I love, love, me. doo every song on the Red. The Blue has a few songs that I deleted off my mp3 player. The only Blue songs I really, really love is Let It Be,Hey Jude, Here Comes the Sun, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Yesterday. That whole psychedelic rock thing gets old after 40 plus years. YMMV
I don’t own the Beatles albums on CD. I had a few records decades ago. The Red and Blue hits is all I need.
which do you prefer? Early Beatles (The Red hits) or later Beatles (Blue Hits)?
no polling in Cafe, so we’re stuck having to post. :rolleyes:
I like the earlier stuff better. I don’t dislike the later stuff; some of it I thoroughly enjoy. But the early stuff reminds me of when I was young and carefree.
I love the absolute bejeezus out of ALL OF IT. But if you force me to choose, I’ll go with the later period stuff (primary reason: fewer covers, more original material).
The Beatles’ best work was between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road. They kept expanding in all musical directions and went from a band who wrote catchy songs to something much more.
Both, of course, but I like the energy and freshness in the early 62-66 red album more.
These were the first two Beatles albums I bought when I was about 13 / 14.
The first time I listened to the red album I thought The Beatles were ripping off other artists. I had no idea that they were all original songs. I had heard many of them ripped off by other people over the years and I was completely blown away that they were all Lennon-McCartney songs. It really was a jaw-dropping moment for me and I’ve been a lifelong fan since.
All of it also. You can’t exclude any period. It would be easy to stop after Abbey Road, but that was recorded after Let It Be.
That they grew more sophisticated doesn’t make their early stuff bad.
My favorites are between “I Feel Fine” and Rubber Soul, but I can’t listen to any of it because I over- listened back in the day, and my tastes went elsewhere. But I still enjoy reading stories of their early days and love the book documenting in excruciating detail every piece of equipment they ever used.
While I definitely wouldn’t say that the early stuff all sounds the same, it comes a lot closer to it than middle and late period Beatles. So if I were forced to choose, I think I’d go for the greater variety of the later Beatles.
I’m not familiar with the red and blue compilations in particular, so I’m not sure how I’d balance those particular song selections against each other. The first Beatles “album” I bought was 20 Greatest Hits, but I only really became a fan when I listened to the albums, starting with Abbey Road.
Over the past few days I been watching a cache of the old Beatles Cartoonseries episodes, which ran from 1965 to 1967 (I think there were 39 episode total - yes, Wiki agrees). Yes, the jokes are a bit corny, yes, the animation is bog-standard '60s Hannah-Barbera quality, yes the Beatles characters themselves are stuck in their “Hard Days Night” personas, but still.
Anyway, I found the old Rock/R&B covers (Bad Boy, Mr. Moonlight, Chains, Honey Done etc.) fairly dull, along with some of their own early R&B stuff like Misery or Little Child. However, definitely some great songs like I Saw Here Standing There, She Loves You, I Wanna Be Your Man. Then things pick up with the Hard Days Night & Help albums, really kick into overdrive with Revolver and Rubber Soul.
Projecting past the end of the Cartoon series): continue decently with Sgt. Pepper and Magic Mystery Tour (don’t forget the 1/2 album Yellow Submarine), wobble a bit with the White Album, crash and burn with Let It Be, and recover nicely with Abbey Road, of course.
Note: since the latest songs in the Cartoon series were from 1967 - Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane, you do get a lot of early Beatles music in the sing-alongs. However, they weren’t too shy about using songs with slightly “creepy for kids” lyrics like “Run For Your Life” (I’d Rather see you dead little Girl).
I guess that means I dislike the old R&B covers and Beatles slow songs, and like much of the rest of the good stuff (Note: good stuff does NOT include "Wild Honey Pie, Revolution #9, Piggies, Rocky Racoon, Savoy Truffle, The Long And Winding Road, Dig A Pony, and several others).
