The Beatles Albums (15)
'Savage Young Beatles with Tony Sheridan'
Release Date 4/18/2006
Tracks 8
Label Membran/Intense
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What The Critics Say
The last Beatles album to be recorded (although Let It Be was the last to be released), Abbey Road was a fitting swan song for the group, echoing some of the faux-conceptual forms of Sgt. Pepper, but featuring stronger compositions and more rock-oriented ensemble work. The group was still pushing forward in all facets of its art, whether devising some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record (especially on "Because"), constructing a medley of songs/vignettes that covered much of side two, adding subtle touches of Moog synthesizer, or crafting furious guitar-heavy rock ("The End," "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," "Come Together"). George Harrison also blossomed into a major songwriter, contributing the buoyant "Here Comes the Sun" and the supremely melodic ballad "Something," the latter of which became the first Harrison-penned Beatles hit. Whether Abbey Road is the Beatles' best work is debatable, but it's certainly the most immaculately produced (with the possible exception of Sgt. Pepper) and most tightly constructed. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The only Beatles album to occasion negative, even hostile reviews, there are few other rock records as controversial as Let It Be. First off, several facts need to be explained: although released in May 1970, this was not their final album, but largely recorded in early 1969, way before Abbey Road. Phil Spector was enlisted in early 1970 to do some post-production mixing and overdubs, but he did not work with the band as a unit. And, although his use of strings has generated much criticism, by and large he left the original performances to stand as is: only "The Long and Winding Road" and (to a lesser degree) "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" get the Wall of Sound treatment. The main problem was that the material wasn't uniformly strong, and that the Beatles themselves were in fairly lousy moods due to intergroup tension. All that said, the album is on the whole underrated, even discounting the fact that a substandard Beatles record is better than almost any other group's best work. McCartney in particular offers several gems: the gospel-ish "Let It Be," which has some of his best lyrics; "Get Back," one of his hardest rockers; and the melodic "The Long and Winding Road," ruined by Spector's heavy-handed overdubs. The folky "Two of Us," with John and Paul harmonizing together, was also a highlight. Most of the rest of the material, by contrast, was going through the motions to some degree, although there are some good moments of straight hard rock in "I've Got a Feeling" and "Dig a Pony." As flawed and bumpy as it is, it's an album well worth having, as when the Beatles were in top form here, they were as good as ever. [In November 2003, the Beatles released an alternate version of Let It Be called Let It Be... Naked, which mixed out Spector's contributions and deleted snippets of conversation scattered throughout the album. "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" were cut from the record in favor of "Don't Let Me Down," which was placed in the middle of an album that now had a considerably different sequencing than the originally released version of Let It Be.] ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
'The Beatles' Second Album'
Release Date 3/29/1969
Tracks 11
Label Capitol
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What The Critics Say
The Beatles' Second Album was the first album of the group's work to be assembled by Capitol Records exclusively for the American market (as opposed to, say, Meet the Beatles!, which was a reconfigured and shortened version of With the Beatles). As such, it offends some historical purists, who don't think of it as a real album. Regardless of its origins, however, The Beatles' Second Album stands as probably best pure rock & roll album ever issued of the group's music. In the process of pulling songs from various British and American EPs, singles (including "She Loves You") and B-sides, as well as tracks left over from the editing of With the Beatles for American release, the compilers somehow managed to avoid any trace of the pop ballads favored by Paul McCartney that usually slowed down the group's other early albums, and the result was the longest uninterrupted body of hard rock & roll and R&B in their entire output. No other long-player by the group featured them doing more covers of songs by black American artists or songwriters, including Little Richard("Long Tall Sally"), Chuck Berry ("Roll Over Beethoven"), Smokey Robinson ("You Really Got a Hold on Me"), Barrett Strong ("Money"), and others, and just to show how rich a vein this all was at the time of its release, the version of "Roll Over Beethoven" here actually charted briefly as a single, while "Long Tall Sally" served as their concert finale. