some piano on there and I’m not sure exactly what that is.  Just a fantastic sound.

The first 7 songs are all in the movie.  The last 6 songs were songs that they wrote during the sessions that they recorded for the album.  They would do the same thing in 1965 for the Help album as well.

I’ll really say that I like every song on this album.  When I Get Home is probably the shakiest, but it has it’s moments.  If John had found another line other than “I’m gonna love her till the cows come home”, I probably would like the song better.  Also, I’ll Cry Instead John has a “chip on his shoulder bigger than his feet”, which is a terrible line, but otherwise I think a good song with a GREAT bridge.  A Hard Day’s Night with the great energy, that opening chord, and I love how John sings the verses and Paul sings the bridge.  Great solo.  George Harrison and George Martin doing it together again and the fantastic outdo with the 12 string Rickenbacker that the Byrds would love so much and use so often.  And I Love Her with the great acoustic sound, great vocals and how the song changes key right before the solo, which is kind of unique.  Can’t Buy Me Love is a classic Beatles rocker.  Everything about it is great.  Solo, vocals, Ringo banging away.

If I Fell probably can’t be considered a closet classic, because it’s too well known, but I want to focus on it for a second.  Seems like just a love song, but it’s a quirky little song.  Consider, it has no chorus, just verses and 2 bridges.  The intro isn’t repeated anywhere else in the song and as far as the key of the intro related to the key of the rest of the song, it’s kind of ambiguous.  You don’t really get your footing under you until you get to “…just, holding hands” and it settles into D Major.  The harmonies are exquisite….I don’t use that word lightly.  Just a very delicate and beautiful arrangement.  As usual, sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s singing lead and who’s singing harmony.  John sings the intro and after that, to me, it sounds more like Paul on lead, but anyway, just a beautiful arrangement and far beyond anything they had done up until now.

I also LOVE Things We Said Today with the great acoustic guitar opening, great Paul vocal and the jarring difference between the verses and the bridge.  Great lyrics about days gone by.  I also love You Can’t Do That with the great Lennon vocal and George’s great intro on acoustic guitar, but otherwise, it’s John playing lead (love the kind of sloppy, chord solo.  Fits perfectly) and with the great Wilson Picket style cowbell.  Lennon singing about jealousy again.  Lastly, the final song, the Beatles go away from the screaming shouter to end an album and go to I’ll Be Back, another song about Lennon heartbreak and betrayal, but what a beautiful arrangement.  Love the little lead acoustic licks that are at the beginning, throughout the song and during the outdo.  Great lyrics.  Love the “I thought that you would realize….) part.  Would have been perfectly at home on Rubber Soul, IMO.   

Needless to say, this kind of quality in 1964 was unheard of.  This kind of quality was almost unheard of regardless of year and regardless of artist.  The early albums don’t get as much respect as the middle or later period for the Beatles, but I think A Hard Day’s Night belongs with those albums and that’s why it’s in my top 5. 

Track Listing

  1. A Hard Days Night
  2. I Should Have Known Better
  3. If I Fell
  4. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
  5. And I Love Her
  6. Tell Me Why
  7. Can’t Buy Me Love
  8. Any Time At All
  9. I’ll Cry Instead
  10. Things We Said Today
  11. When I Get Home
  12. You Can’t Do That
  13. I’ll Be Back
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When CDs first became a thing it was hard to find a Beatles CD,they sold so fast. This was their first album I ever bought/heard on disc and it blew me away.

 
Raging weasel said:
When CDs first became a thing it was hard to find a Beatles CD,they sold so fast. This was their first album I ever bought/heard on disc and it blew me away.
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That's one thing about the Beatles.  They sell.  They sold in the 60s and in the 80s and they still sell now.  Albums, tapes, CDs, downloads.  There is a reason why Apple paid an absolute fortune to have them on iTunes.  They remain extremely popular.  People have been predicting that they would start fading for decades now and it somehow keeps going.  

That's why I just think there is very little argument that the Beatles are the greatest pop/rock artists of all time.  They remain extremely popular and haven't recorded a note together in 50 years.  Their career was only really 8 years.  Elvis and Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones recorded for multiple decades and have so much more product, yet people still buy Beatles more so than any of the others.  

 
Heck I want to say the Beatles were one of the top selling artists of the 90s with the Anthology project and the 2000s with the 1 Album

 
wikkidpissah said:
i heartily agree. as i've told before, my BFF bailed me thru some hardship almost a decade ago when my health ended my career by inviting me to move back east and occupy his carriage house in exchange for daycaring his 3yo (dad was almost 60). a solid bassist, he was happy to have the noodling company as well. he practiced jazz bass for hrs each day, only doing rock/pop when there were new songs to work out for his weekender band. i have a limited vocal range but we worked around it and we were able to find ways to jam on his favorite songs. the first thing we did was he took me all the way thru Hard Day's Night.
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I hope this isn't the same bassist who stole your songs. 

