The Beatles

Phil_aka_Pip

I have their later EllPees, plus the blue & red double compilations. Not listened to any of them recently.

This evening I watched the old VHS Beatles Anthology, part 5. Lots of stuff from Rubber Soul & Revolver on it. Couldn't help noticing the drive & energy in the drums, bass & guitar parts, yet how little distortion there was in any of it. You could tell the amps were being driven, but not pushed into the kind of overload that other bands would indulge in, the following year and later on.

Note to self: Rubber Soul & Revolver would be worthwhile additions to the record collection.

not_the_dj

Rubber Soul and Revolver are flipping essential albums in any record collection!

Phil_aka_Pip

not_the_dj said:

Rubber Soul and Revolver are flipping essential albums in any record collection!

There are many records of which that could be said, depending on your outlook

randomhandclaps

Yes, but Revolver is the greatest album of all time (IMO of course) and Rubber Soul still runs it pretty close.  Those Beatles lads definitely had something.

I suppose it could also be argued that those two particular albums were the band at their 'studio live' mono best, before Sgt Peppers came along and changed the recording approach of everything really.  Also they were still a live band at the point so were really on their shit as a collective playing together,

not_the_dj

Phil_aka_Pip said:

not_the_dj said:

Rubber Soul and Revolver are flipping essential albums in any record collection!

There are many records of which that could be said, depending on your outlook

The outlook of the greatest popular music ever recorded! 

Rubber Soul is the transition album from the smiley mop tops. They'd met Dylan, smoked some weed and started to really write songs like no one else. 

 Revolver might just be their greatest work, chock full of classics and some great experimentation ('tomorrow never knows' for example). But them now!

richardhomer

Rubber Soul was the transition album between their 'beat group' early work and the highly experimental later stuff.

'In My Life' could be Lennon's greatest song - a remarkable lyric for a 25 year old to write. Norwegian Wood showed a strong Dylan influence, Harrison's gorgeous If I Needed Someone, McCartney sounding quite rock and roll on Drive My Car.

Just a great record....

monquixote

I never get tired of listening to Revolver. 

Their best IMO.

mudslide73

She Said She Said and Here, There and Everywhere are two of my toppest ever.

There's a great bootleg called Revolving which has different versions of the songs at various stages of completion. iirc about five takes of And Your Bird Can Sing with different guitars on.

DiscoStu

I have never owned a Beatles album, nor listened to one.

Never really rated them.

stickyfiddle

Revolver and Abbey Road are their best. Sgt Pepper's is great, but not of the calibre of those 2. 

Rubber Soul also essential. The mono remasters in particular are wonderful.

english_bob

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Couldn't help noticing the drive & energy in the drums, bass & guitar parts, yet how little distortion there was in any of it. You could tell the amps were being driven, but not pushed into the kind of overload that other bands would indulge in, the following year and later on.

The best Beatles stuff has so much energy it's crazy. Listen to their covers of eariler rock and roll stuff compared to the originals and the Beatles versions are absolutely blasting, sort of like how the Ramones would do covers of surf rock tunes. It's not so obvious from our vantage point fifty years on just how hard the Beatles rocked, but they did. Partly I think it originated in their Hamburg days, when they did a lot of amphetamines to stay alert and entertaining through multiple sets a day with very little rest.

The fantastic recordings help a lot of course, they just leap out of the speakers.

Danny1969

@english_bob

It's only after reading Mark Lewisohn's excellent "Tune into the Beatles" book that I realized how hard they worked in Hamburg and it's wasn't just one stint there but 3 or 4 

Unfortunatly volume 2 of the book isn't out for another 2 or 3 years

Philly_Q

I've only got the Red and Blue compilations and Revolver on CD, but we did have a vinyl copy of Sgt Pepper when I was a kid and that's embedded in my brain even though I haven't heard it for 25 years.  Also since I was born in their heyday I like to think I was taking in their songs during my preschool years without even realising it. 

