What year was "Peak" Beatles?

[JohnT]

Simple question: What calendar year was “Peak” Beatles? Select one from the poll and make your arguments below!

Rules: You define “peak”. Public Poll. You can only select one year.

[Annie-Xmas]

1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is not only the Beatles peak, it is the biggest and best watershed, landmark, iconic album in rock history.

[JohnT]

To me, 1967 is the obvious answer - they already conquered the popular culture scene, but the release of Sgt Pepper brought a new critical, artistic evaluation to their music… and to modern pop music in general… that they never really had prior. While the album might sound dated, even disjointed to modern ears (“Wait, what - this is rock and roll?”), to 1967 it was as if the Beatles fully unveiled their new art form, music which could only be created in a studio.

Everything after was anti-climactic. Oh, 1969 was a great year and a strong contender for peak Beatles, but to me, '67 was their peak.

(Also, the album cover was shot the day I was born, so I got that going for me, which is nice.)

[silenus]

It’s a toss-up between 65 and 66. In other words Rubber Soul and Revolver. I’m going to go with the latter, the last album before they stopped touring.

[pulykamell]

@silenus

It’s a toss-up between 65 and 66. In other words Rubber Soul and Revolver. I’m going to go with the latter, the last album before they stopped touring.

Ditto.

[WordMan]

Has to be 1966. Revolver and it’s contemporaneous A/B singles Paperback Writer/Rain is their best work, and the most pivotal place in their creative arc. Rain as their first move into psychedelia? Taxman as political commentary? The overall quality of the songs. And, of course, Tomorrow Never Knows, which utterly blew open the door on their studio experimentation, move towards unconventional song structures, and targeting a huge, fucking epic song on their albums, foreshadowing A Day in the Life and the second side of Abbey Road.

If John hadn’t gotten snared by the Bigger Than Jesus controversy, Revolver would like have been as explosive as Sgt Pepper in its contemporary impact but it got a bit lost in the kerfuffle.

[Shearer]

I imagine the screaming girls moved onto something else by 1967

[fjs1fs]

This is a very tough question. I voted '69 because as amazing as they were throughout their entire existence, they continually improved until their breakup. The last work they created was their best, and arguably the best album ever–Abbey Road. That was in '69. They made Let it Be in '69 as well, although that was not released until '70. Looking at their discography, just about ANY year they had from '63 through '69 (or '70 if based on release date) would represent a PEAK for just about ANY other band.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@fjs1fs

I voted '69 because as amazing as they were throughout their entire existence, they continually improved until their breakup. The last work they created was their best, and arguably the best album ever–Abbey Road.

I’m tempted to agree with what you said, but to argue that during those last couple of years they weren’t “continually improving” as The Beatles: they were becoming less a unit and more separate individuals, which means that The Beatles as such had passed their peak.

[Nonsuch]

@silenus

It’s a toss-up between 65 and 66. In other words Rubber Soul and Revolver. I’m going to go with the latter, the last album before they stopped touring.

I had the same dilemma, and I ended up voting the same way, but it was a tough one. 1965 saw both Help! and Rubber Soul, along with the double-A-sided single “Day Tripper” b/w “We Can Work It Out.” It’s the year that they undeniably went from being adorable mop-tops to adults who were determined to comment on their world with increasing sophistication. And coincidentally or not, it’s also the moment where John’s long dominance over the group finally ebbs and Paul steps up to fill the vacuum. This process starts with “We Can Work It Out” and is in full swing by Revolver. At the end of the day, Revolver is simply the better, more innovative album, so I went with that.

[Nonsuch]

@Thudlow_Boink

I’m tempted to agree with what you said, but to argue that during those last couple of years they weren’t “continually improving” as The Beatles: they were becoming less a unit and more separate individuals, which means that The Beatles as such had passed their peak.

As John noted about the White Album: “It’s like if you took each track, it was just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group … I enjoyed it, but we broke up then.”

[Orwell]

@Thudlow_Boink

I’m tempted to agree with what you said, but to argue that during those last couple of years they weren’t “continually improving” as The Beatles: they were becoming less a unit and more separate individuals, which means that The Beatles as such had passed their peak.

As John noted about the White Album: “It’s like if you took each track, it was just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group … I enjoyed it, but we broke up then.”

Exactly right. While I certainly enjoy all of their albums (though the White Album is way down the list for me), the later ones show individual efforts vs. the writing and performing collaboration of their earlier work. Plus, the band members were clearly tired and jaded by about 1967 or so. I’m almost tempted to go as early as 1963 or 1964, which is when the public frenzy was probably at its peak. But their songs were too simple then and they hadn’t really matured yet. So that leaves either 65 or 66 as the right answer. Help and Rubber Soul were both released in 1965, and they were still touring in front of screaming fans. I’d say 1965.

