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I'm relatively "new" to the beatles. Even though I'm actively listening to them since I received "1" as a christmas present in 2000, I have only just begun to scratch the surface.

I'm buying their albums in reverse order. So after 1 I got the white album, abbey road, sgt pepper (I know this album since forever, since my dad owns this one) and revolver.

What struck me, is how dramatically different their later albums sound, compared to the bulk of the "1" album. Their earlier songs sound much more "rock n roll" as opposed to the delicate songcrafting of their later work. How different is a song like "can't buy me love" to something like "for no one". It's like two different bands.

As time went on, I have come to greatly appreciate their later work. Songs like "blackbird", "here, there and everywhere" and most of all: "golden slumbers" (my favorite beatles song) bring you to an emotional place I can't really describe.

I'm thinking of buying another beatles album to study, preferrably an album showcasing earlier, "raw" sound as a cohesive band. any recommendations?

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3 minutes ago, action said:

I'm relatively "new" to the beatles. Even though I'm actively listening to them since I received "1" as a christmas present in 2000, I have only just begun to scratch the surface.

I'm buying their albums in reverse order. So after 1 I got the white album, abbey road, sgt pepper (I know this album since forever, since my dad owns this one) and revolver.

What struck me, is how dramatically different their later albums sound, compared to the bulk of the "1" album. Their earlier songs sound much more "rock n roll" as opposed to the delicate songcrafting of their later work. How different is a song like "can't buy me love" to something like "for no one". It's like two different bands.

As time went on, I have come to greatly appreciate their later work. Songs like "blackbird", "here, there and everywhere" and most of all: "golden slumbers" (my favorite beatles song) bring you to an emotional place I can't really describe.

I'm thinking of buying another beatles album to study, preferrably an album showcasing earlier, "raw" sound as a cohesive band. any recommendations?

With the Beatles, in my opinion their best album

That or their debut Please Please Me

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10 minutes ago, action said:

what's your favorite song by them?

The Beatles?  Christ, I have no idea.  Honestly, all of em?  I can't think of a bad Beatles song, I love that band, I think they were fuckin' flawless from start to finish, I have a revolving door of Beatles songs that I'm currently more into than others just due to wearing some out but its a rotating thing.  The Beatles are the fuckin' bollocks to me, asking me to pick a favourite song is like asking me to pick my favourite star in the sky.

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2 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

The Beatles?  Christ, I have no idea.  Honestly, all of em?  I can't think of a bad Beatles song, I love that band, I think they were fuckin' flawless from start to finish, I have a revolving door of Beatles songs that I'm currently more into than others just due to wearing some out but its a rotating thing.  The Beatles are the fuckin' bollocks to me, asking me to pick a favourite song is like asking me to pick my favourite star in the sky.

you know what truly, utterly sucks about the beatles though? their fucking prices. I call it "beatles tax". all of their cd's cost 20 dollars or worse (the white album). I don't think I have EVER seen a beatles album in the budget section. Makes completing the collection a nightmare.

"if you like our songs I'll tax your ears" 

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5 minutes ago, action said:

you know what truly, utterly sucks about the beatles though? their fucking prices. I call it "beatles tax". all of their cd's cost 20 dollars or worse (the white album). I don't think I have EVER seen a beatles album in the budget section. Makes completing the collection a nightmare.

"if you like our songs I'll tax your ears" 

What do you buy CDs or something?  I'd imagine the shit'd be pretty cheap online.

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1 minute ago, Len Cnut said:

What do you buy CDs or something?  I'd imagine the shit'd be pretty cheap online.

I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my collection. For starters I dont buy digital only. I need to be able to feel, smell a new album. For me it's part of the experience. Curiously, differend bands have different smelling cd's. in some cases I can reckognise an album just by smelling it  :lol:

So I dont want to order a second hand copy that smells of sweat, smoke and beer. Not to mention scratches on my cd's. But i'm afraid, in the case of the beatles, I'm forced to go that road, as I insist of owning the 1987 masters. I dont like cardboard boxes, I need old fashioned plastic cd cases to match the ones I already own. Dammit, I'm screwed :max:

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5 minutes ago, action said:

I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my collection. For starters I dont buy digital only. I need to be able to feel, smell a new album. For me it's part of the experience. Curiously, differend bands have different smelling cd's. in some cases I can reckognise an album just by smelling it  :lol:

So I dont want to order a second hand copy that smells of sweat, smoke and beer. Not to mention scratches on my cd's. But i'm afraid, in the case of the beatles, I'm forced to go that road, as I insist of owning the 1987 masters. I dont like cardboard boxes, I need old fashioned plastic cd cases to match the ones I already own. Dammit, I'm screwed :max:

Yeah, thats where you're going wrong pal, personally as long as they sound comes out of the speakers I don't give a fuck about the CD :lol:  I threw away all my CDs after a while, used to have hundreds too but they all got so knackered and mixed up from lack of care I eventually just threw em all out.  I see your point with the physical copy stuff but at the same time, I just wanna hear the fuckin' music any way I can.

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Rubber Soul captures The Beatles at their most interesting period, just as they were making the transition to more introspective lyricism and experimental instrumentation, but before the outright studio sophistry and psychedelia of Revolver and moreover Pepper - Rubber Soul is the album directly before Revolver.

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People get oddly academic when talking about this stuff, I always thought was more more to do with instinct.  Picking your best album I mean.  To me With The Beatles is their best fuckin' album cuz its just so full of joy and energy, you can see why Beatlemania really kicked off on the back of it.  And they're tight as fuck on it and it has some fantastic individual performances in terms of like, vocals, guitar, drums, everything.  To be the early stuff is like, the core of what they were, which is like an RnB combo.