 
I'm excited to get to the top four, because, as you say, the top four seem to be relatively staid for most fans, and, up until about 2 years ago, I would have probably agreed.  But, my tastes in the Beatles have shifted as I've listened to their music more than ever before, and my top 4 are more than likely not going to be chalk.  I've never really ranked the Beatles albums before.  I'm excited to sit down and really think it through and see where things lie.  

 
Shaft41 said:
I'm excited to get to the top four, because, as you say, the top four seem to be relatively staid for most fans, and, up until about 2 years ago, I would have probably agreed.  But, my tastes in the Beatles have shifted as I've listened to their music more than ever before, and my top 4 are more than likely not going to be chalk.  I've never really ranked the Beatles albums before.  I'm excited to sit down and really think it through and see where things lie.  
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My top one has never changed.  The others have moved around over the years, but my top 5 has been my top 5 not for probably 20 years

 
Guido Merkins said:
My top one has never changed.  The others have moved around over the years, but my top 5 has been my top 5 not for probably 20 years
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There are no wrong answers when ranking these final 4.   As the OP discussed on the last page, Rubber Soul May never be considered as great as Sgt Pepper but it is fantastic.  I don’t know that Rubber Soul has moved up to the 1 spot for me but it has become one of my favorites.   

The Beatles will always be the greatest rock band.   These final four albums are all the proof you need.  

 
#4 Abbey Road

So above we discuss the disaster that was the Get Back project.  George Martin thought he would never work with the Beatles again.  So he was surprised when Paul called him and asked if he could produce one more album with them.  Martin asked if John was in, Paul said yes.  He also asked if he would be allowed to actually produce the album.  Once again, Paul said yes, so Martin agreed.  That’s how we have Abbey Road.

The divisions between the Beatles were still very real.  They appeared in they studio together not nearly as often.  John didn’t like Paul’s idea of the B side being this sort of suite of song fragments, so he wanted the A side to just be songs.  Of course, once the project started John seemed to get into the B side as well as he contributed several fragments for the suite.  John, of course being John, would dismiss the whole thing later, but at the time he willingly participated.  Having said that, tensions were much lower for Abbey Road than for Get Back.  Maybe because they knew it would be the last one for a time.  I’m not sure any of them knew it would actually be the last one, but they thought it would be the last one for now.  Maybe because they stayed a bit more away from each other.  There is this great story of Paul coming in first thing every morning before any of the other Beatles to record vocals for Oh Darling.  He wanted to get the vocal just right, but maybe didn’t want to annoy the others, so he would do it before then would arrive.

The album also features the absolute two best songs that George Harrison had every written for the Beatles (and maybe ever) in Here Comes The Sun and Something.  Both feature great guitar playing, lyrics, vocals, and drumming.  Something being about Patti Harrison, who seemed to get love songs written about her a lot and Here Comes The Sun about a bright sunny day where George didn’t have to go to the studio so he relaxed and wrote a song.

There are so many high points on this album.  As with any album, that are a couple of lower points, but they aren’t that bad.  More just kind of average for a work of this quality.  The worst moments, IMO, are Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by Paul and Octopus’s Garden by Ringo.  Both have their moments, but compared to the rest you could say they are weaker.  I do love the guitar solo on Octopus’s Garden and Ringo’s vocal in typical Ringo fashion kind of makes me smile.  Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, the music doesn’t match the subject matter, which is kind of a funny juxtaposition, but other than that, pretty harmless and not very inspiring.  George probably had 10 better songs than this at the time that could have gone on the album, but George only gets 2 songs, as usual,

As far as the great stuff, really it’s the rest.  The best thing on the album is the Side B suite from You Never Give Me Your Money to The End.  It takes you for a ride through several styles of music and they fit them all together with chord changes and fading.  It works extremely well.  I like the rock and roll of Mean Mr Mustard going into Polythene Pam.  You Never Give Me Your Money (which is about Allen Klein) that fades into the gorgeous harmonies of Sun King.  The best bit is at the end with Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.  Paul starts it off with the classic Paul piano ballad on Golden Slumbers, which goes into Carry That Weight which quotes You Never Give Me Your Money before going to The End which has this great Ringo drum solo (a first and only in his entire career.  He hated drum solos) and dueling guitar solos by Paul, George, and John, in that order ending on a single note and “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”, which is the perfect line to end the Beatles career with.  Like the Beatles calling their own shot. 

Come Together great vocal and bass playing. Oh Darling, great vocal by Paul.  I Want You(She’s So Heavy) is really the heaviest thing the Beatles ever did.  Because is a beautiful 3 part harmony plus great harpsichord sound.   If I had to pick an under the radar song, I would pick Because and I Want You(She’s So Heavy). 
It is the most unique sounding Beatles album because they went away from the all tube consoles they were working on before, so it results in a more mellow sound.  To me, Abbey Road sounds completely contemporary and never ages.

So why isn’t it #1??  Really, it’s just the excellence above it.  There is really nothing wrong with the album.  Every album has weak points and this one has fewer than most.  There is nothing quite like Side B in anything else the Beatles had ever done.  In some ways, it’s the most rewarding Beatles album to listen to because when you consider what was going on at the time in the band, to create a work of this quality is kind of amazing.  It’s a stone cold classic and a masterpiece. 

