THE THREE PHASES OF THE BEATLES

Turning points between 1962 "Love Me Do" and 1970 "I Me Mine"

USA "Help!": Last Phase 1 album

The Beatles recording career is often divided into three phases - early, middle and late. But their albums don't make these phases as clear as they should, even though the phases are easily recognizable in the music itself. The exact dates of the studio sessions which define the endings of each phase and the beginning of the next phase can be readily identified and linked to outside influences.

Phase One began with the release of the "Love Me Do"/"PS I Love You" single on October 5, 1962, the world's first introduction to the Beatles as we know them. Ringo had just joined the band and was still settling in.

The outside influences of Phase One can be summed up by one word: Beatlemania. Screaming girls at every public moment, appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, two major feature films, and huge concerts in places like Shea Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl where performance technology had not even begun to catch up with the demands.

All of that ended in Phase Two, and instead, the Beatles took refuge in the recording studio and the music itself took center stage.

Then Phase Three began when that studio sanctuary got its own outside influence in India and as John insisted that one screaming lady should be present as she pleased: Yoko Ono.

On the UK "core catalogue" albums, the fuzzy transition between Phase One and Two is the (non-soundtrack) second side of the "Help!" album, along with one "lost" song, "I'm Down". The fuzzy transition between Phase Two and Three is the four original songs on the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack, plus one "lost" song, "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)". But the transitions can be de-fuzzed by identifying the exact dates of the studio recording sessions.

PHASE 1 ENDS: BAD BOY The last studio session of Phase One can be traced specifically to May 10, 1965, when the Beatles recorded their two Larry Williams covers, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Bad Boy". These were recorded specifically for the "North American Market", immediately mixed down in mono and stereo and shipped the next day to US Capitol to be the final tracks to complete their "Beatles VI" album.

The idea that Beatles music should be marketed separately on the two sides of the Atlantic, each given separate album releases, was yet another idea that died at the end of Phase One. The Beatles were now world citizens. The Beatles defined their own music for the world, not vice versa.

Recordings of the "Help!" movie music had previously been completed in February, except for the title song which was recorded on April 13. On this date, the recording for the USA "Help!" album was essentially completed, but Side 2 of the UK album was not. This puts the USA "Help!" album squarely in Phase One while the UK "Help!" album includes the beginning of Phase 2 on Side 2. Both versions of "Help!" were released in August.

PHASE 2 BEGINS: YESTERDAY The beginning of Beatles Phase Two can be pinpointed precisely to June 14, 1965, the day that "Yesterday" and "I've Just Seen a Face" were recorded. "Yesterday" was revolutionary for being recorded with a classical string quartet, a concept that vaulted The Beatles even further out on the pop music cutting edge.

Paul and George Martin worked together on the string arrangement. George Martin, being true to his background, gave it its classical influence. But Paul insisted that measures be taken to minimize its syrupy quality. He wanted no vibrato, which was contrary to the whole idea of a polished string quartet, but they reached a compromise. If the Beatles had been farther along in their Phase Two, they might have used a mellotron for "Yesterday" instead of strings, which processes sound through recorded tape loops, such as they did for the eerie sounds on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Strawberry Fields Forever".

That fateful recording session began with "I've Just Seen a Face", which was almost as revolutionary for folk-rock as "Yesterday" was for adult pop. It is telling that US Capitol chose the former to lead off their version of "Rubber Soul" rather than the latter. But it was fortuitous that both songs were recorded too late to be included on "Beatles VI", which is where most of the other recent leftover songs had ended up.

Amazingly, also recorded on June 14th, in between the other two, was "I'm Down", a great screaming rocker that looks back at Phase One instead of ahead to Phase Two. However, it never made it onto any album in the Beatles UK "core catalog" or US equivalent. It was a song recorded too late for its time.

Then the next day, they recorded "It's Only Love", taking its place as the companion side opener to "I've Just Seen a Face" on the US "Rubber Soul". Two days later, they recorded the basic tracks for "Wait". That means that one fourth of US "Rubber Soul" was now set, well before its predecessor "Help!" was even released.

