# A Question Regarding the Beatles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 25, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797 "2011-06-25T04:03:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SeamusMcCool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SeamusMcCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeamusMcCool)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/41 "2011-06-27T17:39:07Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Albums were mostly filler to pad out the hit singles. They were often recorded in a day. Some were more important than others but most studios didn’t care about their quality. > > And they were expensive. When I was a kid in the 60s, singles were priced at 99 cents, mono albums were $2.98 and stereo albums were $3.98. Who could afford money for albums, especially if you could get a discounted single? > > The change happened because artists began to think they were, well, artists. They didn’t want albums filled with low-quality junk. Frank Sinatra was the pioneer in this for popular music, but he was following the success of jazz and classical artists. If you look at the early nominees [Grammy Awards for albums](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Album_of_the_Year), you see soundtracks, live concert albums, comedy albums, classical albums and Frank Sinatra. No rock album is a nominee until The Beatles in 1966 and Help! To expand on this point, The Beatles were the first rock (possibly pop (this would include Jazz, folk, blues etc.) act to release an album (A Hard Day’s Night) of 100% original tunes. Prior to then, the singles were put on albums and the filler was typically covers. Also, outside of exceptions like Buddy Holly, the music biz was run like the Hollywood studio system until The Beatles came along. Record companies would have a staff of writers as well people to teach stage craft, public appearances etc. and the bands/singers would play, wear and do what they were told. My guess is Buddy Holly would have beaten The Beatles to this distinction if he hadn’t died in that plane crash. Putting out an album of all original compositions would add prestige to the album and people would take it more seriously as something other than a compilation of hit singles (most written by in house songwriters) they already own and filler. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/42 "2011-06-27T18:00:18Z")
> [@SeamusMcCool](#): > > To expand on this point, The Beatles were the first rock (possibly pop (this would include Jazz, folk, blues etc.) act to release an album (A Hard Day’s Night) of 100% original tunes. There are any number of jazz albums before The Beatles that had nothing but original compositions. The wording of your statement makes it unclear if you meant to include jazz in the same group as pop. See Dave Brubeck’s discography for a prime example. _Time Out_ specifically. > **[Time Out (album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_(album))** > > Time Out is a studio album by the American jazz group the Dave Brubeck Quartet, released in 1959 by Columbia Records. Recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City, the album is noted for its pioneering use of unconventional time signatures for jazz, including 98, 64, and 54. Musically, it represents a subtle fusion of cool and West Coast influences. > Time Out peaked at number two on the Billboard albums chart and became the first jazz album to sell one million copies. Its standou... > [@](#): > > Track listing All pieces composed by Dave Brubeck, except “Take Five” by Paul Desmond. > > Side one > 1.“Blue Rondo à la Turk” – 6:44 > 2.“Strange Meadow Lark” – 7:22 > 3.“Take Five” – 5:24 > Side two > 4.“Three to Get Ready” – 5:24 > 5.“Kathy’s Waltz” – 4:48 > 6.“Everybody’s Jumpin’” – 4:23 > 7.“Pick Up Sticks” – 4:16 [Desmond played alto for Brubeck’s quartet] ---
**Author:** ![SeamusMcCool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SeamusMcCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeamusMcCool)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/43 "2011-06-27T18:04:44Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > There are any number of jazz albums before The Beatles that had nothing but original compositions. The wording of your statement makes it unclear if you meant to include jazz in the same group as pop. > > See Dave Brubeck’s discography for a prime example. _Time Out_ specifically. > > [Time Out (album) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_(album)) > > [Desmond played alto for Brubeck’s quartet] I wrote rock act, but inbetween put in brackets the possibility that it could include all pop music. Thanks for the clarrification and will now stick to rock act without the brackets as I wasn’t sure if there had been a Jazz, country, blues etc. album of originals. Blues, country, folk etc. would be unlikely as it’s typical to take old traditional tunes, standards etc., some of them the authors are lost to time and make them your own. But I was willing to believe that a Jazz act had accomplished an album of all originals prior to The Beatles. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/44 "2011-06-27T18:14:39Z")
> [@SeamusMcCool](#): > > To expand on this point, The Beatles were the first rock (possibly pop (this would include Jazz, folk, blues etc.) act to release an album (A Hard Day’s Night) of 100% original tunes. Prior to then, the singles were put on albums and the filler was typically covers. Also, outside of exceptions like Buddy Holly, the music biz was run like the Hollywood studio system until The Beatles came along. Record companies would have a staff of writers as well people to teach stage craft, public appearances etc. and the bands/singers would play, wear and do what they were told. Your timeline is nonsense. Just to stick with the famous groups, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, from 1963, was all originals with one traditional folk song adapted by him. Similarly, all the 1962-1964 Beach Boy albums were 90% written by Brian Wilson with the occasional cover or traditional song. Johnny Cash also wrote the majority of his early albums. Buddy Holly was already writing the majority of his songs with Norman Petty. In fact, most people that are famous today for being anything other than pure singers pioneered writing the majority of their own songs from the very beginnings of rock ‘n’ roll. The first example I can find of a person doing an entire album of his own compositions is Chuck Berry’s first studio album, [After School Session](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_School_Session) released in May 1957, seven years before Hard Day’s Night. And that’s without looking at anything but the first names who came to mind. I’ll bet you’re even wronger if you go outside of rock. I don’t know enough about early jazz to make any definitive comments, but Miles Davis was playing the majority of his own music from the very beginning of his recording career as a lead in the early 1950s. I don’t know which album of his is the first not to use a cover, but nobody fed him anything he didn’t want to do. It’s true that Motown and the doo-wop groups and Elvis and his imitators were comprised mostly of singers who needed products. But that was already well into the process of changing by the time the Beatles came along. The trend was already toward making money by recording your own compositions. You’re confusing one aspect of popular music - one still very much in evidence today, thank you Rebecca Black - with the whole business. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/45 "2011-06-27T18:51:54Z")
A lot of these arguments are about setting a line between BA and AA (Before Albums and After Albums). There isn’t a clear line. CAs (Concept Albums) don’t have a specific definition, and didn’t start with one particular album. It was an evolving concept of what an album consists of. The first 100% original album is going to appear in multiple genres, and even originality varies in significance. Some original works are just derivatives of earlier work or style, others are wholey unique. Some are 100% original, but written one or many people, and performed by others. The radio factor changed over time also, with AM (Amplitude Modulation) transitioning in FM (Frequency Modulation). Rock may have done as much to sell FM radios as FM did to sell rock. The Beatles changed the landscape by succeeding. They sold albums like hotcakes. Sgt. Pepper was a concept album that sold like hotcakes stuffed with money. The success of the Beatles rose the water level for almost every musical genre. You can quibble about the ‘firstness’ of anything, the Beatles success at these things was unquestionable. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/46 "2011-06-27T19:35:34Z")
FWIW, The Beatles never had the best selling album for any given year. Granted, soundtracks held that distinction from 1962 to 1965, but Herb Alpert beat _Revolver_ (1966), The Monkees beat \*Sgt Pepper \*(1967), Jimi Hendrix beat _White Album_ (1968), Iron Butterfly beat _Abbey Road_ (1969), and Simon and Garfunkel beat _Let it Be_ (1970). That doesn’t diminish The Beatles’ contribution to the popularity of albums over singles, but it does demonstrate that they were part of a larger vanguard that included many other artists and factors, and were not as some would have us think the soul trigger for the transition. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/47 "2011-06-27T19:40:09Z")
Too bad for the generations of today that don’t have vinyl LP albums in their lives. They are relics now. But back in the day an album was way cool. For one thing it was big, 12"x12", you could pick it up and hold it and flip it over and in some cases open it like a book. There was art work on the cover, too. Often it would include the lyrics, concert pictures, studio pictures, biographies and stories… etc etc. Some of that still came with CD’s but now that everything is a download you get none of the intimacy. Don’t get me talking about the stereo systems. Macintosh, Pioneer, JBL, TEAC, KLH, Bang and Oluffsen, Scott. You played your albums on a turntable that used a diamond needle and came out of big speakers built in oak wood boxes. Can’t tell me those little ipod docking stations can produce the sound of the stereo systems of the past. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/48 "2011-06-27T19:40:47Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > and were not as some would have us think the soul trigger for the transition. Nope. That was James Brown. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/49 "2011-06-27T19:48:54Z")