Track Listing

  1. Come Together
  2. Something
  3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
  4. Oh Darling
  5. Octopus’s Garden
  6. I Want You(She’s So Heavy)
  7. Here Comes The Sun
  8. Because
  9. You Never Give Me Your Money
  10. Sun King
  11. Mean Mr Mustard
  12. Polythene Pam
  13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
  14. Golden Slumbers
  15. Carry That Weight
  16. The End
  17. Her Majesty
 
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I don't want to overstate this but I wonder if the Beatles legacy would be slightly different if Abbey Road never got made.  They still would have been the greatest band ever, but I feel like the narrative would have been that they hit a high with Sgt. Pepper's and couldn't maintain it. Abbey Road shows they could still produce that level of work even though the band was coming apart.

 
Tom Hagen said:
I don't want to overstate this but I wonder if the Beatles legacy would be slightly different if Abbey Road never got made.  They still would have been the greatest band ever, but I feel like the narrative would have been that they hit a high with Sgt. Pepper's and couldn't maintain it. Abbey Road shows they could still produce that level of work even though the band was coming apart.
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Hmmm...Interesting.

It's impossible to know for sure, of course.  But I've always taken Abbey Road as the Beatles kind of saying "top this."  I think their legacy was assured by then, but maybe you are right. Adding another masterpiece and it being their last work does kind of add to the mystique.  

Despite what they were all feeling at the time about each other, they all really cared about "The Beatles" as an entity and they wanted to protect it and they were proud of it.  It is totally unsurprising to me that they wouldn't want their last statement to be a failed project.  

 
Side B: I'm a percussionist, but on the side of concert band/orchestral (tympani) with just a bit of rock/jazz mixed in (big part of my life through the end of college, including years of teaching private lessons).  As I've shared somewhere in these threads, I had this vision in my mind, while listening to Side B - a concert band, split to two sides/wings of the stage.  In the middle of the stage, a standard 'rock' band (guitars, drummer), some strings, a small choir.  In the two corners of the balcony, solo trumpet players. I always loved listening to Side B while imagining it being played by this ensemble.

And thanks for this thread!  I love reading about the background as well as the musicianship, such as the recent opening chord discussion.  Those creative interactions by musicians bring back great memories.

 
tri-man 47 said:
Side B: I'm a percussionist, but on the side of concert band/orchestral (tympani) with just a bit of rock/jazz mixed in (big part of my life through the end of college, including years of teaching private lessons).  As I've shared somewhere in these threads, I had this vision in my mind, while listening to Side B - a concert band, split to two sides/wings of the stage.  In the middle of the stage, a standard 'rock' band (guitars, drummer), some strings, a small choir.  In the two corners of the balcony, solo trumpet players. I always loved listening to Side B while imagining it being played by this ensemble.

And thanks for this thread!  I love reading about the background as well as the musicianship, such as the recent opening chord discussion.  Those creative interactions by musicians bring back great memories.
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That would be amazing!!

 
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#3 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

In 1967, for the first time in the Beatles career, they had one thing that they never had before, time, as much time as they wanted to create their next album.  Starting out with an idea to do songs about their hometown resulted in, maybe the greatest single ever released in Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever, ironically the first Beatles single that didn’t go to #1 since Love Me Do.  A great way to start off the sessions.

Paul comes up with an idea to do an album as a performance by a fictious band called Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  He felt it would free them to do whatever they wanted instead of just doing what the Beatles would ordinarily do.  It worked, because they threw it all out there.  Everything they had learned up until then went into the new album and it took 6 months to record it, an absolute ETERNITY in those days.  People in the press thought they had dried up and had nothing.  Boy were they wrong.

Sgt Pepper presents itself as an attempt to make the first concept album.  Although it’s really only tied together by the title track and the reprise, somehow it does work.  The songs do sound like they go together somehow.  There are various sound effects throughout like the band tuning up and crowd noises that give the illusion of a single live performance, plus there is little to no space in between tracks so it’s 2 continuous sides of music, including something recorded in the runout groove, a dog whistle and some gibberish spliced together.  Even the cover was the Beatles going for broke with a collage featuring the Beatles various heroes, a grate fold sleeve with a pic of the Beatles in full band uniform on the inside and the lyrics printed on the back cover.  On the cover the Beatles dressed in colorful uniforms holding instruments they don’t ordinarily play, with the wax mannequins of the mop top Beatles looking on.  Inside the sleeve is a cardboard cutout of a badge and mustaches. 

So what of the songs??  I really don’t think there are any weak songs.  I know John’s opinion on Good Morning Good Morning, but I like that one a lot.  Plus, all the songs work so well together.  John liked to say that “any of the songs on Pepper could have been on any other album”, but I’m not sure I agree.  Maybe it’s because I’ve heard them so many times together, but I think these songs belong together and I’m not sure I can hear many of them on Revolver, say.  Just a totally different vibe, IMO

Everyone knows Sgt Pepper, With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, When I’m 64, and the mind blowing A Day In The Life.  Not much more needs to be said about them.  They are all excellent and fit perfectly on this particular album.

