The Beatles: part 1

The Beatles' Second Album: (1964)

Any day you can start listening to the Beatles has to be a good day, or at least a good start. There are eleven album sin this section of the collection, well fourteen, because some I have duplicates, just in case. Anyway, it starts with this album, "The Beatles' Second Album", which was just the second that Capital Records released, and in fact the eighth to bare the name Beatles that had been released between 1963 and 1964. Though mostly covers this is just as charming an album as anything they released.

Revolver: (1966)

I'm always blown away at how fast the Beatles evolved musically, it really was leaps and bounds. So Revolver, considered by some to be the best Beatles album, as if that could be quantified. I try to imagine just how out of left field revolutionary these album must have been to hear when they first came out. At this point in history, most are so familiar with their catalogue that the music just seems common place, but when I hear the bass line on Taxman, or the single chord and bird noise on Tomorrow Never Knows, I have to think that if I was a kid who had heard Love Me Do, and rushed to the store to buy this album, I would have my mind blown in a serious way. Oh wait, I did have that experience as a kid, I just had to look through my parents' record collection.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: (1967)

I know this album is supposed to be the penultimate Beatles/60's album, but while I like this album, I don't think it's as strong as some of their other work. Sure it was innovative, and I've enjoyed countless hours reading about it's making, watching video footage etc... I find it to feel a bit forced, unlike Rubber Soul, Revolver, or The White Album. But, again, they were bringing in so many new influences to the pop world that the power of this album can't be denied.

The Beatles "The White Album":(1968)

This, this is my favorite Beatles album. I love how sprawling it is in its musical reach. I love the rawness of it. I feel like this was the Fab Four at their creative zenith. Where Pepper felt labored over, this feels free and organic and the essence of that Rock'n'Roll freedom I admired since I was first hearing this music. If most albums are a train that you get on with the first song to take a journey to the final song, then this album is wardrobe that allows you to step into another dimension. Or maybe that's just my fanciful imagination running away again.

Let It Be: (1970) 

Now, some are going to say, "hey buddy, these are out of chronological order." But, as serious fans know, this album was recorded before Abbey Road, and in my mind if you're listening in order this one should be here. It paints a more accurate picture of the Beatles' evolution, and you can see how they arrived at their inevitable conclusion. That freedom and rawness of the White Album comes to a head on this album, and the tensions bubble over. You can hear it in the vocal performances on I've Got A feeling. I really have always dug the looseness of this record. On this one the Beatles finally reach a place the Stones had gotten to much earlier. A place I love, which is ragged and frayed, desperate almost. 

Abbey Road: (1969)

This is the, "OK, for the sake of all that's holy, we should get ourselves disciplined again, and bring back George Martin, and go for broke to right the ship," album. Which did and didn't work as history shows. It's a timelessly awesome album, I in fact own it in three different media forms (vinyl,cassette,reel to reel, and CD). It's always best to go out on a high. And They did. Anytime a band can call it a day with the final recorded statement, on the final recorded album as a band, "the love you take is equal to the love you make", than you've done your work very well. Obviously the world has thanked them very well for their work. I've always been a firm believer that if the Beatles would've just taken a break from one another, and made solo albums years before the tensions got bad, say right after the White Album, that they would have lasted much longer. But, as my mother used to say, "If 'ifs' were skiffs, we'd all go sailing."