Also recorded on June 17 was "Act Naturally". This was given express priority for inclusion on the UK "Help!" because they had not yet fulfilled their quota of one song per album for Ringo. Since the song that John and Paul had already written for Ringo, "If You've Got Trouble", was already rejected, they had to do a cover song - the last one The Beatles would ever do (except for stuff like "Let It Be" gibberish and the "Marseillaise" intro on "All You Need is Love"). The Ringo quota is probably what vaulted "Act Naturally" above "I'm Down" for inclusion on the UK "Help!", but it had to wait for "Yesterday and Today" for its US album release. The US record execs were not so beholden as the British to the idea of a Ringo quota.

So that's how the Beatles made their transition from Phase One to Phase Two in the recording studio. They completed their US touring obligations on August 30 at the Hollywood Bowl, a concert which was gamely recorded for posterity if for nothing else, and the next night at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Finally, on October 12, they resumed their studio sessions for "Rubber Soul" and never looked back.

PHASE 2 ENDS: HELLO GOODBYE It was then full steam on Phase Two with "Rubber Soul", "Yesterday and Today" (in the US), "Revolver", "Sgt. Pepper" and "Magical Mystery Tour" - all released in a two year span from December 1965 to 1967 - without the distractions from feature films and touring America. But that too had to end. The last song completed in Phase Two was "Hello Goodbye" on November 2, 1967.

PHASE 3 BEGINS: LADY MADONNA The Beatles' transition from Phase Two to Phase Three was much more of a clean break than from One to Two. It began in early 1968 when they decided to visit India to study transcendental meditation. George went first, and recorded backing tracks for "The Inner Light" with local musicians in Bombay on January 12, making it the last but most authentic of his Indian influenced songs.

Phase Three began for all four Beatles when they assembled back in the UK on February 3, 1968 to record "Lady Madonna". From then until February 11, they also recorded "Across the Universe", "Hey Bulldog" and the completion of "The Inner Light". These four songs, as well as four "Sgt. Pepper" rejects (including "You Know My Name"), could have almost comprised an entire new album worth of material, but none ever made it onto any album until a year later when four of them became the Beatles contribution to the animated "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack.

After those February sessions, all four Beatles converged in India, finally to return again to the studio on May 30 to begin recording "The White Album", their first of Phase Three. Beyond that, only one more album was ever released as it was originally produced, "Abbey Road".

The rest of the Beatles Phase Three album output was relegated to side projects, compilations and Phil Spector's resuscitation of the "Let It Be" recordings. This makes them ripe for a revision of the Beatles discography, which Paul began when he commissioned "Let It Be... Naked" in 2003.

"I Me Mine" was the last song they ever recorded in January 1970, with John Lennon absent. The last time all four Beatles actually recorded with John was five months previously for the completion of "Abbey Road" in August 1969.

(Dates and details from Mark Lewisohn's book, "The Beatles Recording Sessions", 1988.)

BEATLES ALBUMS: THE KEEPERS, THE CHANGES AND THE REJECTS

Overview of the new 15-album "core catalog"

REJECT

When the Beatles albums were first released on CD in the late 1980s, the concept of a "core catalog" collection of 13 albums was established - all British albums with the tracks as they were originally released.

This "core catalog" merely perpetuated the ongoing problems of the Beatles album discography which had been festering since the beginning. Most importantly, it left many songs unaccounted, including very important ones like "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Day Tripper" and "Hey Jude". So two compilation CDs called "Past Masters" were then released. The need for these artificial and contrived compilation albums demonstrates the weakness of this "core catalog".

The discrepancies between the UK and USA Beatles album discographies are at the heart of this problem. The British custom in the 1960s, though inconsistent, was to leave singles off albums. In addition, British albums usually had more songs than American albums, generally 14 instead of 11. Another issue was what to do with soundtrack albums, none of which contain more than a half an album worth of soundtrack songs.

For example, the US Capitol album, "Something New" illustrates these problems. It had the five most obscure songs from the "Hard Days Night" movie because United Artists, owner of the movie rights, would not give Capitol access to the three most famous songs - the title theme song, "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better". Then Capitol just filled in the rest of the album with whatever they could, including the German overdub of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" of all things.