[silenus]

The one thing that might have gotten me to vote 65 instead of 66 would be the first side of Help! To me, that is the perfect Beatles album side. Every song solid to extraordinary.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

The notable book on The Beatles’ songs, Revolution in the Head, is divided into four parts: “Going Up”, “The Top”, “Coming Down” and “Looking back”. This is probably a reference to a phrase Lennon liked to say:

@John Lennon

“When the Beatles were depressed - thinking the group was going nowhere, and this is a shitty deal, and we’re in a shitty dressing room - I’d say, ‘Where are we going, fellas?’ And they’d go, ‘To the top, Johnny!’ And I’d say, ‘Where’s that fellas?’ and they’d say, ‘To the toppermost of the poppermost!’ and I’d say, ‘Right!’ Then we’d all sort of cheer up.”

The part of the book called “The Top” covers the period of the Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s recordings. “All You Need is Love”, released in July 1967, a few weeks after the release of Sgt. Pepper’s, is at the beginning of “Coming Down” section of the book, although I would place it at the end of “The Top”. Beatles manager Brian Epstein died in August 1967, and I would consider that as the beginning of “Coming Down”. Furthermore, the Magical Mystery Tour television film of late 1967 was poorly received. By 1968, divisions among the band members were apparent.

So I think “peak” Beatles is a toss-up between 1966 and 1967, although I’d probably go for the latter, with the “pinnacle” being the first half or so of 1967, after which it was a downward trajectory in terms of The Beatles as a musical unit, even though my favourite album of theirs is The Beatles (“White album”) from 1968.

[Chefguy]

@pulykamell

Ditto.

Tritto.

[Jackmannii]

'62.

The group really crashed after “Love Me Do”.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

Sgt Pepper was peak. They of course have other good albums, but peak is peak.

[WordMan]

@Just_Asking_Questions

Sgt Pepper was peak. They of course have other good albums, but peak is peak.

As an event, its release was the biggest, no question.

As a set of songs - I really disagree. Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, A Day in the Life and Lucy in the Sky are amazing. The rest is filler, with Ringo getting a pass for With a Little Help from my Friends. It works because they (Paul) came up with packaging it as a concept album. It isn’t but man that packaging worked.

Revolver’s songs are much better end to end:

Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
I’m Only Sleeping - what a great, great song!!
Love to You - kinda meh, sorry George
Here, There and Everywhere
Yellow Submarine - peak Ringo!!
She Said She Said
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
For No One
Doctor Robert
I Want to Tell You
Got to Get you Into My Life
Tomorrow Never Knows

That’s one meh song out of the bunch, AND it was far more pivotal in their development as artists vs. Sgt. Pepper, which was simply a continuation of what they innovated on with Revolver.

[pulykamell]

@Just_Asking_Questions

Sgt Pepper was peak. They of course have other good albums, but peak is peak.

I guess I’ve never quite understood why Sgt. Pepper is the magnum opus, or supposed to be the magnum opus. To me, that’s easily Revolver. Sgt. Pepper would probably be around my fifth favorite Beatles album. Maybe if I had encountered it in the context of the times, I would have thought differently, but approaching the Beatles years later, Revolver is the album I keep coming to. Abbey Road would probably be my next pick.

[Nonsuch]

@pulykamell

I guess I’ve never quite understood why Sgt. Pepper is the magnum opus, or supposed to be the magnum opus. To me, that’s easily Revolver. Sgt. Pepper would probably be around my fifth favorite Beatles album. Maybe if I had encountered it in the context of the times, I would have thought differently, but approaching the Beatles years later, Revolver is the album I keep coming to. Abbey Road would probably be my next pick.

I know it’s gauche to quote oneself, but as I was writing a reply to this I realized I had already made a similar point about a year ago in the “Am I the only one to find Sgt. Pepper’s overrated?” thread:

@Nonsuch

I think Sergeant Pepper suffers because people think of it as a “concept album,” and it really isn’t, as even the Beatles readily admitted. Frank Sinatra had already paved the way with theme albums in the 50s, but those are different beasts altogether. I think what made Pepper different was a more subtle thing: it was really the first time a pop group had experimented with consciously adopting a new persona.

We look back on the career of the Beatles and we divide them into the mop-top phase, the experimental phase, etc., but that’s post-hoc reasoning, and nothing the Beatles thought very much about themselves. Sergeant Pepper was really the first pop album that called attention to its own artificiality, certainly the first one from a group so popular and influential. The Beatles were the most famous entertainers in the world, with an image and personalities everyone knew; for them to consciously present themselves as something else, however playfully, was completely unprecedented. (It also bears remembering that the group had decided they would no longer tour, something no one else other than Elvis had done; McCartney, in particular, saw this as an opportunity to explore what being in the Beatles meant as they entered this uncharted territory.) All this gives the album a layer of distance and irony even though most of the songs have nothing to do with the so-called concept of Sgt. Pepper’s band.

Some of this distinctiveness fades as more time passes between the Beatles’ heyday and our own. Pepper isn’t my favorite Beatles album, and it’s not the one with the strongest songs. But I don’t think you can dispute that it’s their most ambitious work, and I think as a deliberate statement by the world’s most famous pop group consciously working at the peak of their influence, it’s interesting in a way Revolver or Abbey Road isn’t.