The Beatles' Albums: Overview

Please Please Me, March 22, 1963

The Beatles early style for their first three albums was defined on this album. It also consists of a variety of cover songs which helped show the diversity of their influences from Motown and girl groups to the more pure pop of the Brill Building and Bacharach-David. How many music fans realize “Twist and Shout” was first a hit for the Isley Brothers?

Featured songs:
I Saw Her Standing There
Please Please Me
Love Me Do
P.S. I Love You
Do You Want to Know a Secret
Twist and Shout

With the Beatles, November 22, 1963

Here’s the album which defines Beatlemania style. This is the Fab Four at their cutest make the girls scream and faint style but beneath that pop glossy surface were signs of the incredible talent that was about to explode.

Featured songs:
All My Loving
Don’t Bother Me
I Want to Be Your Man
Not a Second Time

Covers:
Till There Was You
Please Mister Postman
Roll Over Beethoven
You Really Got a Hold of Me
Money

A Hard Day’s Night, July 10, 1964

Noteworthy for being the first album of all songs written by the Beatles and supporting their first film effort, while A Hard Day’s Night stays close to their “mania” signature sound, their performance and arrangements become increasingly more complex and creative.

Featured songs;
A Hard Day’s Night
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
Can’t Buy Me Love
And I Love Her
I’ll Cry Instead
Can’t Buy Me Love

Beatles for Sale, December 4, 1964

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This album marks the first departure from Beatlemania into more sophisticated music. Starting to embrace influences like Bob Dylan, the instrumental arrangements are far more complex and themes more varied. While not acclaimed as one of their best albums, it surely helps point toward Rubber Soul and beyond.

Featured Songs:
I’m a Loser
I’ll Follow the Sun
Eight Days a Week
I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party

Covers:
Rock N Roll Music
Kansas City
Words of Love

Help! April 13, 1965
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Though the movie, Help!, was considered far less sophisticated than A Hard Day’s Night, the album was a breakthrough on several counts. The first seven songs are all from the movie. They constituted side one of the album. Lyrics grew much more sophisticated from the angst expressed in “Help!” to the romantic melancholy of “Yesterday,” the most widely covered song in pop music history. While the last seven cuts lack any kind of connection of continuity, the Beatles go from Buck Owens’ Bakersfield country with “Act Naturally” to skillful songs far deeper and musically accomplished like “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” Most of the fundamentals of their later work were in play now. They only needed more time to put them to work.

Featured Songs:
Help!
The Night Before
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
Ticket to Ride
Yesterday
It’s Only Love
I’ve Just Seen a Face

Rubber Soul, December 3, 1965

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The Beatles truly came of age on this album. They are no longer a teenybopper hits band in any manner and are writing classic pop songs with provocative and introspective lyrics second to no tunesmith. The album features more acoustic guitar work and introduces George Harrison playing the Indian sitar for the first time. The British version of the album is far different than what was on the American LP. “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face” were already provided on Help! Four other tunes were released as singles or saved for an American compilation.

Featured Songs:
Norwegian Wood
Nowhere Man
Michelle
Girl
I’m Looking Through You
In My Life

Revolver, August 5, 1966

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The Beatles hit their creative peak with Revolver. “Eleanor Rigby” was accompanied by a classic string quartet. George Harrison’s “Love You To” featured a complete Indian ensemble with sitar and tabla. John Lennon explored psychedelic themes and music on several numbers most notably “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Paul McCartney’s ballads “Here There Everywhere” and “For No One” were written for far more mature relationships. The power of the studio became much more a creative extension of the band.

Featured Songs:
Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
I’m Only Sleeping
Here There Everywhere
Yellow Submarine
For No One
Got To Get You into My Life

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, June 1, 1967

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Sgt. Pepper is the album widely seen as the Beatles’ ultimate creative statement but over time it perhaps doesn’t hold up to the ground explored by Revolver. Nevertheless, it was a powerful album for its time that might be more significant for its cultural impact than musical expertise. Paul McCartney sought to have the Beatles attempt to create a new image. Once even the most casual listener heard this album, he or she would never see the Beatles in the same light again.