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The only Beatles album that could really be classified as inessential, mostly because it wasn't really a proper album at all, but a soundtrack that only utilized four new Beatles songs. (The rest of the album was filled out with "Yellow Submarine," "All You Need Is Love," and a George Martin score.) What's more, two of the four new tracks were little more than pleasant throwaways that had been recorded during 1967 and early 1968. These aren't all that bad; "All Together Now" is a cute, kiddieish McCartney singalong, while "Hey Bulldog" has some mild Lennon nastiness and a great beat and central piano riff, with some fine playing all around -- each is memorable in its way, and the inclusion of the Lennon song here was all the more important, as the sequence from the movie itself in which it was used was deleted from the original U.S. release of the movie (which had no success whatever in the U.K. and quickly disappeared, thus making the U.S. version the established cut of the film for decades, until the late-'90s restoration and DVD re-release of the movie). George Harrison's two contributions were the more striking of the new entries -- "Only a Northern Song," a leftover from the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, generated from a period in which the guitarist became increasingly fascinated with keyboards, especially the organ and the Mellotron (and, later, the synthesizer), and is an odd piece of psychedelic ersatz, mixing trippiness and some personal comments; its lyrics (and title) on the one hand express the guitarist/singer/composer's displeasure at being tied in his publishing to Northern Songs, a company in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the majority shareholders; and, on the other, they present Harrison's vision of how music and recording sounded, from the inside out and the outside in, during the psychedelic era -- the song thus provided a rare glimpse inside the doors of perception of being a Beatle (or, at least, one aspect of being this particular Beatle) circa 1967. And then there was the jewel of the new songs, "It's All Too Much"; coming from the second half of 1967, the song -- resplendent in swirling Mellotron, larger-than-life percussion, and tidal waves of feedback guitar -- was a virtuoso excursion into otherwise hazy psychedelia, that was actually superior in some respects to "Blue Jay Way," Harrison's songwriting contribution of The Magical Mystery Tour; the song also later rated a dazzling cover by Steve Hillage in the middle of the following decade. The very fact that George Harrison was afforded two song slots and a relatively uncompetitive canvas for his music shows how little the project meant to Lennon and McCartney -- as did the cutting of the "Hey Bulldog" sequence from the movie, apparently with no resistance from Lennon, who had other, more important artistic fish to fry in 1968. What is here, however, is a good enough reason for owning the record, though nothing rates it as anything near a high-priority purchase. The album would have been far better value if it had been released as a four-song EP (an idea the Beatles even considered at one point, with the addition of a bonus track in "Across the Universe" but ultimately discarded). And the original soundtrack was partly supplanted by the release at the end of the 1990s of the Yellow Submarine (Songtrack), which marked the first of the remastered Beatles albums, thus reducing the appeal of the original. No one would argue that there's a huge amount more than meets the eye (or ear) there, but listening to the original album anew 40 years on, one is still struck by how mostly second-rate, and recycled and rejected Beatles material still sounds so good. And while George Martin's instrumental music from the film wasn't what a lot of Beatles fans were looking for, it was relegated safely to side two if one wished to ignore it. And even that material offered a pleasant surprise or two -- first, over how much more enjoyable it was than the Ken Thorne-arranged background music for Help! (could one imagine a full side of that on an album?); and, second, the fun that Martin has as an orchestrator with some of George Harrison's recent Hindustanti music excursions on "Sea of Time"; the latter is doubly interesting, as Martin in later years, in his autobiography All You Need Is Ears, admitted to regretting some of the antipathy he showed to Harrison and his music and songwriting during their time together with the Beatles. And, finally, as a Beatles-lite release, Yellow Submarine does have its moments of welcome on the turntable or the CD player -- it's not every time that calls for listening as ambitious and demanding as The White Album, Abbey Road, or Sgt. Pepper's. ~ Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'Magical Mystery Tour'
Release Date 1/1/1967
Tracks 12
Label Parlophone
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What The Critics Say
The U.S. version of the soundtrack for the Beatles' ill-fated British television special embellished the six songs that were found on the British Magical Mystery Tour double EP with five other cuts from their 1967 singles. (The CD version of the record has now been standardized worldwide as the 11 tracks found on the American version.) The psychedelic sound is very much in the vein of Sgt. Pepper, and even spacier in parts (especially the sound collages of "I Am the Walrus"). Unlike Sgt. Pepper, there's no vague overall conceptual/thematic unity to the material, which has made Magical Mystery Tour suffer slightly in comparison. Still, the music is mostly great, and "Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "All You Need Is Love," and "Hello Goodbye" were all huge, glorious, and innovative singles. The ballad "The Fool on the Hill," though only a part of the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, is also one of the most popular Beatle tunes from the era. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'
Release Date 1/1/1967
Tracks 14
Label Parlophone
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What The Critics Say
