Best Beatles album

[Mr66]

Help me buy my first Beatles album this weekend.
Which one do you prefer and why?

[Punk Rooster]

Abbey Road is a fav, but I've been into the White Album & Sgt Peppers at different points

[Leaping Lindner]

I'm not a Beatles fan by any stretch but my opinion FWIW is get Rubber Soul and then Revolver.
Both are 40+ years old and still sound relatively fresh. Amazing albums for their time and still hold up well today.
To me Sgt Pepper - which was ground breaking at the time - has dated really badly. The double White Album would have made a good EP. Whilst Abbey Road is revered by Beatles fans as their best to me it's the sort of album you buy your mum.
But hey! That's one man's opinion!

[Pseudo]

Depending on my mood at the time I'd have voted for any of Sgt Peppers, White Album or Abbey Road.

This moment's mood had me click on Sgt Peppers. To my mind this is the best flowing album, from first song to last. The first track introduces the album as a piece of fantasy. All further tracks take a different step down a psychedelic path, exploring something different while remaining fantasy. The penultimate track neatly bookends the whole album to that point. The final track, A Day In The Life, provides a counterpoint to everything that has preceded it: a stark in-yer-face piece of humdrum reality. This is the Best Closing Track on any album, by anybody, ever.

I like White Album 'coz of its experimental edge. Sure, a lot of it had been done before by obscure Kraut artists, but not ever in the mainstream.

Abbey Road was the first full Beatles album I ever listened to extensively, and remains a favourite for sentimental reasons. As the last Beatles album recorded (Let It Be was recorded earler though released after) it showcases the band at its ultimate state; a lot of the friction present when Let IT Be was recorded was allegedly absent during Abbey Road. The Beatles knew it was going to be their swansong.

BTW should this be on the Music board?

[Dogwatcher]

I've got most of these albums - although only Sgt Peppers and The Beatles (White) on CD.
So they're the only ones I listen to with any regularity.
I've actually been listening to them a bit recently as I'm reading a pretty extensive biography of them at the moment.

Love Pepper's - yes it is dated. But it is Pop music at its best.

[Dirko]

Growing up with a Beatle loving Mum, I was fortunate to listen to all those Albums as a kid, and as of now Peppers still gets me
going !

Love the Beatles !

Rubber Soul would be my next, then the White Album....

"Lucy in the sky with Diamonds" !! Love it !!

[LBT]

I really enjoy all Beatles music but Rubber Soul is my fav, closely followed by Revolver. It's when they were in cross-over mode from their early pop stuff to more rock and experimental stuff. Incidnetly I think this is when the guys started experimenting with more than their music.

[The Ash Man]

[quote="SJABC"]Growing up with a Beatle loving Mum, I was fortunate to listen to all those Albums as a kid, and as of now Peppers still gets me
going !

Love the Beatles !

Rubber Soul would be my next, then the White Album....

"Lucy in the sky with Diamonds" !! Love it !![/quote]

I still put it on the jukebox at the pub after a few
Still get some strange looks!!!

[zipzap]

Revolver's the one for me. The experimental phase begins here. Tomorrow Never Knows still sounds incredible today.

[Rik E Boy]

I say Revolver but hey I'm only sleeping. Any one of those is a good start. Don't forget about Magical Mystery tour either, that has I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields forever, Hello Goodbye and Baby you're a rich man.

regards,

REB

[southee]

I'm a massive Beatles fan.

It's really a personal choice where you start and many will argue what is the best,

My Top 3 are :

1. Abbey Road - George Martin's last time producing and this closes the story nicely...Side 2 from "You never give me your money" is something that will never be repeated.

2. The White Album - 2 discs, over 30 songs that are rock, folk, ambient, psycadelic, hard rock and even scream therapy!!! Its a massive album with so much information that songs you thought were OK will be your fav in no time!!!

3. Sgt. Pepper - So well produced and written. For the time, it was the start of a whole new phase of recording. It still sounds fresh today. A real "druggie" album as the LSD was flowing well with them at this time. Many have tried to repeat what the Beatles did on this album but never reach the height of this.

Others I like are - Rubber Soul, Revolver.

Hope this helps and dont forget their solo work too - some of it is amazing while some I think even the Beatles would rather forget

[zipzap]

Call me a heretic but if you're a Beatles newbie then the 'Love' (Jive-Bunny megamix) album is possibly a good place to start. Has some very nifty little sequences esp Within Without You with the Tomorrow Never knows drums that the Chemical Bros nicked.