Lesser known tracks that I really like, Fixing A Hole, love the bass, vocal, harmonies, lyrics.  Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite makes you feel as if you’re at the circus.  Unbelievable effects.  Especially at the end.  And George with the great mixture of Eastern and Western music in Within You Without You.  Indian musicians mixed with classical musicians.  Love the lyrics.  Getting Better, classic John and Paul song with Paul sounding hopeful and John being more pessimistic (“it’s getting better”, “Can’t get much worse”).  Love the guitar on the song. 

Really a perfect album IMO.  So why isn’t it #1?  I just feel that the two above it have a stronger set of songs overall.  I love all these songs on Pepper, but for example, I’m not sure Lovely Rita or Good Morning Good Morning would have been good enough to be on Revolver or Rubber Soul.  But they work on Pepper perfectly. 

IMO, Pepper is their most important work if not their best work, if that makes any sense.  It totally changed the game and made the album an art form.  From the way they used the studio to the different instrumentation to the cover art, the Beatles took everything they had learned and went for broke and succeeded.  In 1967, this album was an absolute phenomenon in a way that none of the other albums were.  Western civilization as a whole grooved on this album the same way that in 1983 the whole world grooved on Thriller.  It was an event.  Now when people record their masterpiece, it is said they recorded “their Sgt Pepper.”  It was a total game changer.  

  1. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
  2. With A Little Help From My Friends
  3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
  4. Getting Better
  5. Fixing A Hole
  6. She’s Leaving Home
  7. Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite
  8. Within You Without You
  9. When I’m 64
  10. Lovely Rita
  11. Good Morning Good Morning
  12. Sgt Pepper (Reprise)
  13. A Day In The Life
 
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switch placements of White Album and SPLHCB and i think our lists are the same.

dont wanna even think about a listening life where Sgt Pepper - music's door to Wonderland - didnt happen precisely when it did, but i havent listened to it thru in forever. i never want my wonder at clowns & acrobats & bigtops & elephants to be replaced in my mind, but i aint buying circus tickets anytime soon neither

 
wikkidpissah said:
switch placements of White Album and SPLHCB and i think our lists are the same.

dont wanna even think about a listening life where Sgt Pepper - music's door to Wonderland - didnt happen precisely when it did, but i havent listened to it thru in forever. i never want my wonder at clowns & acrobats & bigtops & elephants to be replaced in my mind, but i aint buying circus tickets anytime soon neither
Click to expand...
LOL!!!  Sgt Pepper is very BRITISH.  Music hall and Henry the Horse and 4000 hole in Blackburn, Lancashire and such 

 
Guido Merkins said:
LOL!!!  Sgt Pepper is very BRITISH.  Music hall and Henry the Horse and 4000 hole in Blackburn, Lancashire and such 
Click to expand...
oh, if i had to listen to SPLHCB every day to keep Lucy's horizonface singing to the sky and 64yos being jaunty ol' poops and remembering leaving my own runaway note the way i do and cherubchubbs to metermaids and Henry the Horse of course, and Ringo MCing an acid extravaganza and the end of the world being interrupted my my morning cuppa, etcetcetc, i absoludely would. the most necessary album, but its magic is up here already

 
wikkidpissah said:
oh, if i had to listen to SPLHCB every day to keep Lucy's horizonface singing to the sky and 64yos being jaunty ol' poops and remembering leaving my own runaway note the way i do and cherubchubbs to metermaids and Henry the Horse of course, and Ringo MCing an acid extravaganza and the end of the world being interrupted my my morning cuppa, etcetcetc, i absoludely would. the most necessary album, but its magic is up here already
Click to expand...
You have a way with words, my friend!!!

 
wikkidpissah said:
switch placements of White Album and SPLHCB and i think our lists are the same.

dont wanna even think about a listening life where Sgt Pepper - music's door to Wonderland - didnt happen precisely when it did, but i havent listened to it thru in forever. i never want my wonder at clowns & acrobats & bigtops & elephants to be replaced in my mind, but i aint buying circus tickets anytime soon neither
Click to expand...
So how would you have the last two ranked??  Just curious.  As soon as I'm done, I hope for people to start posting their own lists and the reasons why they made the choices they made and such...

