Relvolver and Rubber Soul are my all time faves…id go Let It Be then abbey road for me
I am another Revolver / Rubber Soul man.
Here’s my prioritized list:
http://justinjenkins.org/extras/Beatles/AHardDaysNight.html
http://justinjenkins.org/extras/Beatles/RubberSoul.html
http://justinjenkins.org/extras/Beatles/LetItBe.html
http://justinjenkins.org/extras/Beatles/revolver.html
I agree w/ producer GMartin that the white album should have been reduced to one stellar album-too many just OK cuts.
My vote: Pepper.
Damn, how did I miss Pep? Hmmm, have to put Pep between Let It Be and Revolver.
Abbey Road and the White Album are somewhat depressing to me. Give me them when they were peaking and just destroying everything in their path, '66-'67.
Overall I prefer Abbey Road, but Revolver is a very close second. To be fair I haven’t listened to White, Rubber Soul, or Let It Be yet.
Judged as an album, not just a collection of songs (i.e. the complete listening experience you get from playing it through from beginning to end): yes. Yes it is the greatest Beatles album. Some of its songs, especially on Side 2 (remember sides?) wouldn’t work by themselves, but the whole thing is sheer genius. The Beatles went out at the top of their game.
Maybe I’m biased because Abbey Road is the first Beatles album I ever listened to (as opposed to songs, greatest hits collections, etc.), and I was blown away by how the whole thing came together (no pun intended). Even today, Abbey Road is on the very short list of albums I have absolutely fallen in love with (and one or two of the others on that list have been strongly influenced by it).
It is a good album, but I would have to say that The White Album is a better one.
Remeber sides? I listened to it on vinyl yesterday, and I’m 16!
Abbey Road. No question the best of all the Beatles" albums. Side two ranks number one as the best album side of all time.
Sgt Pepper’s was great in terms of WHEN it was released. In fact, it was so great at that time that it made Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys insane. Story is, when Brian first heard the album he went into a deep deep deep depression. He knew he’d never ever outwrite the Beatles.
I think that Revolver is a better album and it came out before. Taxman is a great song and Tomorrow Never Knows is sheer brilliance. Eleanor Rigby? Man, what a mood-setter! Great strings.
The White Album is by far my favorite album. I find that the lyrics on this album are sublime. Great little stories. This album would be better if we didn’t have to switch sides or change CD’s. Just one long listening loop…
Abbey Road is also very good (sort of a compact, more focused version of the White Album). Golden Slumbers/The End rocks.
I’m the only one who likes Meet the Beatles? Maybe because I am very very old, and this was my first introduction to them. It’s got I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND, DON’T BOTHER ME, I SAW HER STANDING THERE, TILL THERE WAS YOU, IT WON’T BE LONG, HOLD ME TIGHT, I WANNA BE YOUR MAN, ALL MY LOVING . . . Hard to beat.
That’s my beef against Abbey Road. Side 2 is way superior to Side 1, so it can’t possibly rank as the best Beatles album.
But with “Sun King” on it, it can’t rank as the best album side ever, no matter how much I love the medley.
The best album side ever, back when that meant virtually everything, is side 1 of Van Morrison’s Moondance:
And It Stoned Me
Moondance
Crazy Love
Caravan
Into the Mystic
Just builds from strength to strength, with no fewer than two of the greatest rock songs of all time. (Moondance and Into the Mystic, to spell it out.)
Revolver all the way. AR side 2 starts and ends great, but I’ve always thought the middles was a bigger mish-mash than the (superior) White Album. I’d also put Rubber and Pepper higher.
There are Abbey Road people and there are White Album people, just as there are Dark Side of the Moon people and their counterparts, The Wall people. It’s diagnostic. Of something.
My vote is for Abbey road, with Revolver being a very close second. “The End” always mesmerizes me. The musicianship is top notch, the composition is brilliant. I just can’t ever get tired of it.
I think Pepper and the White album were more significant in terms of the group stretching boundaries, songwriting techniques and so on, but for the execution of concepts and production, Abbey Road is the superior work.
I’d use the same argument for Revolver vs. Rubber Soul.
I’ve given up trying to rank Beatles albums. Each one as been my favorite at one time. Now, my favorite one is the one that’s on the stereo.
How’s that for a non-answer.