To counteract all of that, here is a new international Beatles album "core catalog" collection, with their new opus numbers from 1 to 15.

THE KEEPERS: Eight of the thirteen original UK "core catalog" albums are retained because they have clear artistic integrity, the latter four of which were also originally released in virtually identical versions on both sides of the pond. "Please Please Me" was likely the first rock music album to make any significant artistic statement at all. It is also noteworthy that the American "Magical Mystery Tour" album was not adopted by the British until six years after the Beatles broke up, to replace the anachronistic British EPs.

1 -   Please Please Me (UK)

4 -   A Hard Days Night (UK)

5 -   Beatles For Sale (UK)

9 -   Revolver (UK)

10 - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (UK/USA)

11 - Magical Mystery Tour (USA, then UK)

12 - White Album (UK/USA)

14 - Abbey Road (UK/USA)

A case can also be made for including two other albums in the new "core catalog" with their track listings fully intact, despite not being original British albums. Of these, the American "Rubber Soul" simply has more artistic impact than the British version in defining the great musical transition point for Beatles music. And "Let It Be... Naked" was commissioned by Sir Paul McCartney some thirty years later to revise and correct the original Phil Spector produced version which many people were not satisfied with.

7 -   Rubber Soul (USA Version)

15 - Let It Be... Naked (UK/USA)

THE CHANGES: The track lists for five other albums can be modified to fill the criteria for the "core catalog" to include every Beatles song with no duplicates. All of these happen to be American releases except the "Help!" movie soundtrack, where the USA and UK versions took completely different but unsatisfactory courses to fill up the album. But at least the British filled it up with Beatles songs, not movie background music as did the American version.

2 -   Meet the Beatles (USA)

3 -   Beatles Second Album (USA)

6 -   Help! (UK)

8 -   Yesterday and Today (USA)

13 - Hey Jude (aka Beatles Again)  (USA)

THE REJECTS: That leaves the following albums as rejects, among various others. Two of these, "With the Beatles" and "Yellow Submarine", are British albums demoted from their previous status as part of the 13 album "core catalog". "With the Beatles" poorly reflects its unique moment in history - the dawn of Beatlemania - compared to its American counterpart, "Meet the Beatles". "Yellow Submarine" was an animated film soundtrack that had only four new Beatles songs and merely used the fab four as cartoon characters. "Yellow Submarine" was also subjected to a later revision called "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" (similarly to the "Let It Be...Naked" revision) which eliminated the movie background music but tread no new ground except for some excellent new mixes.

Then there's the American album pair, "Beatles '65" and "Beatles VI", which were essentially the crude result of US Capitol chopping "Beatles For Sale" in half in order to have even more Beatles for sale. Most of the rest can be classified as contrived compilation albums which served their stopgap roles that were the result of the inadequacy of the previously released albums. So here is the "reject" album list, which should no doubt include other albums as well:

      With the Beatles (UK)

      Something New (USA)

      Early Beatles (USA)

      Beatles '65 (USA)

      Beatles VI (USA)

      A Collection of Beatles Oldies (UK)

      Yellow Submarine (UK/USA)

      Past Masters (UK/USA)

All of these albums are pretty much unnecessary, especially in this digital era of random access, do-it-yourself music programming. They had virtually zero input from the Beatles themselves, and all focus was just on putting the songs out there, not the listening experience itself. Can you imagine the Beatles treating the "Sgt. Pepper" album this way, as if they were just recording a bunch of songs without knowing where they would end up? So the rest of this blog is an album-by-album discussion of the 15 albums in the new "core catalog" collection, presented blog-style in reverse chronological order.

OPUS 15: LET IT BE - NAKED (UK/USA same album)

Finally, Paul plays our revisionist album game

Released November 2003

The vast majority of the Beatles catalog is so well recorded and produced that it actually comes as quite a shock that "Let It Be" fared so poorly. That's why this blog mostly addresses song programming, not sound production. "Let It Be" is different, and is made further complicated by the politics.

