BruceH

Like I always say, love the innovator, the followers, not so much. Sometimes. And this is one of those times.

Some of her album cover art in LP days used to be nice ! :rsmile: I'm going to stick my neck out and say that back when she was still in a vaguely country vein she was pretty good. I'll stick my neck even further out & say that her "classic" 70s work (w/Peter Asher at the helm) was hugely influential in terms of creating an archetypal "L.A. Rock" sound & production style. Oh, so SHE'S to blame!

I don't have it, but that set sure LOOKS good.

They both seem to go well with bikinis, that's for sure.

We do.

Why does that matter? They were obviously a great band, but they had a VERY short career as a group. Had they stuck around as long as the Stones have, I dare say their legacy would be a bit different. If the Stones had broken up after Let It Bleed (a comparable point in their career maybe), it would be easily equivalent to Abbey Road. And I don't think Abbey Road, good as it is, is as good as some of the preceding albums. Let It Bleed the equialent of Abbey Road. I don't think so. But having said that, I agree with your opinion that Abbey Road, good as it is, still isn't quite as good as some of the earlier albums. For many years my personal faves have been (the genuine, British) A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, and Revolver. Always keeping in mind, of course, that the suite on side two of AR makes the whole thing even more apples-and-oranges than usual.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer has an elaborate rhyme scheme worthy of Cole Porter or Noel Coward. Far from their worst ever. And you are free to listen to it as often as you wish.

I agree, except that I don't much care for most of Magical Mystery Tour either. And let's face it, even Abbey Road, great as it is, has its weak spots. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? *Shudder* ...In the running for worst Beatles original ever.

Sorry, but it IS revisionism, based on respective numbers of copies sold at the time, the Beatles' agreement with Capitol, and the fact that these were mere collections of songs - not movements of symphonies. That's a bit snobby. Clearly, these were not "mere" collections of songs to either the Beatles or Martin, otherwise they wouldn't have cared how the albums were presented. But they did, and if we're going to count the intent of the artist, the UK Beatles catalogue (along with the original UK mixes) is clearly the original "text" of the Beatles' body of work. The American catalogue, however widely disseminated, was a bastardization in that it ignored the intent of the artist and created something entirely different for the sake of commerce. The American Beatles albums were mixed up and truncated for no other reason than to double the number of Beatles releases in a given year (making the American consumer pay twice as much as the British consumer to receive the exact same amount of end-product). This was no "artistic" decision made by the exectutives at Captiol. That said, I have tremendous affection for the American catalogue and own most of the albums in both US and UK versions (when I can get my hands on them). I enjoy a lot of the American mixes (even the ones considered inferior) simply because they're what I heard first. But I don't discount the fact that if the Beatles and EMI had had their way, there would be no "Meet the Beatles," "Yesterday and Today" or "Beatles '65" (not to mention real rip-offs like the "Help!" soundtrack, which only included songs from the movie in the US). And the shitty American Hard Day's Night album, which only had songs from the movie, removing all the side-two songs and replacing them with non-Beatles muzak. A real pet-peeve of mine. I think it's no longer in print, thank God. Being a total nerd about this back in the day, I bought the complete American and British (LP) catalogs, and quite a few German, Japanese, and Dutch pressings. Some of the American sound mixes I think I still prefer to this day (though I don't really listen to the Beatles that much anymore) and in many ways I still prefer the US Rubber Soul, but for godsake, how can one, on general principles as well as esthetics, not prefer the ACTUAL Parlophone/EMI, Beatles and George Martin-programmed early ALBUMS-AS-ALBUMS to the American mish-mashes??? When I like a musical group, pop or rock or whatever, I prefer their albums to be programmed by the group, not some corporate suit or bean-counter at a record label. Albums may not be symphonies, but song-programming (choosing and sequencing and so on) is something of an art, or used to be, in pop music. (And may I say, "Hear, hear" Alexander!)

I'll agree up to a point. They were certainly among the first in ROCK to think of LPs as more than just collections of songs (although the Beach Boys were certainly heading in that direction, even before the Beatles-inspired "Pet Sounds"). However, Frank Sinatra beat them to the punch by more than a decade. His LPs on Capitol contained a common "theme" and certainly demonstrate considerable thought when it comes to programming. Indeed, but the first in ROCK is what I said, and that is exactly what I meant. (Ya gotta love those Sinatra Capitol albums, BTW, and I certainly do. Although for a time Capitol, in best corporate-asshole fashion, took some songs OFF of some of those Sinatra albums, apparently because they came to think there should be some sort of law against an album having 15 or 16 songs.)

No.

Of course - just like San Francisco isn't the "Real America." Sorry, but I don't buy into the revisionist Beatles catalog history that has been propagated by EMI and the corporate entity known as the Beatles. "Revisionist"? Capitol looted songs from the Help, Rubber Soul, and Revolver albums in order to stitch together Yesterday and Today (as well as threw in the "Daytripper/We Can Work It Out" single.) The result was admittedly one helluva pleasing mid-period compilation, but no more an ACTUAL album than The Beatles VI, or The Beatles '65. There's a reason that the Beatles submitted the infamous and suppressed "butcher cover" for Yesterday and Today. We're talking facts here.