Featured Songs:
A Little Help from My Friends
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
When I’m Sixty Four
Lovely Rita
A Day in the Life

Magical Mystery Tour, November 27, 1967

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Originally released as an EP in the UK with only the six songs for the television comedy of the same title, it was released as a complete album with singles from the Sgt. Pepper time period to fill it out to a complete album. It would be released as the full album world wide in November, 1976. Musically, the album was essentially a continuation of Sgt. Pepper.

Featured Songs:
Fool on the Hill
I Am the Walrus
Hello Goodbye
Penny Lane
Strawberry Fields Forever
All You Need Is Love

The Beatles “The White Album,” November 22, 1968

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The “White” album was a sprawling two record set which unbeknown to fans at the time showed the band members heading in their separate directions. In essence, the songs were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison songs with other band members functioning as little more than studio musicians. In fact one of the most dramatic instrumental performances on the album, though never officially credited, was not by a member of the Beatles at all. It was Eric Clapton on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The music covers much ground from hard rock to reflective ballads to comedy to just plain weirdness. Despite its nature, there are plenty of most enjoyable songs and one that introduces Ringo as a songwriter.

Featured Songs:
Back in the USSR
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Blackbird
Rocky Raccoon
Birthday
Yer Blues
Helter Skelter

Yellow Submarine, January 17, 1969
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Yellow Submarine features six songs by the Beatles, two previously released and the orchestral soundtrack music scored by George Martin for the animated film. The songs are likeable but of little consequence.

Featured Songs:
Yellow Submarine
Hey Bulldog
It’s All Too Much
All You Need Is Love

Abbey Road, September 26, 1969

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The Beatles final effort was named after the studio which had been their workshop for the vast majority of their material since their first album over six years previously. It’s a slickly produced, highly professional effort utilizing far improved recording technology than they had used over most of their career. George Harrison further stands up as a songwriter on par with Lennon and McCartney with their first hit, a Harrison composition, “Something” and also the highly popular, “Here Comes the Sun.” While John and Paul were going in very different directions on the “White” album somehow those differences mesh together more harmoniously on this album.

Featured Songs:
Come Together
Something
Octopus’s Garden
Here Comes the Sun
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

Let it Be, May 8, 1970

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A Beatles album that was never consciously put together as an album, Let it Be was recorded in early 1969 prior to Abbey Road as part of a poorly conceived project with movie cameras running to capture the band at work rehearsing, recording, and finally performing a short live concert atop their Apple Studios rooftop in London. Lots of material was recorded, and one attempt to compile it as an album by engineer Glyn Johns was rejected. “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “Let it Be” produced by George Martin were released as singles. Bombastic legendary American producer, Phil Spector, was brought in largely at John’s and George’s urging to rescue an album from the sessions. The end result was quite a mixed bag with some songs sounding live and fresh while others got the Spector treatment including a dreadful remix of “Let it Be” with a raucous guitar solo overdubbed over the original. “Long and Winding Road” infuriated McCartney with its heavy orchestration and female choir. The album became a most peculiar swan song when truly Abbey Road provides the perfect punctuation to the band’s amazing run.

Featured songs:
Two of Us
Across the Universe
Let it Be
One After 909
Long and Winding Road
Get Back

Several compilations were issued to capture hits not appearing on original albums, the best of which was the two double album sets, The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970; however, rather than re-issuing these which left out some singles and B sides, when the Beatles catalog was prepared for CD in 1988, two CD’s Past Masters Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 were released to provide all remaining songs not released.

Past Masters, Vol. 1 & 2, March 7, 1988

If it's not on one of the albums above and was released by EMI as a regular Beatles release, singles, EP's, some were released on American albums, they're on these compilations.

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Featured Songs:

Vol. 1

From Me to You

She Love's You

I Want to Hold Your Hand

I Feel Fine

She's a Woman

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Vol. 2

Day Tripper

We Can Work It Out

Paperback Writer

Rain

Lady Madonna

Hey Jude

Revolution

Don't Let Me Down