The "Let It Be" back-to-basics concept was apparently Paul's idea. In hindsight, it was a very bad idea. That's obvious from its contrast to "Abbey Road", its highly polished and widely acclaimed antithesis which was recorded later the same year.

There are essentially four sets of recordings from the "Let It Be" sessions that have been officially released over the years.

First, there were the three songs on singles produced by George Martin, "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down" and later "Let It Be". Just about everybody enjoyed them. So far so good.

Then there were the raw unadorned recordings, some of which eventually appeared on "Anthology 3" and are often referred to as the Glyn Johns recordings, after the sound engineer. These include "I've Got a Feeling", "Dig a Pony", "Two of Us", "For You Blue" and "Long and Winding Road". These are among the recordings that John Lennon called "shit".

Then there were the infamous Phil Spector mixes that comprised the first album release in May 1970. These were commissioned by John and George Harrison, who along with Ringo also approved the result. But it seems everybody else involved hated them - particularly George Martin, Glyn Johns and especially Paul McCartney who really despised the sickly stringy version of "Long and Winding Road".

But as the smoke cleared, from a Beatles fan's standpoint, its hard to see much point to all their complaints. The concept was Paul's to begin with, but then all of them violated that "back to basics" dictum by tampering with the tapes. Phil Spector just went farther than anyone else.

The fact that they didn't try to fix it when it happened is the real issue. They just moved on to record "Abbey Road", and as great as that was, it didn't mend the fences and stop the group from splitting up. Furthermore, "Abbey Road" was a triumph of production, not the songs, most of which weren't that great either. If you live by production, you die by production.

Maybe Paul was the biggest victim of his own idea because he had the most sincere interest in keeping the Beatles together, but you can't have a band of one. And if they had stayed together, they wouldn't have been able to "get back to where they once belonged".

Finally, in 2003, Paul commissioned Paul Hicks, Guy Massey and Allan Rouse to produce one more version of the "Let It Be" recordings. In my opinion, the result is as good as could possibly be hoped for. This is how the album should have sounded from the beginning.

Just about every song is an improvement - some vast such as "The Long and Winding Road" and "Across the Universe", some subtle, such as compared to the George Martin version of "Let It Be". The one exception to me is that George Martin's version of "Get Back" on the original single is superior. The sudden truncated ending of the newer version is jarring, and I always liked Paul's "high heel shoes and a low neck sweater" monologue near the end.

"Let It Be... Naked" also welcomingly restores "Don't Let Me Down" and dumps "Maggie May" and "Dig It" which were just mindless studio babbling.

The keys here are that "Let It Be... Naked" is not "naked" at all, but good tastefully clothed music, and that timing is important. This version should have been prepared and released immediately after it was recorded, but also preferably after the "Hey Jude" album, to preserve the freshness of both of them. Then "Abbey Road" would have stood as the Beatles' final triumphant album statement.

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OPUS 14: ABBEY ROAD (UK/USA same album)

Masterpiece #6: George Martin's album

Released September 1969

It's well known that the recording sessions for "Let It Be" actually predated "Abbey Road". The "Let It Be" (known as "Get Back" at the time) sessions ended in a morass of failure, disputes and blame games, so the Beatles collective egos must have been knocked down as well.

Moreover, as expected, the reception for the Beatles four song contribution to the cartoon movie "Yellow Submarine" was also underwhelming. Yes, the animation was great, but being reduced to mere cartoon figures didn't inflate their egos either.

So when the Beatles meekly decided to give it one more go for "Abbey Road", producer George Martin was able fill the power and ego vacuum with his own pure vision of how the music should unfold.

In sum, everyone wanted to get as far away as possible from the minimal back-to-basics, less-is-more aesthetic of "Let It Be". This time, more would be more. And "more" meant more production from George Martin. Many have called this album a miracle, and if so, it's George Martin's miracle.

This was demonstrated most on Side Two, where the cross-fade and medley format of "Sgt. Pepper" was taken to an even greater level of intervention. The segues sometimes stand out more than the songs. And then there's vocal harmonies! And the instrumentation! Interestingly, the songs are not really all that great. John's "Mean Mr. Mustard"? Who goes around whistling that? But some of Paul's songs aren't much better. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? Really?