 
Guido Merkins said:
So how would you have the last two ranked??  Just curious.  As soon as I'm done, I hope for people to start posting their own lists and the reasons why they made the choices they made and such...
Click to expand...
i'm a Revolver guy thru&thru, but personal stuff puts Rubber Soul close. as i recounted often in the kristathreads, i was a dutiful Beatle-hater as a kid. my insides erupted much as anybody's when they were on Sullivan but, as soon as the Stones first snarled my way they had me. in those days you had to choose - Beatles or Stones (choose Dylan you killed yourself, Motown and someone else did the job, Dave Clark Five and you made model airplanes and masturbated til they took you away), so i made fart sounds when the Liverpuddles came on and drew spectacles & zits on all my baby sis' Fab Four paraphernalia. 

but my new best pal had an older sister. Dana.................*drifts off.*.............angelic AND wise, hippiegirl hair framed her perfect face like vogue hands, corduroy mini-skirt, the whole scene, man. went to NYU, lived in the Village even. when she entered a room, my face turned into a tea-wet saucer and i automatically tugged my sweater past my crotchals, jic.

and no matter what pathetic Odetta or cello sonata record she brought home from Nu Yawk Sitty, it immediately became my favorite disc ever. those 33:52s knelt around a turntable as Dana swayed along were sacraments to me. but, this time, it was Rubber Soul. suddenly i was confronted by a moral dilemma that made me a juicy burger on a Catholic Friday. my battlements were tearing already, but Norwegian Wood (which i immediately became sure was made of Scandinavian erections) rendered me asunder. one simply couldn't listen to that before the miniskirt/blacktights V of one's beloved before one didnt even care if terms of surrender were absolute. as you can see, i still remember it well.

and.....................still..........................Revolver

 
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wikkidpissah said:
i'm a Revolver guy thru&thru, but personal stuff puts Rubber Soul close. as i recounted often in the kristathreads, i was a dutiful Beatle-hater as a kid. my insides erupted much as anybody's when they were on Sullivan but, as soon as the Stones first snarled my way they had me. in those days you had to choose - Beatles or Stones (choose Dylan you killed yourself, Motown and someone else did the job, Dave Clark Five and you made model airplanes and masturbated til they took you away), so i made fart sounds when the Liverpuddles came on and drew spectacles & zits on all my baby sis' Fab Four paraphernalia. 

but my new best pal had an older sister. Dana.................*drifts off.*.............angelic AND wise, hippiegirl hair framed her perfect face like vogue hands, corduroy mini-skirt, the whole scene, man. went to NYU, lived in the Village even. when she entered a room, my face turned into a tea-wet saucer and i automatically tugged my sweater past my crotchals, jic.

and no matter what pathetic Odetta or cello sonata record she brought home from Nu Yawk Sitty, it immediately became my favorite disc ever. those 33:52s knelt around a turntable as Dana swayed along were sacraments to me. but, this time, it was Rubber Soul. suddenly i was confronted by a moral dilemma that made me a juicy burger on a Catholic Friday. my battlements were tearing already, but Norwegian Wood (which i immediately became sure was made of Scandinavian erections) rendered me asunder. one simply couldn't listen to that before the miniskirt/blacktights V of one's beloved before one didnt even care if terms of surrender were absolute. as you can see, i still remember it well.

and.....................still..........................Revolver
Click to expand...
LOL!!  So, somehow this reminds me of that Seinfeld episode when George tried to combine sex with food and it became this one urge........you associated the Beatles with the.....ummmm....urges you were feeling for Dana.  

Great story!!!

 
I'm gonna just post the last two today, because obviously when I post the next one, you'll know what the last one is....

So here we go



 

#2 Rubber Soul

Before getting into this excellent LP, it should be noted that the Capitol Records version of Rubber Soul is thought of as the Beatles “folk” album.  They took I’ve Just Seen A Face and It’s Only Love from Help and took out Drive My Car and Nowhere Man, most notably, to make something resembling a folk album.  Although this works pretty well, the Beatles never really made albums that were “folk” albums or “rock” albums.  The Beatles music is diverse and this version of Rubber Soul isn’t that.  Also, it should be noted that for the first time in the Beatles career, you can REALLY hear the bass guitar.  EMI in the UK was always behind technologically from other companies in the US.  For years the Beatles wanted a better bass sound like they heard on the Motown records.  Bass is difficult to record technologically because if you don’t do it right, the stylus could jump out of the grooves on a record.  They finally figured it out, and you can hear, Paul can play the hell out of the bass.  It would become a signature sound for the Beatles going forward, Paul mixed very forward on the bass.

So, to the real Rubber Soul.  After the craziness of the Help movie and album, the Beatles had a WHOLE MONTH to create an album.  Might as well make it a masterpiece, right??  I wouldn’t call Rubber Soul the Beatles “folk” album, but it shows a more mellow side of the band, for sure.  When the Who and the Stones were getting louder, the Beatles went softer, more textured.  Lots more acoustic guitars, plus other new musical textures like the sitar (Norwegian wood), fuzz bass (Think For Yourself), and a piano made to sound like a harpsichord (In My Life).  The lyrics continued to get more personal, especially from John.  John was at a peak at this point.  Not sure how you can have 4 better songs on an album than Norwegian wood, In My Life, Girl, and Nowhere Man, and those are just the well known ones.  Paul wasn’t far behind with Drive My Car, Michelle, I’m Looking Through Your and You Won’t see Me.  George’s two best songs up until now in If I Needed Someone and Think For Yourself.  And John and Paul got together and resurrected What Goes On from the Quarrymen days, with some help from Ringo, for Ringo to sing.