> [@lukeinva](#): > > Don’t get me talking about the stereo systems. Macintosh, Pioneer, JBL, TEAC, KLH, Bang and Oluffsen, Scott. You played your albums on a turntable that used a diamond needle and came out of big speakers built in oak wood boxes. Can’t tell me those little ipod docking stations can produce the sound of the stereo systems of the past. How true. I sold a bunch of that stuff in the early 60’s and was in that store when some kid came in and asked if we had any “beetles” records. I tried to be polite and told him the only sound effects records we had were trains and race cars to demo the equipment. I suggested the library. He said, “No, they’re a new English rock and roll group.” Within a few months of that first awareness of them, the place couldn’t get enough Beatles albums. Altec Lansing “Voice of the Theater” and JBL were the kings of big ass speakers then, but the snobs went for AR (Acoustic Research) and Bozak. Remember Garrard and Dual? Shure, Grado, Ortofon? ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/50 "2011-06-27T19:50:17Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#): > > Did all LPs have exactly 12 songs in the early '60s? This obviously isn’t true of LPs today. In the US in the early 60s, the recording industry standard was 12 songs on an LP, which in those days albums ran about 30 minutes. The biggest exceptions were classical and jazz, which songs tend to run longer. For some reason the standard was 14 songs an LP in the UK. In 1967, mainly to save on songwriting royalties, the major record companies decided to use 10 songs on most LPs. Of course so many bands by that time were playing longer songs–so the number of songs was how many songs were needed to fill 20 minutes a side. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/51 "2011-06-27T20:05:43Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Still, neither of you has really answered my question. Granted that FM sound was “better,” why should AM technology inherently have precluded an “album-type” format before FM came around? Why couldn’t an AM station have played Sargent Pepper’s, other than the cost issue of needing to squeeze in ads? What if FM had never been invented? Would Sgt. Pepper’s never have been produced? It’s not that AM tech prevented album rock, it was that FM stations had nothing to lose. Virtually all big time radio stations were on AM in the 60s; FM’s were small time affairs either simulcasting the AM or classical outlets. As noted above, the 1966 FCC decision to prohibit simulcasting in bigger markets left a lot of FM stations scrambling for programming. Young adults are well known for their willingness to spend on audio equipment, which meant they could notice the difference between FM and AM better than most. Heck the sixties were almost over by the time the average listener had stero speakers. So why not emphasize edgier styles of rock if they were one of the few listening to FM? Guess what happened when the average listeners started listening to FM in the 70s? Rock playlists became far more conservative, matching what the AM stations used to play. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/52 "2011-06-28T00:29:40Z")
> [@SeamusMcCool](#): > > To expand on this point, The Beatles were the first rock (possibly pop (this would include Jazz, folk, blues etc.) act to release an album (A Hard Day’s Night) of 100% original tunes. Chuck Berry did it in 1957. There’s no meaningful definition of pop or rock that wouldn’t include him. ETA Which on a more careful reading of the thread, **Exapno Mapcase** already said… ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/53 "2011-06-28T01:48:57Z")
Excellent answers and commentary preceding this post, but I can’t help but chime in, since I lived the era in question. First, remember that the Long-Play record (33) didn’t exist before the late 1940s, and it didn’t pick up steam until the mid-50’s. The 10-inch 78 record was the standard from ca. 1920-1950, and this meant a single 2-4 minute song. When the 33 was invented, since it was Not Invented Here, RCA tried to compete with the 7" 45, conveniently a 2-4 minute format, too. So the “single” was pretty entrenched even into the 1950’s; changing from 78 to 45, but still a single. Albums (33s) were common for jazz (long solos), classical (long works), broadway (original casts) and general pop (multiple cuts), but rock n roll was still 45-oriented. RnR albums were typically built around a hit single (many groups only had one hit) and were intended to add to the profit, but not designed as an artistic concept or major seller. I have a collection of 1957-1961 45’s, but no RnR albums. RnR albums…this is where Sergeant Pepper broke the trend. The rest is history. ---
**Author:** ![SeamusMcCool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SeamusMcCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeamusMcCool)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/54 "2011-06-28T11:46:47Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Chuck Berry did it in 1957. There’s no meaningful definition of pop or rock that wouldn’t include him. > > ETA Which on a more careful reading of the thread, **Exapno Mapcase** already said… Yes, he’s considered one of the major influences of what would become Rockn’ Roll, but that album is classified as Rythm and Blues. Also, the album is a compilation of singles recorded over several years and sessions, rather than sitting down and writing 10-12 songs specificaly for an album in a defined period (allegedly two weeks in The Beatles case) of time for a specific artistic endeavour, a movie. Some of those songs on the Chuck Berry “album” were on the Billboard charts two years previously. However you want to slice it, it’s just further proof that The Beatles were one of the first (but most popular at the time), if not the first Rock band to treat an album as a creative entity rather than a larger format to hold all their singles plus filler. ---
**Author:** ![SeamusMcCool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SeamusMcCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeamusMcCool)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/55 "2011-06-28T11:49:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Your timeline is nonsense. Just to stick with the famous groups, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, from 1963, was all originals with one traditional folk song adapted by him. Similarly, all the 1962-1964 Beach Boy albums were 90% written by Brian Wilson with the occasional cover or traditional song. Johnny Cash