The thing that blows my mind is that everything The Beatles achieved - all their recordings and the immense growth from their first to last album - was done while the four of them were still under the age of 30.
Yes, but they worked for it a long time. If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, you’ll see they had a combination of access and 10,000 hours of experience that primed the for success.
Not sure what you mean by ‘access’…? I know very well how much work they did - the Hamburg gigs etc - before even recording their first album, and that they were still teenagers when they started playing. Doesn’t change my feelings about all they achieved by 30.
Never heard of this 10,000-hour thing before (just looked it up & yeah, sounds like bullshit masquerading as “science”. As for the founding fathers, I fail to see the relevance), I think you’re missing something fairly fundamental about this whole discussion… it’s not about a particular ‘age of success’! Have you actually listened to the Beatles? Are you a fan of music? Do you understand that some people are just naturally talented?
(Don’t feel you have to answer any of these questions.)
Wonderfully analyzed and balanced with several insightful opinions. I can't say undertaking this monumental task is easy, but you have given over more than enough reasons to place these albums in a satisfying order. And call me on my bias: I have, in the past decade or so, placed Revolver at Number One for pretty much all you've noted (including Ringo's masterful drumwork on Tomorrow Never Knows). Thank you!
Your are a brave soul! I’m pretty much on board with your top 5 though. Revolver has been my #1 for decades. (The super deluxe set is just mind blowing). Though I would put Sgt. Pepper over Let It Be. However, Beatles For Sale at the bottom! Maybe I’m just drawn to the dark side, but I dig the dour tone. If nothing else, it’s an honest reflection of how they felt at the time. I’d take that over fake cheerfulness any day!
I hear that. For me, I think I’d have to put Yellow Submarine last. Even though I love the new material, the fact that half the album is George Martin scores makes it barely seem like a Beatles Record…😋
To appreciate Yellow Submarine you would have had to be there in that time frame, high on psychedelics in a local theater watching and singing along with the entire audience It’s All Too Much
Excellent work with this list! It’s a tall task. I tend to look at The Beatles albums in terms of cohesion instead of great songs, which means Magical Mystery Tour is farther down for me despite the all-time great songs on it. I usually waver between Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Revolver as my faves, with The White Album always nearby as the most intriguing - it has a “what if” quality about it, as in “What if they had honed it down to a single album?” Would have been their greatest, I think.
The other exceptional fact is that of these 13, 9 are on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. (Well, 8 plus the US-only Meet The Beatles, an amalgam of their first two plus their early singles), and 5 are in the top 50. That’s a remarkable feat for any band but also unsurprising, because, well, it’s The Beatles.
Thanks for this Garry :) it was a lot of fun to go back and listen to these albums for the first time in 20 years in some cases. I had forgotten just how incredible the deeper cuts were (a cold/mild take I know, but hey, they still sneak up on you IMO).
I can't really argue with this order. I would have the same top 3. I probably play The White Album more than any other, but I can admit that it's not wall-to-wall perfection the way that Revolver is.
Thanks for taking me back, and into, Beatles for Sale. The Beatles songs have floated more and more untethered from the their albums and I am glad to have this grouping back. Two things I would like to add to your take: There is a rhythmic tic at this stage of their songwriting that manifests in one of the best songs on this record (No Reply) and also one of the rare Beatles songs that one can describe as "bad," Mr. Moonlight.
Though Mr. Moonlight is also great, in another way, because it once gave me and the two other guys in the car so much joy as we listened to it over and over and Cushman brought his hand down on that legendary tom-tom hit that sits alone in space as the song's principal punctuation. It's like the gong in the Gong Show, or something equally absurd. Did they intend it to be comic in this way?
At any rate, at around :37 seconds into the songs after "and from above you sent us love," we get that punctuating tom hit. It recurs a few more times. I must say that listening to this recording of the song the beat sounds like a more modest thump than what I recall, which was a bonging, singular, tom-tom hit that rang out, but perhaps that is the exageration of memory. I mention all this because when I listened to No Reply, I heard a similar grammar of rhythm, though asserted with less comic obviousness: the downbeat that sets up the chorus of "I nearly died." The actual sound is less pronounced and isolated, but it's the same sort of punctuating beat.