The well known songs, I won’t go into too much detail on, but I will only say that if I could point to one song that really made me fall in love with the Beatles, it would be Nowhere Man.  My Mom had the Red Greatest Hits cassette and I wore that little section of tape out.  Something about it.  The harmonies, the lyrics, the trebly guitars and that great solo with the harmonic at the end (I didn’t know WHAT that was when I first heard it, but I thought it was great).  Girl is another favorite of mine.  That section at the end with the two guitars playing together tripped me out.  At first, I thought George was playing the higher part on the sitar, but later I learned that he capoed the guitar up so high that it sounded like a sitar or something called a bouzouki, which is like a Greek stringed instrument.  Fantastic sound, all of it.  And something to notice, which is just a little detail which you might miss if you aren’t listening closely, the piano on Drive My Car only appears in the chorus, but only during the silence between lines.  “Baby you can drive my car”….. ding ding ding ding ding “Yes I’m gonna be a star….” Etc.  That level of detail should be noted because it’s something that would be regular going forward.  You need an instrument for only one or two bars?? Sure why not.

On the less well know side, when I saw McCartney live in the 90s and he started playing You Won’t See Me, I like lost my mind.  Great song.  Unreal bass, harmonies and lyrics.  I also love If I Needed Someone with the Byrds style guitars which were the Beatles style guitars first.  Geroge’s best song up until that point.

OK, so why isn’t it #1?  Absolutely personal preference.  Rubber Soul is an unquestioned masterpiece.  The Beatles would almost never be better than on Rubber Soul and nobody else would be either.  George once said that Rubber Soul and Revolver could have been “Volume 1and volume 2”. They are different albums, but I think what he means is that they were both great records that came out of great sessions in which the Beatles were at the top of their game. 

For anybody else, this would be the album they would be known for forever.  To think the Beatles still had 1966-1970, which is when most people think they recorded their best music is just mind blowing.

Track Listing

  1. Drive My Car
  2. Norwegian Wood
  3. You Won't See Me
  4. Nowhere Man
  5. Think For Yourself
  6. The Word
  7. Michelle
  8. What Goes On
  9. Girl
  10. I'm Looking Through You
  11. In My Life
  12. Wait
  13. If I Needed Someone
  14. Run For Your Life
Next….you know what it is

 
#1 Revolver

So I have a confession to make.  I struggled with ranking these albums.  I really did.  They are like my children, how do you pick a favorite?  The bottom of the list was pretty set, but once I got to Help, I struggled……..except with #1.  It was Revolver, it was always gonna be Revolver and it’s been Revolver for me since the first time I heard it.  My Mom said, “go listen to Here There and Everywhere”, I was in love.  I never looked back.  When I realized that there was a UK version and that it had 3 extra songs, it made my opinion of the album go up even more.

I made the comment above about the perceptions changing on Pepper being the unquestioned best album.  Well, maybe because I wasn’t born until 1970 so I didn’t get the significance of Pepper or because I heard Revolver first, Revolver has ALWAYS been it for me.  I never get tired of it.

Revolver took 3 months to record, up until this time, an eternity for the Beatles.  Revolver pioneered many of the sounds that would be featured on Pepper.  Artificial Double Tracking, compression, backwards instrumentation, close miking, varispeed and expanded instrumentation were used extensively on Revolver.  Geoff Emerick was 18 years old and became the Beatles recording engineer on Revolver and he had ideas and the Beatles wanted new ideas.  The first song recorded on Revolver was Tomorrow Never Knows, which at this point was called Mark 1, but they hadn’t gotten to the tape loops yet so the first take is quite different than the finished product, but to START with Tomorrow Never Knows??  The mind boggles.  And while Rubber Soul was more acoustic and mellow, Revolver is very electric and loud. Being the Beatles, of course, there would be some softer songs and different styles, but Revolver would be their most “rock” album to date, if that makes any sense.

The two most well known songs on the album are Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine.  The former being a song about loneliness with a double string quartet providing all the music.  The latter, whether you like it or not, is one of the most well known Beatles songs and became a children’s classic.  The recording is extremely clever with sound effects.  They made it come alive in the studio.  The end sounds less like a children’s sing along and more like a conga line around a bar to me.  Sounded like they were having a ball in the studio.

The lesser known songs, I mean I love every song.  George has 3 great songs on the album, Indian flavored Love You To, guitar driven Taxman with Paul letting it rip on the solo, and dissonant sounding I Want To Tell You. Paul, I think, was peaking at this time with Rigby, Here There and Everywhere, with beautiful harmonies and a great mellow accompaniment, For No One with the great French Horn solo, and Got To Get You Into My Life with the great horns, vocal and a great guitar solo at the end by George.  John was equally brilliant with I’m Only Sleeping with backwards tapes and John dreaming his life away, She Said She Said with the great guitars, And Your Bird Can Sing with the great harmonized guitar solo and Tomorrow Never Knows which must have been MIND BLOWING in 1966.  Great drums, bass, eerie vocals and tape loops.  Just an unbelievable achievement.   They were all really at a high point that I think collectively, they would never be at again together. George may one day write better material, but what he was doing combined with what John and Paul were doing, yeah, they would never be this good again as a unit.  

