Favorite Beatles Album?

[kepner]

So… what's your favorite Beatles album?

[jaded-mandarin]

Rubber Soul/Revolver

[kepner]

I have a hard time choosing between Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, and Abbey Road. All three are perfect.

[netdog]

As Abbey Road (my vote) was recorded after Let It Be, I think you should reverse the order despite the release date. Abbey Road was the last hurrah, and the energy put into making was fueled both by the despair of the Let It Be sessions and the knowledge that Abbey Road was their farewell to the world.

You also forgot Yellow Sumbarine which did feature some new tracks.

[kepner]

Abbey Road was the last hurrah, and the energy put into making was fueled both by the despair of the Let It Be sessions and the knowledge that Abbey Road was their farewell to the world.

Your right, I was basing the order on release date.

[cheeseadiddle]

I like Revolver. It's where they started really experimenting in the studio and started making the transition from pop rock to progressive rock.

Your right, I was basing the order on release date. I don't think I can change the poll now that voting has started.



I purposely left it out. I don't consider it to be a studio album.

Neither was Magical Mystery Tour, but you included that.

[Doctor Q]

I use the instrumentals from the Yellow Submarine album for my slideshows!

[jomikepa]

the white album.

[c-Row]

As noted before, you should have included Yellow Submarine. Great album, and one of my three favourite movies.

[Doctor Q]

How many votes would the My Bonnie (http://www.friktech.com/btls/tony/237-112.jpg) album get? The music that the Beatles recorded with Tony Sheridan was attributed to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers." Some of that same early music was on The Savage Young Beatles (http://www.friktech.com/btls/tony/BM69-2.jpg) album too.

Then there's the fun/confusion caused by the differences between the U.K. and U.S. albums (http://aboutthebeatles.com/discography_lp.php). You can see the U.S. album covers at strawberrywalrus.com (http://www.strawberrywalrus.com/beatlescatalog.html) if you can stand the colors on that page!

[kepner]

The music that the Beatles recorded with Tony Sheridan was attributed to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers."

... and for an amusing reason:

The word Beatles was judged to sound too similar to the German Pidels (pronounced peedles), the plural of a slang term for penis, hence the album was credited to Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers.

- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Sheridan)

[dopey220]

I voted for Revolver, but it was a tough choice.

[Lau]

It's a tough choice for me between Rubber Soul and Revolver too but I say Rubber Soul wins out.

[thebassoonist]

Rubber Soul, but I like them all!

[calculus]

Revolver just wins out over Rubber Soul for me. Tomorrow Never Knows is probably my favourite ever Beatles track although In My Life from Rubber Soul is a close second.

[thegilly]

Partly sentimental reasons--this was the first proper Beatles album I owned. I was listening to the red compilation on tape in my hospital bed as a teenager recovering from surgery. One of the nurses noticed and the next day she brought in an original NZ pressing of Help! for me. (ISTR her name was Pat. Thank you, Pat!) Soon after I got home I rescued a turntable, amp, speakers from boxes in the roofspace and that was that. :)

I'm never sure quite what it takes to be a "coherent album", but I know that Help! remains one of a very few albums in my collection, by anyone, that I can listen to straight through without the desire to skip tracks. On Revolver I'm not terribly fond of "Doctor Robert" and not always in the mood for "Tomorrow Never Knows". On Pepper I skip "Within You Without You". I can usually get through all of Abbey Road, I skip "Michelle" on Rubber Soul, and I doubt I'm alone in having listened to the White Album right through only a handful of times in my life (and then only because I was listening to the vinyl and skipping tracks was too much trouble). I don't often listen to anything pre-Help!, except for odd favourite songs. Help! is also the only one of the three films I am likely to watch with any regularity.

[Topher15]

Probably this order with Revolver/Rubber Soul being my favorite.

Revolver/Rubber Soul
A Hard Days Night
HELP
With The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper

[NickD]

Sgt. Pepper's, then Revolver

[John.B]

I voted for Abbey Road but I almost always listen to that with Let It Me, I think they've become sort of a double album to me. :)

Of course, then there are the songs such as "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude"/(the good) "Revolution", etc. and even earlier like "Paperback Writer" and "We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper" that were only released as singles and never showed up on any of the original albums.

On a complete tangent, the Stones did the same thing at around the same time with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Honky Tonk Women".

It just have seemed like a good idea at the time I guess...

[thegilly]

Of course, then there are the songs such as "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude"/(the good) "Revolution", etc. and even earlier like "Paperback Writer" and "We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper" that were only released as singles and never showed up on any of the original albums.

It just have seemed like a good idea at the time I guess...

I think the idea was that people were buying singles anyway--that's what people did, they heard songs they liked on the radio, they bought the singles, hence the singles chart. Only if they really really liked a band would they buy an album when it eventually came out (if it ever did). And bands like the Beatles didn't want their die-hard fans to shell out for an album only to find that a good handful of the songs on it they already had as singles. It makes a lot of sense, in a single-buying world. For instance, ISTR that Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill spawned five double-A-sided singles. Had that been in the 1960s, those five singles would have come out first, and fans would only have been getting a couple of new tracks by buying the album when it finally came out. But, yes, it makes us interesting for us now. A complete set of Beatles albums hardly seems to represent the complete Beatles output, does it?

I sometimes wonder if the iTunes Store, while criticised for killing off the 'album market', hasn't brought us almost full circle, closer to the way things were when pop music got really big than we've been since the demise of the good ol' 45.

Music historians, feel free to jump in now and point out my ignorance. :)

[Father Jack]

Although I prefer the "Rolling Stones", my choice of a Beatles album would be "Sgt. Pepper's" followed closely by "Abbey Road"

[capoeirista]

I'm with Alan Partridge. It's clearly "The Best of the Beatles"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyZspqjtG2k


(From a very funny British Comedy Series)

[mrat93]

Hmmm... decisions, decisions.

WAIT! Where's the choice that says "I absolutely HATE the Beatles?"

... Yeah, I said it...

[rockthecasbah]

I equally love Let It Be, Sgt. Pepper's, and Abbey Road but voted Let It Be since the others have already gotten votes :)