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The Beatles
My parents were fans when they were young, just like anyone else who grew up while they blew up in America. Because of this I had some introduction to their music, but never in the form of an album or actually listening to the music critically. Beyond that, my knowledge of them was hearing other people talk about how they shaped rock music and blah blah. I decided they were over-rated and never really took any steps to listen to their works.
Fast forward to a year ago. Evan tells me he’s going to make me listen to four Beatles albums, because I’m missing something by having not heard them. Ok, whatever. Evan proceeds to be lazy and not get the albums.
Fast forward to just under two months ago. Evan finally gets off his ass and gets the four albums.
He hands me Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper and The White Album.
The clouds part, the sun shines down, birds and angles sing.
Fast forward to now. I’ve listened to each album a couple times though, so I feel I can start making comments. Do be honest, I usually just stick to listening to music and not talking about it, so don’t expect lots of profound explanations to go with my comments.
My Rank of the Albums as of Now
4. Rubber Soul
We get it, love, where are the drugs? Stand out tracks: The Word, Wait, Run for Your Life.
3. The White Album
Long. The one down side of a double album is that it’s hard to get a feel for the whole album. Maybe I should try just doing it one disc at a time. The plus side is lots of songs means lots of good songs. Stand out tracks: Glass Onion, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird, Yer Blues, Helter Skelter
2. Sgt. Pepper
Kinda at a lose for words. But then again I didn’t really make many real comments about each album, so why start here? I can say it’s one hell of a first third of an album (With a Little Help from My Friends, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Getting Better) Other stand out tracks: She’s Leaving Home, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Good Morning Good Morning, A Day in the Life
1. Revolver
From the first time I listened, I felt it. Every track is very good. With the exception of Yellow Submarine, everything fits in it’s place. Stand out tracks: Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, For No One, Got to Get You Into My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows
So there you go. Don’t think that Rubber Soul being 4 means I don’t like it. My mind can’t hold enough information at once, so the stand out tracks are just picked by re-listening to a few seconds of the middle of each track.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:57 am
I think this is some of the greatest music ever. The four “albums” you mentioned are four of the greatest albums ever, imo. I put albums in quotes, because you just don’t hear the word used much any more, although you said it first, which was encouraging to me. In my time, albums were black vinyl with a cardboard case, period. Then came cd’s, but they are still albums to me.
These four that you mentioned are meant to be listened from beginning to end. Each one tells a story, has a common theme, is an entity unto itself. You do these albums a little bit of injustice by breaking them down into individual songs. I know that’s normal, but you are missing the whole hippie thing or whatever you call it by just sitting there in your bedroom with a bunch of friends hanging out and not hitting the fast forward skip button one time, the entire hour or so. They don’t put songs like “Revolution #9” on an album hoping that it will become a hit song on the pop charts. (I can’t believe you did not mention Revolution #1 or Rocky Raccoon from the white album.) Regardless, I’m glad you are listening to the beatles, they really did pave the way in the industry, and they never sold out their music for corporate profit. May I also recommend you listen to literally all the rock music put out between 1967-1975, the golden era of rock imo. Jimi Hendrix was around for like three years, yet put out some of the most amazing music we will ever know, including covers of beatles songs. Put Jimi’s “Are You Experienced?” on your listening list.
October 19th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
That’s cool that you like Jimi. Here’s a new band for you
http://www.myspace.com/thruitall
ltr
October 19th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
I definitely agree with you about the concept of an album. Less than 13% of all the music I own (about 2150 tracks) are tracks that are just on there own, not accompanied by the album they were released with. If I find myself hitting the skip button it’s generally done numerous times as it is because I don’t feel like listening to the album right now.
I picked stand out tracks because I suck about talking critically about music. I can tell you I like this, I don’t like that, I like this more, but you have to press hard to get me to be able to make those this’ and that’s to be specific parts of music as opposed to the example I will give and then let you infer what I am talking about. My comment about picking the stand out tracks by listening to a few seconds isn’t exactly literal. Off the top of my head, I can’t tell you the track list of The Fragile or Make Yourself (two of my favorite albums), but when I am actually listening to them I can know what the opening beat is for the next song when one ends. I have a terrible memory, but very good recall when prompted. So as I listen to a few seconds, I can pull back what I was thinking when I was initially listening to the song.
I could very easily have named half the songs off each album, but I had to stop somewhere. So don’t take too much offense about the lack of Rocky Raccoon and Revolution #1. But seriously, The White Album is 30 tracks long, you want to try naming 6 tracks and not feel like you left something off?
Hendrix is amazing, I own Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, and a bunch of other assorted tracks. Feel free to recommend other bands I “need” to listen to. Worst case, I already know they are awesome.