I could write about each of these songs and it would take forever, but really the reason why it’s at #1 for me is that I don’t think there is another Beatles album with this strong a set of songs and they completely threw out the rule book and made an album that sounded totally different from anything they had done before.  Some people don’t like Yellow Submarine, but I have so much fun listening to the sound effects and such, that I like it.  Yeah, it’s a kids song, but what other band or artist created a stone cold children’s classic and stuck it on their most ambitious album ever?  It’s a party of one, the Beatles.

The combination of the strong material plus the sounds they created in the studio makes it a runaway #1 for me.  Pepper gets credit for the studio production, but everything done on Pepper was already done on Revolver.  They would never get any better.

  1. Taxman
  2. Eleanor Rigby
  3. I’m Only Sleeping
  4. Love You To
  5. Here, There, and Everywhere
  6. Yellow Submarine
  7. She Said She Said
  8. Good Day Sunshine
  9. And Your Bird Can Sing
  10. For No One
  11. Doctor Robert
  12. I Want To Tell You
  13. Got To Get You Into My Life
  14. Tomorrow Never Knows
     
 
i KNEW you was a Revolver dood. like i said, we flip White Album w Sgt Pepper and our rankings are eggsackly the same.

the reason Revolver may be the best record ever lies in a single word........"banger".

a coupla years ago, i started watching youtube vids of young adults listening to rock classics for the first time. twas triumphant to see these kids realize how much more there could be to songs than what they listened to or were even raised on.

two college kids from Tampa, Andy & Alex, have turned doing this into a cottage industry. they used to get drunk before listening & basically do the vids sitting on their dorm beds. now they have their own studio and merch and ####, but it's cuz they've done it right. they are both garagebanders, so they know enuff but not too much about music to say interesting things, are careful not to cheat ahead on oldtimey tunes so they're almost always surprised (unless they mighta heard it on Guitar Hero or sumn), and they have clever quotables on what they like about things.

their funnest label is "banger". older people would associate that metallicly, perhaps, but it's not what they mean. they are actually referring to kind of a pop Ockham's Razor, songs where the artists go in to a song with the right number of hooks, fills, builds, adds but dont dwell on them. they go in with the intention of capturing & keeping the listener's attention, then tying it up in a flashy bow or tidy fade and getting outta Dodge nice & neat. no excess doodling, even tho jams, "getting lost in the sauce", they call it, are sumn they also like. it's what A&R guys call "radio ready", but these kids have never listened to a radio.

not only does Revolver draw a line, from Taxman to Tomorrow, thru just about everything one might ever wanna do with modern popular music, but they're ALL bangers. bright, powerful, succinct. done. banger.

 
Guido Merkins said:
#4 Abbey Road

So above we discuss the disaster that was the Get Back project.  George Martin thought he would never work with the Beatles again.  So he was surprised when Paul called him and asked if he could produce one more album with them.  Martin asked if John was in, Paul said yes.  He also asked if he would be allowed to actually produce the album.  Once again, Paul said yes, so Martin agreed.  That’s how we have Abbey Road.

The divisions between the Beatles were still very real.  They appeared in they studio together not nearly as often.  John didn’t like Paul’s idea of the B side being this sort of suite of song fragments, so he wanted the A side to just be songs.  Of course, once the project started John seemed to get into the B side as well as he contributed several fragments for the suite.  John, of course being John, would dismiss the whole thing later, but at the time he willingly participated.  Having said that, tensions were much lower for Abbey Road than for Get Back.  Maybe because they knew it would be the last one for a time.  I’m not sure any of them knew it would actually be the last one, but they thought it would be the last one for now.  Maybe because they stayed a bit more away from each other.  There is this great story of Paul coming in first thing every morning before any of the other Beatles to record vocals for Oh Darling.  He wanted to get the vocal just right, but maybe didn’t want to annoy the others, so he would do it before then would arrive.

The album also features the absolute two best songs that George Harrison had every written for the Beatles (and maybe ever) in Here Comes The Sun and Something.  Both feature great guitar playing, lyrics, vocals, and drumming.  Something being about Patti Harrison, who seemed to get love songs written about her a lot and Here Comes The Sun about a bright sunny day where George didn’t have to go to the studio so he relaxed and wrote a song.