That said, I do have mixed feelings about the Beatles.   I like them, but not enough to buy all their albums, and I actively dislike almost all their post-Beatles work. 

However, they have an iconic status which no-one will ever match again.  That's partly because nothing like them had ever happened before and frankly there was really very little competition at the time - the music business, and popular music history, is so much "bigger" now, no one band could ever stand out in the same way.  And ignoring all that, the musical journey they went on in a mere decade and the sheer brilliance of their songwriting throughout - even if I don't like all of it - I don't think anyone else is comparable.

Phil_aka_Pip

Philly_Q said:

 the musical journey they went on in a mere decade and the sheer brilliance of their songwriting throughout - even if I don't like all of it - I don't think anyone else is comparable.

Quite. They split 45 years ago and we're still talking about them.

Cirrus

I think it's a shame that there are so many of those stupid stereo masters of the Beatles' stuff out there - at the time it was a fad and where some of the stereo masters were just quickly panned versions of the mono mixes, others were released by mistake - for example in the USA they were sent stereo master tapes to give the mastering engineer some control of the balance when they were mixed down to mono to account for american music tastes... but the US record label released them in stereo as is.

On the other hand, the mono mixes are the ones the band and production team were actually listening to and mixing properly.

To listen to Beatles recordings can be quite a strange experience. They were done 50 years ago with technology that's long been surpassed and with musical and sonic tastes that were very different to the ones we have today, so they can sound old, dated and limited by the technology of the era.

Then you actually listen and start to notice just how much detail is in the recordings - and how real it sounds. It's just not hyper-real; the fake reverb, wall of sound, eq'd into caricature tones we're used to hearing in modern music.

A lot of the clean but energetic quality probably comes from recording in real rooms, and the awesome way the old Fairchild limiters pump.

english_bob

I'm going to have to read that book I think, it seems like it's become the go-to Beatles history in very short order.

For sure, Hamburg sounds like it was f'n hardcore. I think they had a slightly easier time of it on their later trips- better conditions and not quite the same ridiculous work schedule, plus the advantage of knowing what they were getting in to- but it was intense in a way very few bands today can comprehend.

imalone

english_bob said:

I'm going to have to read that book I think, it seems like it's become the go-to Beatles history in very short order.

For sure, Hamburg sounds like it was f'n hardcore. I think they had a slightly easier time of it on their later trips- better conditions and not quite the same ridiculous work schedule, plus the advantage of knowing what they were getting in to- but it was intense in a way very few bands today can comprehend.

If I understand correctly, quite a few bands were doing that scene at the time too. On the best first album, first track thread I mentioned Please Please Me/I Saw Her Standing There, the early albums aren't really the Beatles we think of now, and it's amazing how much they changed in the next three years (I agree Rubber Soul and Revolver are where it really starts), but they demonstrate just how good they had to be before they could become the Beatles.

mudslide73

It wasn't until I got into a band myself that I understood how gruelling those stints in Hamburg must have been. Two gigs in a weekend is enough but 4 or 5 a night would really get a band in shape.

koneguitarist

I just can't understand why record companies are still charging full whack for old stuff that's made its money over and over. I think the copywrite laws are for 50 years still, so over next couple of years I may look at the stuff. Never felt the urge to buy an outdated old album for more than a new artist album would cost! Rip off springs to mind.

stickyfiddle

koneguitarist said:

I just can't understand why record companies are still charging full whack for old stuff that's made its money over and over. I think the copywrite laws are for 50 years still, so over next couple of years I may look at the stuff. Never felt the urge to buy an outdated old album for more than a new artist album would cost! Rip off springs to mind.

Probably because it's not outdated, but still some of the best music ever written and recorded?

DulcetJones

english_bob said:

 Partly I think it originated in their Hamburg days, when they did a lot of amphetamines to stay alert and entertaining through multiple sets a day with very little rest.

The fantastic recordings help a lot of course, they just leap out of the speakers.

Playing on stage together that much really cemented their ability as musicians and as a professional band.