The difference being what comes after it. in Mr. Moonlight it's the surely intentional comical intonation of the words, "Mr. Moonlight."
But in No Reply, my God... that chorus of "I nearly died!"
There are moments when listening to the Beatles when an emotion comes over me with a force that is similar to the feeling of an abrupt financial windfall. Found money. As is the case here, it's usually something about the harmony. In this case, it's what happens when "I nearly died" explodes.
Liostening to the song once again I see (hear) that the harmony on "I nearly died" mimics the earlier phrase, "I saw the light."
Maybe the words "I nearly died," brought something out in their voices that the phrase, "I saw the light" did not. You make the point that the whole record had a dark undertone of exhaustion, so maybe they were feeling "I nearly died" a bit more than "I saw the light."
But the notable differnce, to my amateur, drummer's ear, is the Mr. Moonlight beat that appears before the phrase, "I nearly died." I went back and listened to the beat that introduces "I saw The light." There is no Mr. Moonlight downbeat. It's as though what is a ludicrous accent in one context, Mr. Moonlight, is the key that unlocks an emotional register in No Reply.
I've never been a fan of 'Rubber Soul'. People will be upset but I always found it too tame and poppy. Still great (it's THE BEATLES, come on) but song-wise I don't think it's way below their best. I never was a huge fan of 'Norwegian Wood' pr 'Michelle', 'Drive My Car' on the other hand is fantastic.
I think 'Beatles For Sale' is tremendously underrated. There are certain 'judgments' that maybe come from the once-powerful music press and their 'popes'. And people just repeat those things without really listening sometimes.
It took me a long time to really get into 'Revolver'. Unlike the other remixes which I find just plain unnecessary (White Album, Pepper, Abbey Road) the new Revolver stereo mix is fantastic. And the new original mono vinyl is also great.
I haven't rated the rest of the albums for no particular reason other than not wanting to do a random list. I love Side 2 of 'Yellow Submarine' but that's a George Martin and not a Beatles album side. 'Let It Be' I think is just a shambles, whether in naked, original or remixed form. However I always loved 'The Long And Winding Road' including the strings which I think are GREAT.
For me (just opinion here) Yellow Submarine, while it is an ear-worm, ultimately is a blemish on Revolver. And Maxwell is a blemish on Abbey Road. Rubber soul is basically unblemished. I like the Ringo country effort. Maybe The Word is its weakest song?
Agree with your number 1. Also because it’s an album you still can hear it’s influence by other bands that came after them. Like She Said She Said is covered by The Black Keys. And the influence of Tomorrow Never Knows is heavily in The Chemical Brothers.
Not agree that Beatles For Sale is their worst album. Their own written songs sounding fresh. I should place Yellow Submarine at the bottom of the ranking list.
"Let it Be" has long been my favorite Beatles album. After all the craziness of the high psychedelic era and the fracturing on "The White Album" it's them back to the basics, older and disillusioned to a degree but still hopeful.
Plus Billy Preston.
I don't really like "Abbey Road" that much. The Harrison tracks are among the best ever written and it has a few other standout tracks but the medley never did much for me and always seemed like silly nonsense.
Of course every single Beatles fan would reorder this list in their own way. One thing I've noticed over the years is that for every Beatles song I dislike there's someone else who considers it a favorite.
As a longtime (since my senior year of high school in 1987) fan of The Beatles, it's difficult for my to pick a favorite or rank these albums. My favorite tends to change depending on my mood at the time, but my top 5 has been pretty consistent for while. In chronological order, they are: A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road. I consider A Hard Day's Night to be their first truly great album (not that the albums before them were bad!) - it perfectly combines the energy of their early era with maturation as songwriters and musicians. The album that tends to be number one most often for me is Revolver. For No One is my single favorite McCartney composition (Beatles and post-Beatles), And Your Bird Can Sing is 2 minutes of pop perfection, Tomorrow Never Knows still seems futuristic to me - I could go on.
I used to prefer Rubber Soul over Revolver (the former is a more accessible album) but over time grew to like Revolver more. Also, the White Album fell just outside my top 5 (though it sometimes gets in there). I think it's a wonderfully eclectic album that contains some of their best work.