There are so many high points on this album.  As with any album, that are a couple of lower points, but they aren’t that bad.  More just kind of average for a work of this quality.  The worst moments, IMO, are Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by Paul and Octopus’s Garden by Ringo.  Both have their moments, but compared to the rest you could say they are weaker.  I do love the guitar solo on Octopus’s Garden and Ringo’s vocal in typical Ringo fashion kind of makes me smile.  Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, the music doesn’t match the subject matter, which is kind of a funny juxtaposition, but other than that, pretty harmless and not very inspiring.  George probably had 10 better songs than this at the time that could have gone on the album, but George only gets 2 songs, as usual,

As far as the great stuff, really it’s the rest.  The best thing on the album is the Side B suite from You Never Give Me Your Money to The End.  It takes you for a ride through several styles of music and they fit them all together with chord changes and fading.  It works extremely well.  I like the rock and roll of Mean Mr Mustard going into Polythene Pam.  You Never Give Me Your Money (which is about Allen Klein) that fades into the gorgeous harmonies of Sun King.  The best bit is at the end with Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.  Paul starts it off with the classic Paul piano ballad on Golden Slumbers, which goes into Carry That Weight which quotes You Never Give Me Your Money before going to The End which has this great Ringo drum solo (a first and only in his entire career.  He hated drum solos) and dueling guitar solos by Paul, George, and John, in that order ending on a single note and “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”, which is the perfect line to end the Beatles career with.  Like the Beatles calling their own shot. 

Come Together great vocal and bass playing. Oh Darling, great vocal by Paul.  I Want You(She’s So Heavy) is really the heaviest thing the Beatles ever did.  Because is a beautiful 3 part harmony plus great harpsichord sound.   If I had to pick an under the radar song, I would pick Because and I Want You(She’s So Heavy). 
It is the most unique sounding Beatles album because they went away from the all tube consoles they were working on before, so it results in a more mellow sound.  To me, Abbey Road sounds completely contemporary and never ages.

So why isn’t it #1??  Really, it’s just the excellence above it.  There is really nothing wrong with the album.  Every album has weak points and this one has fewer than most.  There is nothing quite like Side B in anything else the Beatles had ever done.  In some ways, it’s the most rewarding Beatles album to listen to because when you consider what was going on at the time in the band, to create a work of this quality is kind of amazing.  It’s a stone cold classic and a masterpiece. 

Track Listing

  1. Come Together
  2. Something
  3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
  4. Oh Darling
  5. Octopus’s Garden
  6. I Want You(She’s So Heavy)
  7. Here Comes The Sun
  8. Because
  9. You Never Give Me Your Money
  10. Sun King
  11. Mean Mr Mustard
  12. Polythene Pam
  13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
  14. Golden Slumbers
  15. Carry That Weight
  16. The End
  17. Her Majesty
Click to expand...
Trying to pick a favorite Beatles LP is like picking a favorite child, I simply can't do it.   I will say though that Abbey Road is every bit as great as Sgt Pepper and Revolver IMO

 
Guido Merkins said:
I'm gonna just post the last two today, because obviously when I post the next one, you'll know what the last one is....

So here we go



 

#2 Rubber Soul

Before getting into this excellent LP, it should be noted that the Capitol Records version of Rubber Soul is thought of as the Beatles “folk” album.  They took I’ve Just Seen A Face and It’s Only Love from Help and took out Drive My Car and Nowhere Man, most notably, to make something resembling a folk album.  Although this works pretty well, the Beatles never really made albums that were “folk” albums or “rock” albums. 
Click to expand...
The American version of Rubber Soul is the one that I grew up and holds a special place in my heart.  Capitol butchered all of the Beatles LPs up until Pepper and padded them with singles in an effort to have more LPs to sell.  Mostly the American LPs paled in comparison to their British counterparts but I've Just Seen a Face was a hell of a song to kick off the album (though in fairness so was Drive My Car).

I also like It's only Love starting side 2 of the LP better than What goes On  and the false starts at the beginning of I'm Looking Through You.   

The UK version is superior but I have to give Capitol a decent grade for making a pretty cohesive album. 

You didn't rank it but Capitol did a great job on Magical Mystery Tour.  The double EP set was never going to work in the US and adding their 1967 singles made sense.   It is the lone example of Capitol bettering the product that the Beatles released in the UK.

 
Godsbrother said:
Trying to pick a favorite Beatles LP is like picking a favorite child, I simply can't do it.   I will say though that Abbey Road is every bit as great as Sgt Pepper and Revolver IMO
Click to expand...
It’s a coin flip honestly.

Really the more amazing thing is that Pepper, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul and Revolver were all done by the same artist. 
 

Any one of those is a career for anybody else. 

 
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Godsbrother said:
The American version of Rubber Soul is the one that I grew up and holds a special place in my heart.  Capitol butchered all of the Beatles LPs up until Pepper and padded them with singles in an effort to have more LPs to sell.  Mostly the American LPs paled in comparison to their British counterparts but I've Just Seen a Face was a hell of a song to kick off the album (though in fairness so was Drive My Car).

I also like It's only Love starting side 2 of the LP better than What goes On  and the false starts at the beginning of I'm Looking Through You.   

The UK version is superior but I have to give Capitol a decent grade for making a pretty cohesive album. 

You didn't rank it but Capitol did a great job on Magical Mystery Tour.  The double EP set was never going to work in the US and adding their 1967 singles made sense.   It is the lone example of Capitol bettering the product that the Beatles released in the UK.
Click to expand...
Those two along with Meet The Beatles are probably the best Capitol albums. 

 
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