Its a clear consensus that the two best songs on the album are George Harrison's, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun". The memorable guitar and orchestra riff on "Something" sounds like it was taken from the same French folk tune that 19th century composer Vincent D'Indy lifted for his most well-known symphony. That sounds like the work of George Martin.

But John didn't really buy into all this at all. He didn't see the point of melding Side 2 into a single unified work. It's hard to hear where he had much involvement in the great climactic second half of Side 2 at all. George brought in Eric Clapton for the great guitar part to return the favor for his contribution to the Cream song, "Badge".

So while "Abbey Road" was a triumphant return to form for the Beatles, making them perhaps even more popular than ever, it is a very singular work that did not leave them in any better position to move forward from there. The album is unified, but the Beatles weren't.

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OPUS 13: HEY JUDE / AGAIN (USA version w/8 changes)

How to make it a real album

Released February 1970

At the onset of the 1970s, nearly everyone in the record biz, if not the general public, had to realize that the Beatles were on the verge of calling it quits. The "Let It Be" album was still in artistic limbo and the fab four were all thinking about solo albums. But what the "suits" at US Capitol Records were thinking about was releasing another album of recycled songs to capitol-ize (pun haha) on the "Abbey Road" cash cow.

Which is OK, but they came up with a track list that could have been formulated by an ancient 1960s Fortran computer program.

Let's see... What are the biggest selling Beatles singles that have somehow not gotten on a Capitol album? "Can't Buy Me Love/Should Have Known Better" from 1964, "Paperback Writer/Rain" from 1966... and then of course the recent ones. Party on (sarcasm)!

That's not a record album, that's treating songs as if they're just data files. Instead of an LP, cassette or CD, it's random access memory for a hard drive or a cloud server, portending the demise of the album which was still a couple generations away. How long could anyone sit back and listen to an album like that anyway? Capitol Records controls the U.S. market for greatest back catalog in the history of music, and yet they're clueless.

It's so simple, even a record exec should be able to understand: Focus only on the recent songs so that the album has a coherent context. But skip "Don't Let Me Down", which was the B-side of "Get Back" and therefore ought to be on the upcoming "Let It Be" album and movie. Just beware that the politics behind that album are tenuous.

Then give a proper album home to the four songs from the recent "Yellow Submarine" movie. Other songs folks would love to hear are two that didn't get on the "White Album": George's "Not Guilty" and John's "What's the New Mary Jane". The album will thus be loaded with George songs, but that's good, since he had been on a hot streak since 1968.

An even better option would have been to release this album a year earlier before "Abbey Road", fresh off the release of the "Yellow Submarine" movie, when it could have been sold as an album of new songs. Several of the songs might have needed to have their post-production sped up or be deleted altogether, but those are reasonable options, especially since this is a very long album as proposed here. Any deleted songs can be added to "Let It Be", just as "Don't Let Me Down" was in the "Naked" version. John also campaigned for "Mary Jane" to be on "Let It Be".

In any event, John's "Mary Jane" would be a good foil for "The Ballad of John and Yoko". Another in a similar jocular vein is "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" which John, Paul and the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones had been messing around with off and on for several years.

Just a small amount of thought would have made "Hey Jude" into a real album with real personality instead of just "data".

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OPUS 12: WHITE ALBUM (UK/USA same album)

Each Beatle takes control, one at a time

Released November 1968

In early 1968, the Beatles took a break from the recording studio, but their songwriting remained highly prolific. What happened then was that their musical visions became much more individual, which was the beginning of the end of the band.

So while many people wish that the Beatles had stayed together longer than they did, and speculate over what their music would have sounded like, it is actually far easier to imagine what they would have done if they had broken up sooner with a big bang in late 1967 after "Magical Mystery Tour".

It would be a simple straightforward task to split up the two-disc "White Album" into three solo albums, one each for John, Paul and George. Ringo's "Don't Pass Me By" would have certainly been released sometime and somewhere as well. George also had other songs ready. The solo albums would have all sounded more-or-less the same as they did, and would have been excellent.