Excellent article! Matt I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your piece. Reminded me that there is still no band so close to my heart as the Beatles. Their story truly was magical. I listened to most of their albums incessantly as a boy on the floor of my attic room on a small record player. Hard Days Night is such a fun movie. Can you just imagine being them at that time? Your article was a Long and Winding Road (I couldn’t resist) down memory lane for me. You are a terrific writer. And not least, thank you for all the insight into each album. Still fascinated by the Fab Four!
Love the rankings. I once read a comment somewhere that went like this: "Someone's 10 favorite Beatles songs will be different than someone else's top 10. No list is ever the same." And I think that goes for albums too.
I'm glad someone finally said something about Sgt Peppers. I have felt the same thing about the songs in that LP. Same with Let It Be. I like what Phil Spector added to the songs.
While I disagree with some of them (Help! should be a little higher in my eyes) this was a great read. Well done.
One small question: Why is the White Album the only one with the full date for the release date instead of just the year like the other albums?
Thanks for your comment Henry! Appreciate your perspective. Answer to your question, that’s a formatting error on my part. It will be fixed shortly. Cheers.
The thing that blows my mind is that everything The Beatles achieved - all their recordings and the immense growth from their first to last album - was done while the four of them were still under the age of 30.
Absolutely. Thanks for reading :)
And in seven years.
Yes, but they worked for it a long time. If you read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, you’ll see they had a combination of access and 10,000 hours of experience that primed the for success.
Not sure what you mean by ‘access’…? I know very well how much work they did - the Hamburg gigs etc - before even recording their first album, and that they were still teenagers when they started playing. Doesn’t change my feelings about all they achieved by 30.
That’s not an unusual age for success. A lot of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. were around that age.
It goes beyond the “10,000-hour” theory, which has largely been dunked over time when it comes to causation. Practice matters, but even then, I think the Beatles are an anomaly. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/the-10000-hour-rule-debunked
Never heard of this 10,000-hour thing before (just looked it up & yeah, sounds like bullshit masquerading as “science”. As for the founding fathers, I fail to see the relevance), I think you’re missing something fairly fundamental about this whole discussion… it’s not about a particular ‘age of success’! Have you actually listened to the Beatles? Are you a fan of music? Do you understand that some people are just naturally talented?
(Don’t feel you have to answer any of these questions.)
Wonderfully analyzed and balanced with several insightful opinions. I can't say undertaking this monumental task is easy, but you have given over more than enough reasons to place these albums in a satisfying order. And call me on my bias: I have, in the past decade or so, placed Revolver at Number One for pretty much all you've noted (including Ringo's masterful drumwork on Tomorrow Never Knows). Thank you!
Appreciate that Amy! Cheers and thanks for commenting :)
Your are a brave soul! I’m pretty much on board with your top 5 though. Revolver has been my #1 for decades. (The super deluxe set is just mind blowing). Though I would put Sgt. Pepper over Let It Be. However, Beatles For Sale at the bottom! Maybe I’m just drawn to the dark side, but I dig the dour tone. If nothing else, it’s an honest reflection of how they felt at the time. I’d take that over fake cheerfulness any day!
I went back and forth on the bottom three rankings more than any others on the list to be honest. Something had to come last :P
I hear that. For me, I think I’d have to put Yellow Submarine last. Even though I love the new material, the fact that half the album is George Martin scores makes it barely seem like a Beatles Record…😋
To appreciate Yellow Submarine you would have had to be there in that time frame, high on psychedelics in a local theater watching and singing along with the entire audience It’s All Too Much
What a trip that would’ve been 👍
To be clear, I’m not knocking the film! Just debating the worthiness of the soundtrack album within the Beatles catalog. 😁
Excellent work with this list! It’s a tall task. I tend to look at The Beatles albums in terms of cohesion instead of great songs, which means Magical Mystery Tour is farther down for me despite the all-time great songs on it. I usually waver between Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Revolver as my faves, with The White Album always nearby as the most intriguing - it has a “what if” quality about it, as in “What if they had honed it down to a single album?” Would have been their greatest, I think.
The other exceptional fact is that of these 13, 9 are on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. (Well, 8 plus the US-only Meet The Beatles, an amalgam of their first two plus their early singles), and 5 are in the top 50. That’s a remarkable feat for any band but also unsurprising, because, well, it’s The Beatles.