I hardly think of The Beatles as an albums band. Yes, 'Rubber Soul' through to 'Abbey Road' have a certain unity about them (though I've always found 'The White Album' a bit thrown together - a hodge-podge of whole songs, experiments, and half-thought-through ideas. Sacrilege, I know!). Hardly. I've long thought of The White Album as the very first 'kitchen sink' album. Other examples of this meta-genre would be The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St., The Minutemen's Double Nickels On the Dime, Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Sandinista, by the Clash, and certainly Sloan's Never Hear the End of It. You either dig it or not, but it's not an approach that's particularly meant to be cohesive or even strongly coherent. ("Album-as-grab-bag/horn-of-plenty" is more like it.) But not thinking of the Beatles as an album band DOES sound a tad strange, considering it was they (more than anyone else in rock) who pretty much invented the idea of the "album" as an artistic gestalt. They were the first, as far as I know, to actually give thought to programming, to issues of one song balancing another, to (for instance) having an appropriate song end side one as well as a "kick-off" song for side two, etc. In short, the first to see their albums as anything more than a dumping ground for hits and filler. Of course, you're quite right in that they were the consummate singles band too. Kind of like a baseball player being a terrific fielder AND a great hitter.

Earth Then and Now---Fred Pearce (though more looking at the pictures than "reading")

Yes, I was serious about Abbey Road being one of the best, if not the best swan song I've ever heard. As far as Rubber Soul and Revolver go, they are both great albums. But your statement about these being the Beatles' best is quite subjective, wouldn't you say? Of course. That said, The White Album is my favorite Beatles album; but Rubber Soul, Yesterday and Today and Revolver are the ones that have left the real indelible mark on me. These three albums were like a summation of everything that was great about them from the beginning, and a precursor of what was to come, minus the self-indulgence. Always remembering, of course, that Yesterday and Today was not a "real" album. I love Revolver (particularly the "real" British version) but I wouldn't call it "moptop" at all. I agree. Revolver is the Beatles album (the British version, though even with the songs cut, the American version is pretty damned good). The problem for me in picking "the best Beatles album" is that my two favorite Beatles songs didn't show up (at least in this country) until extremely late. Give me Rain and Paperback Writer, and I'm a happy camper... Lord, oh lordy, I hear ya! That ranks up there as one of their strongest singles, and those two songs SHOULD (by rights) have been included on Revolver! They were recorded in the same sessions, and have got that Revolver-studio-techno sound, but it's just too damn bad that the Brits had a thing about 'original' singles, and not including same on albums. Finding "Rain" on the Hey Jude odds-and-ends album was one of the major musical discoveries of my life that year.

"You mean the yellow ones are poison?"

Very sorry for your loss.

I love Revolver (particularly the "real" British version) but I wouldn't call it "moptop" at all. I associate the term with their early period and the first wave of Beatlemania; say, the first three albums and related singles. Revolver comes near the end of their middle period, a time of increasing eclecticism, experimentation, studio manipulation, and psychedelia. It's long fascinated me that some of the songs on that album ("Taxman," "I'm Only Sleeping," "Tomorrow Never Knows," "And Your Bird Can Sing,") could be considered an early form of techno-rock, and certainly deliver more of a ballsy kick than most of the tracks on Sgt. Pepper.

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein

I miss the trusty "mono" button on my old receiver.

I think this will be the next PKD I re-read! I remember really enjoying this back in the day. (Gateway too, for that matter.)

Pretty much the same here. Born in '61, their music was naturally a background to my childhood, but I remained fairly uninterested in music in the pre-adolescent years. It wasn't until about 1978, in high school, that I started investigating the Beatles, when they were history (though still rather recent history.)

Their first couple of albums, yes, I'd agree, but I usually prefer the stereo mixes. In any case, "stereo being an afterthought" - if it was at all - only goes through the White Album. I'm not sure if there even was a mono issue of Abbey Road or Let it Be - if there were, they were fold-downs of the stereo mix. Yes, I must admit, I was thinking of the early albums (through perhaps Sgt. Pepper) when I said that.

Quite. The eclecticism of "ROCK" was best exemplified by the Beatles, in fact I'd say they led the way in many respects. (As many have pointed out, when the Beatles put out "Yesterday," a quiet ballad with a string quartet, it could be called "ROCK" while clearly not being "rock'n'roll" at all in the traditional sense.)

His lame-ass, flaccid stereo mixes are surely not part of that reason, unfortunately. The Beatles need to be heard in MONO! They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time. Not a fad, but not relevant to pop music (British class prejudice again). Stereo was for classical music, jazz, "classy" singers like Sinatra, and the British equivalents of Enoch Light and Tony Mottola. MG Ah, I see.