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9 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

My favourite album is actually Help. Help followed by Rubber Soul followed by (probably) Abbey Rd

8 songs off of Help were written in a weekend.  A fucking weekend!  Fuckin' hell!  Its like one of the all time great albums ever...and they done most of it in a weekend!  Chinese Democracy on the other hand... :lol:  Kinda puts the value of your life into perspective, you wanna know what I done this weekend?  About 8 pints of Stella and a bunch of Elvis films! 

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5 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

8 songs off of Help were written in a weekend.  A fucking weekend!  Fuckin' hell!  Its like one of the all time great albums ever...and they done most of it in a weekend!  Chinese Democracy on the other hand... :lol:  Kinda puts the value of your life into perspective, you wanna know what I done this weekend?  About 8 pints of Stella and a bunch of Elvis films! 

One wild night? If you replaced the wifebeater with gin or some womany drink, it would be very housewify. 

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19 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

8 songs off of Help were written in a weekend.  A fucking weekend!  Fuckin' hell!  Its like one of the all time great albums ever...and they done most of it in a weekend!  Chinese Democracy on the other hand... :lol:  Kinda puts the value of your life into perspective, you wanna know what I done this weekend?  About 8 pints of Stella and a bunch of Elvis films! 

not to mention please please me was recorded in less than a day. this was as to capture their live sound, but you don't need me to tell you that

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It's nice how there isn't a singe Beatles album you can go wrong with. ^_^ 

So your options are:

Please Please Me

With The Beatles

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles For Sale

Help!

Rubber Soul 

 

I'd say out of those Rubber Soul is their best. But I'd say start with With The Beatles and Please Please Me and move your way up. There isn't a rotten one in there. 

Also, be sure to give Past Masters a try. It's a great collection of their non-album material. 

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2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I bet you're at that stage of drinking when you've exhausted your stocks and are pondering whether or not to buy another four-pack and unleash the Tickle Me and Fun in Acapulco - then, and only then, will this party really get started?

You’re a fuckin’ bastard :lol:  That actually cracked me up!

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A stunning vocal performance.  Motown to me is the litmus test.  Now you'll never do BETTER than Motown, it just can't be done, you won't swing like those songs swing, you won't out-soul the likes of Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson but if you can take those songs somewhere, if you can make them yours on some level and have them come off powerful, then you're something REALLY special and thats what The Beatles do here and I struggle, I mean I REALLY struggle to thing of a band who have done the same.

A real key thing I think is harmonies with The Beatles and the Paul and John singing things together when the song isn't necessarily in either persons precise optimum register.  They both have brilliant voices individually but when they both went for a song, together, and they were more of that early on that ever after, it sounded fucking mind-blowing.  If something of the appeal of bands, as it has been suggested in some quarters, is in the communist nature of what it is to be a band, to be a group of people, all struggling in pursuit of the same thing, a condensed version of that is two or three guys all singing the same shit, with none of the slickness that comes from being trained in it, there's a rawness that makes it fucking intense.  An example is Babys in Black, a song that if one em had been singing it could potentially have been slightly ordinary, even though its interesting on its own, being a waltzy sort of ballad, the doubling of the vocals, the contrast is what really really makes it:

 

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9 minutes ago, action said:

is the verdict out yet on wether "let it be" or "let it be...naked" is better?

I'm not a big one for fuckin' around with originals.  Its an ad infinitum process that has a devaluing effect I think.  I listened to Let it Be Naked extensively when it came out for a good long while and was quite sold on it initially but...I dunno, these things (albums in general) are a product of their times and are best left as they were, particularly when its a co-operative process and some of the people involved in it are now dead.  And there wasn't really 'problems' with it as such as is often made out.  So yeah, its the original for me I'm afraid but naked is not a bad piece of work by any means.  Its just, y'know, where do you stop with that, the Mona Lisa has a big nose, doesn't she?  I think the Beatles discography, as an artistic statement, is about as definitive as you will ever get in popular music, if you ain't happy with that, commercially or artistically, well then I dunno what to tell ya.

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18 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

I'm not a big one for fuckin' around with originals.  Its an ad infinitum process that has a devaluing effect I think.  I listened to Let it Be Naked extensively when it came out for a good long while and was quite sold on it initially but...I dunno, these things (albums in general) are a product of their times and are best left as they were, particularly when its a co-operative process and some of the people involved in it are now dead.  And there wasn't really 'problems' with it as such as is often made out.  So yeah, its the original for me I'm afraid but naked is not a bad piece of work by any means.  Its just, y'know, where do you stop with that, the Mona Lisa has a big nose, doesn't she?  I think the Beatles discography, as an artistic statement, is about as definitive as you will ever get in popular music, if you ain't happy with that, commercially or artistically, well then I dunno what to tell ya.

now imagine if that big nose was painted by da vinci's grandma, over the original. With modern day technology, the nose is restored to michelangelo's original vision.

That's kind of what happened with "let it be" I think. The orchestration wasn't added by the artist but rather by an outsider.

edit: I can't believe I put "michelangelo" at first there. that's what you get when you watch too much teenage mutant ninja turtles I guess

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20 minutes ago, action said:

now imagine if that big nose was painted by da vinci's grandma, over the original. With modern day technology, the nose is restored to michelangelo's original vision.

That's kind of what happened with "let it be" I think. The orchestration wasn't added by the artist but rather by an outsider.

edit: I can't believe I put "michelangelo" at first there. that's what you get when you watch too much teenage mutant ninja turtles I guess

Coulda been worse, you could’ve put The Shredder :lol:

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