Great read!
Thanks for this Garry :) it was a lot of fun to go back and listen to these albums for the first time in 20 years in some cases. I had forgotten just how incredible the deeper cuts were (a cold/mild take I know, but hey, they still sneak up on you IMO).
Great reasoning. I am sure you will stir up musicstack. I appreciate this. I was just listening to Help yesterday.
Thanks for reading and commenting Tamara!
Great stuff, thanks! Two slightly askew comments:
I grew up with US album versions, like Beatles 65, so for me the individual song comments don’t match my memories for the early works.
And if you never have, check out Los Lobos’ live rendition of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Stunning!
Thanks Larry! Adding the LL track to my queue now.
Thanks for recommending the Los Lobos cover, that is very cool.
I can't really argue with this order. I would have the same top 3. I probably play The White Album more than any other, but I can admit that it's not wall-to-wall perfection the way that Revolver is.
Agree with White Album as first for me. Rubber Soul and revolver deserve full listens all these years later I think
Thanks Steve!
Thanks for taking me back, and into, Beatles for Sale. The Beatles songs have floated more and more untethered from the their albums and I am glad to have this grouping back. Two things I would like to add to your take: There is a rhythmic tic at this stage of their songwriting that manifests in one of the best songs on this record (No Reply) and also one of the rare Beatles songs that one can describe as "bad," Mr. Moonlight.
Though Mr. Moonlight is also great, in another way, because it once gave me and the two other guys in the car so much joy as we listened to it over and over and Cushman brought his hand down on that legendary tom-tom hit that sits alone in space as the song's principal punctuation. It's like the gong in the Gong Show, or something equally absurd. Did they intend it to be comic in this way?
At any rate, at around :37 seconds into the songs after "and from above you sent us love," we get that punctuating tom hit. It recurs a few more times. I must say that listening to this recording of the song the beat sounds like a more modest thump than what I recall, which was a bonging, singular, tom-tom hit that rang out, but perhaps that is the exageration of memory. I mention all this because when I listened to No Reply, I heard a similar grammar of rhythm, though asserted with less comic obviousness: the downbeat that sets up the chorus of "I nearly died." The actual sound is less pronounced and isolated, but it's the same sort of punctuating beat.
The difference being what comes after it. in Mr. Moonlight it's the surely intentional comical intonation of the words, "Mr. Moonlight."
But in No Reply, my God... that chorus of "I nearly died!"
There are moments when listening to the Beatles when an emotion comes over me with a force that is similar to the feeling of an abrupt financial windfall. Found money. As is the case here, it's usually something about the harmony. In this case, it's what happens when "I nearly died" explodes.
Liostening to the song once again I see (hear) that the harmony on "I nearly died" mimics the earlier phrase, "I saw the light."
Maybe the words "I nearly died," brought something out in their voices that the phrase, "I saw the light" did not. You make the point that the whole record had a dark undertone of exhaustion, so maybe they were feeling "I nearly died" a bit more than "I saw the light."
But the notable differnce, to my amateur, drummer's ear, is the Mr. Moonlight beat that appears before the phrase, "I nearly died." I went back and listened to the beat that introduces "I saw The light." There is no Mr. Moonlight downbeat. It's as though what is a ludicrous accent in one context, Mr. Moonlight, is the key that unlocks an emotional register in No Reply.
Thanks for coming through with such a great, thoughtful comment Thomas. A great addition to this thread. Cheers!
It's certainly different than the way I would have ranked them, but everyone's got their own way of looking at the lads.
But it's incredible that this all occurred during a period of seven years.
Crazy right??
01. Abbey Road
02. White Album
03. Sgt. Pepper
04. Revolver
05. Magical Mystery Tour
06. Help
07. Beatles For Sale
08. A Hard Day's Night
09. Please, Please Me
10. Rubber Soul
I've never been a fan of 'Rubber Soul'. People will be upset but I always found it too tame and poppy. Still great (it's THE BEATLES, come on) but song-wise I don't think it's way below their best. I never was a huge fan of 'Norwegian Wood' pr 'Michelle', 'Drive My Car' on the other hand is fantastic.
