Guido Merkins
Footballguy
For those that don’t know me, I used to be known around here as saintsfan and years ago I did a thread for the History of the Beatles. Lots of people seemed to enjoy it and I had a lot of fun creating it. Well, I was gone for quite a while, but I missed it here, so I decided to check it out and remember how much fun it was to hang out here.
Anyway, when I came back, I went looking for my old thread and didn’t find it, but I did find krista4’s EXCELLENT thread ranking the Post Beatles Songs. I read through it and loved it and learned so much. She is a fountain of knowledge and it inspired me to create something new, but what to create??
So I decided that I would stick with what I know best, the Beatles of course, and I decided to do a ranking of my own, much smaller in scope, but I think interesting where I rank the Beatles albums. One of the Beatles main contributions, IMO, was making the album something to be appreciated. Before the Beatles, from a pop/rock perspective albums were money grabs. Get someone to buy the single again by putting it on an album. The Beatles changed that and, in fact, many of the Beatles most well known songs ARE NOT ON AN ALBUM. So, with few exceptions, what was released on an album was new material, with singles not appearing on them. So, IMO, that makes the albums even MORE extraordinary when you realize that the songs good enough to be singles aren’t even included and still you get all these classics. The Beatles just had an embarrassment of riches that way.
Anyway, I have a few rules that I followed when I did this
1. This is my list. There are only 12 Beatles albums (more on that in a sec), but these are my favorites in this order. I generally think very highly of all the Beatles albums, except one, so my ranking of an album is not to say I hate the album, only that I rank it lower than the ones above it. I would love to hear your thoughts on the album if you love it more than me or don’t like it as much as I do. That’s what we are here for.
2. I am ranking the albums in the UK catalogue. Meet the Beatles and Rubber Soul by Capitol may work well as albums, but they aren’t Beatles albums. They are compilations made by Capitol Records, therefore, not intended to be albums by the band or their producer. Once again, thoughts on specific albums outside of this are welcome, of course, once again, that’s what we are here for
3. According to my rule in #2, Magical Mystery Tour WILL NOT be in my countdown. You could argue by the late 70s, and certainly by the CD releases in 1987, Magical Mystery Tour is considered to be part of the core catalogue, but as originally envisioned in the 1960s, Magical Mystery Tour was an EP. Capitol released a compilation of MMT with the other non album singles from 1967 that became the Magical Mystery Tour album. IMO, this was a good idea, but it makes ranking it difficult because Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, All You Need is Love and Baby You’re a Rich Man had nothing whatsoever to do with the MMT sessions and are more related to the sessions of Sgt Pepper.
As far as how I’m gonna do this, I’ll go from 12-1. I'm also gonna talk about the songs that I like on the album, songs that I think maybe are not as strong and songs that I think are kind of under the radar good. Shouldn’t take me too long. My goal is to try and do one post a day. So 12 days from now, we’ll be done. Please feel free to comment as this is my favorite topic in the world. All comments are welcome, even negative ones.
Anyway, when I came back, I went looking for my old thread and didn’t find it, but I did find krista4’s EXCELLENT thread ranking the Post Beatles Songs. I read through it and loved it and learned so much. She is a fountain of knowledge and it inspired me to create something new, but what to create??
So I decided that I would stick with what I know best, the Beatles of course, and I decided to do a ranking of my own, much smaller in scope, but I think interesting where I rank the Beatles albums. One of the Beatles main contributions, IMO, was making the album something to be appreciated. Before the Beatles, from a pop/rock perspective albums were money grabs. Get someone to buy the single again by putting it on an album. The Beatles changed that and, in fact, many of the Beatles most well known songs ARE NOT ON AN ALBUM. So, with few exceptions, what was released on an album was new material, with singles not appearing on them. So, IMO, that makes the albums even MORE extraordinary when you realize that the songs good enough to be singles aren’t even included and still you get all these classics. The Beatles just had an embarrassment of riches that way.
Anyway, I have a few rules that I followed when I did this
1. This is my list. There are only 12 Beatles albums (more on that in a sec), but these are my favorites in this order. I generally think very highly of all the Beatles albums, except one, so my ranking of an album is not to say I hate the album, only that I rank it lower than the ones above it. I would love to hear your thoughts on the album if you love it more than me or don’t like it as much as I do. That’s what we are here for.
2. I am ranking the albums in the UK catalogue. Meet the Beatles and Rubber Soul by Capitol may work well as albums, but they aren’t Beatles albums. They are compilations made by Capitol Records, therefore, not intended to be albums by the band or their producer. Once again, thoughts on specific albums outside of this are welcome, of course, once again, that’s what we are here for
3. According to my rule in #2, Magical Mystery Tour WILL NOT be in my countdown. You could argue by the late 70s, and certainly by the CD releases in 1987, Magical Mystery Tour is considered to be part of the core catalogue, but as originally envisioned in the 1960s, Magical Mystery Tour was an EP. Capitol released a compilation of MMT with the other non album singles from 1967 that became the Magical Mystery Tour album. IMO, this was a good idea, but it makes ranking it difficult because Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, All You Need is Love and Baby You’re a Rich Man had nothing whatsoever to do with the MMT sessions and are more related to the sessions of Sgt Pepper.
As far as how I’m gonna do this, I’ll go from 12-1. I'm also gonna talk about the songs that I like on the album, songs that I think maybe are not as strong and songs that I think are kind of under the radar good. Shouldn’t take me too long. My goal is to try and do one post a day. So 12 days from now, we’ll be done. Please feel free to comment as this is my favorite topic in the world. All comments are welcome, even negative ones.