also wrote the majority of his early albums. Buddy Holly was already writing the majority of his songs with Norman Petty. In fact, most people that are famous today for being anything other than pure singers pioneered writing the majority of their own songs from the very beginnings of rock ‘n’ roll. The first example I can find of a person doing an entire album of his own compositions is Chuck Berry’s first studio album, [After School Session](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_School_Session) released in May 1957, seven years before Hard Day’s Night. And that’s without looking at anything but the first names who came to mind. > > I’ll bet you’re even wronger if you go outside of rock. I don’t know enough about early jazz to make any definitive comments, but Miles Davis was playing the majority of his own music from the very beginning of his recording career as a lead in the early 1950s. I don’t know which album of his is the first not to use a cover, but nobody fed him anything he didn’t want to do. > > It’s true that Motown and the doo-wop groups and Elvis and his imitators were comprised mostly of singers who needed products. But that was already well into the process of changing by the time the Beatles came along. The trend was already toward making money by recording your own compositions. > > You’re confusing one aspect of popular music - one still very much in evidence today, thank you Rebecca Black - with the whole business. Yaaaaah, welllll, if you didn’t reply like such a twit and if your reading comprehension was better than a grade one level, I might be bothered to respond to your points. Try again and maybe I’ll reply. LOL, btw, at your comments about artists recording their own compositions. Yah, the top 40 is full of them. LMAO!!! ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/56 "2011-06-28T13:13:25Z")
> [@lukeinva](#): > > Too bad for the generations of today that don’t have vinyl LP albums in their lives. They are relics now. > > But back in the day an album was way cool. For one thing it was big, 12"x12", you could pick it up and hold it and flip it over and in some cases open it like a book. There was art work on the cover, too. Often it would include the lyrics, concert pictures, studio pictures, biographies and stories… etc etc. Some of that still came with CD’s but now that everything is a download you get none of the intimacy. > > Don’t get me talking about the stereo systems. Macintosh, Pioneer, JBL, TEAC, KLH, Bang and Oluffsen, Scott. You played your albums on a turntable that used a diamond needle and came out of big speakers built in oak wood boxes. Can’t tell me those little ipod docking stations can produce the sound of the stereo systems of the past. God, those were good days. i still listen to records, but half the time it is a CD. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/57 "2011-06-28T15:59:23Z")
> [@SeamusMcCool](#): > > Yaaaaah, welllll, if you didn’t reply like such a twit and if your reading comprehension was better than a grade one level, I might be bothered to respond to your points. Try again and maybe I’ll reply. You’re not allowed to insult other posters in this forum, **SeamusMcCool**. This is a formal warning, so don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/58 "2011-06-28T17:12:37Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > The concept is that a band besides the Beatles wrote and recorded the music, as already mentioned upthread. Not that the songs have a specific thread binding them together. It’s not a narrative album or a rock opera, like later concept albums, but that doesn’t mean it’s not significant. What it comes down to, literally, is the thought behind it. “Hey, guys, let’s do an album _like this_…” instead of their earlier process, which is that John and Paul wrote a bunch of songs, brought them in, worked on them, worked on them, recorded demos, worked some more, and then selected the best ones for the album (with no thought of song order or unification). But it’s not as if the songs are in the style of another band–they’re scattered every-which-where as the band the Beatles already were naturally and logically branched out into new directions. Also, once they were able to have their say in the matter, quite early on, the Beatles paid great attention to song order on their albums. They weren’t aware of Capitol’s reordering at first, and when they found out, their response was the notorious “butcher” cover for _Yesterday and Today_. It’s one of the greatest albums that was ever recorded, or ever will be, but it got inaccurately labeled a “concept album” for lack of any other idea quite what to call it, and that term kept getting repeated until it became unquestionable. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/59 "2011-06-28T18:14:25Z")
> [@lukeinva](#): > > Too bad for the generations of today that don’t have vinyl LP albums in their lives. They are relics now. Vinyl sales have actually been picking up in recent years. It’s seemingly de rigueur for indie acts and especially dance music artists to have vinyl releases. I got my first record player last year. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797/60 "2011-06-28T18:19:20Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > Also, once they were able to have their say in the matter, quite early on, the Beatles paid great attention to song order on their albums. They weren’t aware of Capitol’s reordering at first, and when they found out, their response was the notorious “butcher” cover for _Yesterday and Today_. [Not true](http://www.snopes.com/music/hidden/butcher.asp). It doesn’t affect your larger point, of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-regarding-the-beatles/586797.md?page=2)