[therisingblues]

In 1989 for my ninth birthday I requested a Beatles album. At the time there were always old Beatles clips on TV of their early concerts and my impression of them was of the four mop-tops. Hence I expected something along those lines.
My mother bought for me Sgt. Peppers, and this was the first album I ever owned.
I was slightly confused by it, "Who are these men with moustaches on the cover?" thought I, as well as "Who is Sgt. Pepper?" etc. Then the music was not the two guitars, bass and drum I had heard time and again on TV and radio, the opening number was an orchestra! Hence the first time I heard the music was end to end direct from the album.
To this day Sgt. Peppers is my favourite Beatles album. About 5 years ago I got a copy of the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" which was released just before Sgt. Pepper and was Wilson's sally in the cross Atlantic battle of the perfect album. When I get the chance I like to listen to them directly one after the other, usually on long drives. "Pet Sounds" is a very, very fine work, but gets well and truly blasted out of the water by Pepper but on many other levels (balance, musical development, creativity, daring, "completeness?") the are very similar.

[Dogwatcher]

You're right there mate.
The only part where Pet Sounds beats Sgt Pepper's is the production.
Apparently the Beach Boys used to pray in the studio - literally asking the man above to help them make a better album than the Beatles.
The Liverpudlian heathens always won out.

[Rik E Boy]

You're right there mate.
The only part where Pet Sounds beats Sgt Pepper's is the production.
Apparently the Beach Boys used to pray in the studio - literally asking the man above to help them make a better album than the Beatles.
The Liverpudlian heathens always won out.

Pfft. The Stones were the heathens my friend.

regards,

REB

[Dogwatcher]

True, they were a darker shade of heathen. they liked to Paint it Black.
If you remember though, it was John Lennon who said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus

[zipzap]

I adore Pet Sounds and although I know about the McCartney obsessions that drove Brian Wilson at this period, there's no way I can even vaguely relate it to Sgt Pepper. 'Smile' definitely but not so much Pet Sounds.

What about the Stones' 'Satanic Majesties'? Surely the most amusing Sgt Peppers tribute album of the time! I still get a giggle from the cover:

[Leaping Lindner]

Pardon the pun, but this is the mother of all Sgt Pepper's inspired album covers.

[Dogwatcher]

I did think of that one. Gold!

[therisingblues]

Apparently the Beach Boys used to pray in the studio - literally asking the man above to help them make a better album than the Beatles.

I don't think they specifically worded the prayer to include the Beatles, but Brian Wilson did pray with the orchestra during the recording of Pet Sounds to make that album as good as it could be.
Apparently the release of "Revolver" signalled the age of the album as a single complete work of art, and Brian Wilson set out to outdo it with "Pet Sounds". Obviously marketing wasn't high on his list of considerations, the cover alone must have driven away hordes of teenagers ie. The Beach Boys looking very straight lace at a petting zoo, feeding goats! If that wasn't enough then the music within would have shocked most fans into despair, they are great numbers on that peice of vinyl, but I can imagine the disappointment felt by the kids of the time, expecting girls, girls, girls, surf, surf, surf, fun, fun, fun and getting a lot of mood music best aimed at a more cultured minds in its place. Surely steps should have been taken to ensure this music would be accessible to those that could appreciate it most. I know a music lover from California who grew up in that era and he heard and loved Pet Sounds for the first time just a few years back. It is also true that Pet Sounds again and again tops the personal favourite album lists of famous musos. It is definitely a great work but the sales manager/director deserved a kick up the rear IMO. I think it has been said that the lack of recognition received by Pet Sounds was one of the things that drove poor old BW a little loopy a bit later on, from what I understand he was making a few other songs at the time that just weren't understood and were shunned ("The Little Girl I Once Knew" being a classic example) he'd then do remakes of simple rock and roll lines like "Barbara Ann" and quickly grab No 1 spot on the charts. For an artist wanting to wrest more serious musical accolades away from across the Atlantic, his postion must have been pretty frustrating, especially when he had the talent at his disposal to at least give his goals a good shake, his fan base however, just couldn't follow his lead.
I haven't read/seen much about this guy Wilson, but what little I have heard makes him one of the 20th Century's more interesting songwriters.