I think 'Beatles For Sale' is tremendously underrated. There are certain 'judgments' that maybe come from the once-powerful music press and their 'popes'. And people just repeat those things without really listening sometimes.
It took me a long time to really get into 'Revolver'. Unlike the other remixes which I find just plain unnecessary (White Album, Pepper, Abbey Road) the new Revolver stereo mix is fantastic. And the new original mono vinyl is also great.
I haven't rated the rest of the albums for no particular reason other than not wanting to do a random list. I love Side 2 of 'Yellow Submarine' but that's a George Martin and not a Beatles album side. 'Let It Be' I think is just a shambles, whether in naked, original or remixed form. However I always loved 'The Long And Winding Road' including the strings which I think are GREAT.
All very astute takes. Thanks Andi :)
For me (just opinion here) Yellow Submarine, while it is an ear-worm, ultimately is a blemish on Revolver. And Maxwell is a blemish on Abbey Road. Rubber soul is basically unblemished. I like the Ringo country effort. Maybe The Word is its weakest song?
Appreciate the comment Matt. Rubber Soul is thriving in the comments right now. 👌👌
Agree with your number 1. Also because it’s an album you still can hear it’s influence by other bands that came after them. Like She Said She Said is covered by The Black Keys. And the influence of Tomorrow Never Knows is heavily in The Chemical Brothers.
Not agree that Beatles For Sale is their worst album. Their own written songs sounding fresh. I should place Yellow Submarine at the bottom of the ranking list.
Thanks for checking in Peter! All opinions welcome. 😊
"Let it Be" has long been my favorite Beatles album. After all the craziness of the high psychedelic era and the fracturing on "The White Album" it's them back to the basics, older and disillusioned to a degree but still hopeful.
Plus Billy Preston.
I don't really like "Abbey Road" that much. The Harrison tracks are among the best ever written and it has a few other standout tracks but the medley never did much for me and always seemed like silly nonsense.
Of course every single Beatles fan would reorder this list in their own way. One thing I've noticed over the years is that for every Beatles song I dislike there's someone else who considers it a favorite.
Thanks so much for the comment. Love the diverse perspectives 🔥
As a longtime (since my senior year of high school in 1987) fan of The Beatles, it's difficult for my to pick a favorite or rank these albums. My favorite tends to change depending on my mood at the time, but my top 5 has been pretty consistent for while. In chronological order, they are: A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road. I consider A Hard Day's Night to be their first truly great album (not that the albums before them were bad!) - it perfectly combines the energy of their early era with maturation as songwriters and musicians. The album that tends to be number one most often for me is Revolver. For No One is my single favorite McCartney composition (Beatles and post-Beatles), And Your Bird Can Sing is 2 minutes of pop perfection, Tomorrow Never Knows still seems futuristic to me - I could go on.
Love the "Revolver" love in the comments. Thanks Sam :)
I used to prefer Rubber Soul over Revolver (the former is a more accessible album) but over time grew to like Revolver more. Also, the White Album fell just outside my top 5 (though it sometimes gets in there). I think it's a wonderfully eclectic album that contains some of their best work.
Agree —For No One may be my single favorite Beatles song.
Excellent article! Matt I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your piece. Reminded me that there is still no band so close to my heart as the Beatles. Their story truly was magical. I listened to most of their albums incessantly as a boy on the floor of my attic room on a small record player. Hard Days Night is such a fun movie. Can you just imagine being them at that time? Your article was a Long and Winding Road (I couldn’t resist) down memory lane for me. You are a terrific writer. And not least, thank you for all the insight into each album. Still fascinated by the Fab Four!
Thank you so much, Chris! Glad you enjoyed :)
Love the rankings. I once read a comment somewhere that went like this: "Someone's 10 favorite Beatles songs will be different than someone else's top 10. No list is ever the same." And I think that goes for albums too.
I'm glad someone finally said something about Sgt Peppers. I have felt the same thing about the songs in that LP. Same with Let It Be. I like what Phil Spector added to the songs.
While I disagree with some of them (Help! should be a little higher in my eyes) this was a great read. Well done.
One small question: Why is the White Album the only one with the full date for the release date instead of just the year like the other albums?
Thanks for your comment Henry! Appreciate your perspective. Answer to your question, that’s a formatting error on my part. It will be fixed shortly. Cheers.