With Revolver, the Beatles made the Great Leap Forward, reaching a previously unheard-of level of sophistication and fearless experimentation. Sgt. Pepper, in many ways, refines that breakthrough, as the Beatles consciously synthesized such disparate influences as psychedelia, art-song, classical music, rock & roll, and music hall, often in the course of one song. Not once does the diversity seem forced -- the genius of the record is how the vaudevillian "When I'm 64" seems like a logical extension of "Within You Without You" and how it provides a gateway to the chiming guitars of "Lovely Rita." There's no discounting the individual contributions of each member or their producer, George Martin, but the preponderance of whimsy and self-conscious art gives the impression that Paul McCartney is the leader of the Lonely Hearts Club Band. He dominates the album in terms of compositions, setting the tone for the album with his unabashed melodicism and deviously clever arrangements. In comparison, Lennon's contributions seem fewer, and a couple of them are a little slight but his major statements are stunning. "With a Little Help From My Friends" is the ideal Ringo tune, a rolling, friendly pop song that hides genuine Lennon anguish, à la "Help!"; "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" remains one of the touchstones of British psychedelia; and he's the mastermind behind the bulk of "A Day in the Life," a haunting number that skillfully blends Lennon's verse and chorus with McCartney's bridge. It's possible to argue that there are better Beatles albums, yet no album is as historically important as this. After Sgt. Pepper, there were no rules to follow -- rock and pop bands could try anything, for better or worse. Ironically, few tried to achieve the sweeping, all-encompassing embrace of music as the Beatles did here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Six months had elapsed since the release of Beatles '65 in America, and the powers that were at Capitol Records recognized that some new product was needed, especially as the group was about to tour the United States. The result was Beatles VI, using the remaining tracks off of the British-released Beatles for Sale album (going all the way back to the fall of the previous year), among them that album's highlight, a cover of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love," and four new songs, two of them from the second side of the soon-to-be-released U.K. Help! album. The result was as much of a mish-mash as any album of Beatles songs ever assembled by Capitol Records, although -- thanks to the quality of the performances and the songs -- it was still eminently high-quality material, song-for-song, and outclassed virtually all of the competition. And as long as the group's singles held up in quality, albums like this would continue to scale the top of the charts with ease. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Beatles released their latest official long-player, Beatles for Sale, in England on December 4 of 1964, capping a year of the most extraordinary activity ever seen on the part of a performing group. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., where sales were easily dwarfing the group's U.K. success by sheer weight of numbers, Capitol Records saw no reason to give 14 new songs to the waiting public, especially as they were sitting on one leftover song from the U.K. Hard Day's Night album, and had a current single whose two sides, "I Feel Fine" and "She's a Woman," they could use to promote whatever they released. The result was Beatles '65, issued a little less than two weeks before the start of that year and ten days before Christmas. This was the first U.S. album on which the co-mingling of tracks started to wear on the originals -- The Beatles' Second Album had been a miraculous assembly of material from nearly a half-dozen sessions and sources, while Something New was basically the Hard Day's Night soundtrack without "A Hard Day's Night" or "Can't Buy Me Love," but punched up with a pair of hard-rocking covers. Beatles '65 was essentially the core of the rather dour Beatles for Sale, punched up with the new single and an off-beat but killer remnant from A Hard Day's Night, and while it all sounded OK and duly topped the charts, the cohesion was starting to get lost -- in between the acoustic-textured Beatles for Sale numbers and the feedback-laden "I Feel Fine," the hard-rocking "She's a Woman," and the somewhat less sharp-edged Carl Perkins covers here, there was less and less method to the compiling for the U.S., all courtesy of Dave Dexter, Jr., a Capitol executive who'd had to be ordered to start authorizing the release of Beatles material by Capitol in America (as opposed to passing on it and letting other licensees handle it), and seemingly spent most of the next two years trying to prove how right he'd been to neglect them. The odd thing was that, despite the weak and odd re-couplings of songs, the album did sell, and song for song it was still better than anything the competition was creating, and as long as the singles were everything they should be, the band was on safe ground. With this and its next release, Capitol was starting to figure out just how valuable each Beatles song was by itself, and how far they could go re-packaging them, as long as they retain some measure of common sense. They would lose that attribute with the U.S. Help! album, courtesy of Dexter, but in the meantime the label did get out flawed if entertaining compilations such as this. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'Introducing...The Beatles'
Release Date 1/1/1964
Tracks 12
Label Vee-Jay
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What The Critics Say
The first Beatles album released in the U.S., Introducing...The Beatles is a slightly abridged version of Please Please Me, which had been released in the U.K. four months earlier. It includes two fewer tracks than its British counterpart, deleting "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why." Today, of course, there's no reason to prefer it to Please Please Me, which was released in the U.S. in 1987, but from 1963 to 1965, when Capitol Records belatedly released the material on The Early Beatles, this (plus some inferior Vee Jay repackagings) was the only American album containing some of the Beatles' initial recordings. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