Instead, the Beatles had to resist suggestions from George Martin and others that the "White Album" should be chopped down to a single disc by simply getting rid of the weaker tracks. To which I say, "No way! I want to hear it all!" Who's to say that someone's weaker track wouldn't be someone else's favorite, depending on their mood?

Now George Martin may have had a point if he had been able to command attention to ways that particular songs could be made stronger, without the distraction of the weaker songs. That's sort of what happened on "Abbey Road", but it's highly doubtful that the Beatles were ready to submit to that, considering that the overall songwriting on the "White Album" is at least as good and arguably better. There are also weaker songs on "Abbey Road" too, but they too are helped by brilliant production.

As such, the four Beatles' growing individuality and power is actually what made the "White Album" what it is. It's the clear beginning of the Beatles' final phase and it's just what they wanted.

Also interestingly, the Beatles were working on another project at the same time, the "Yellow Submarine" animated film, so they did divert four of their supposed "weaker tracks" to that. But as one would expect, George got the short end of that stick, contributing two songs, compared to one each from John and Paul. That project kept dragging on, while "The White Album" was released identically in the UK and USA in late 1968 to an appreciative Beatles-starved public.

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OPUS 11: MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (USA version)

Masterpiece #5: UK misses the album tour bus

Released November 1967

In the Sgt. Pepper sessions, the Beatles became a well-oiled musical masterpiece machine. Their first output, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever",was indicative of the creativity and quality that was to come, but their label still adhered to the British custom that it must either be a single or a part of the album, not both.

So it became a single. The same for the second output, "All You Need is Love" and "Baby You're a Rich Man". Also fabulous.

Not long after Sgt. Pepper finally came out and rocked the world, the question was asked as to what to do with these great but leftover tracks. Meanwhile, the Beatles were working on their next project, a more homespun kind of movie than their previous two. As was their custom, they only needed half an album's worth of songs for it.

The obviously and smashingly successful thing to do was to put the new movie music on Side One of an album, and put the previous singles on Side Two, filling it in with another great new single, "Hello Goodbye". That's what was done in the US.

But could the stiff upper lip Brits follow this rational American lead for a change? Nooooooo! Instead, the UK release oddly split it all up on a pair of EPs. They did not correct the error of their ways until 1976, six years after the Beatles had broken up.

The overall musical feel of the album was very similar to Sgt. Pepper, which made the decision to screw around with the format all the more irrational. The artistic structure of Sgt. Pepper required or even demanded an album format, setting the standard for all to follow. Every other serious rock band wanted to put out their own answer to Sgt. Pepper. Why do anything else for the obvious sequel?

The album starts with a rousing fanfare and invitation to take the "Magical Mystery Tour". You joined in with Sgt. Pepper's Band, so how could you not take the tour? This fades perfectly into the much more solitary "Fool on the Hill", much like how it was previously done into "A Little Help From My Friends" Then comes a dose of psychedelic mysticism from George, eventually leading to "Your Mother Should Know", a sequel of "When I'm 64" nostalgia. Side One ends with what is arguably the Beatles' all-time greatest masterpiece, "I Am the Walrus".

Once you get over the fact that Side Two is already familiar, it is no less brilliant. Unless you're so preoccupied flipping sides on your British EPs that you can't get wrapped up in the music.

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OPUS 10: SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (UK/USA same)

Masterpiece #4: The BIG production no one dared to mess with

Released May 1967

Record executives often don't understand music, but what they do understand is big production. And "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was the biggest, most expansive, most expensive and most widely heralded album production ever, from Edison's first wax cylinder to probably all the way up to the present.

So for the first time ever, the way the Beatles and producer George Martin ultimately put it onto tape was destined to be the way it would be released, on both sides of the pond. End of discussion. (But I'll keep writing anyway. After all, this is Sgt. Pepper!!!!)

The most obvious part of this was how the songs were cross-faded to flow into each other to create one single big album-length work. Who would dare mess with that?

Then there is the fact that the introductory theme song is repeated in a different version as the next-to-last song. That creates unity. That creates the sense that the album is an event.

Then there is just how adult it all is. The first words Paul sings are "It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play..." That would have made it 1947. So this is not supposed to be baby boomer kiddie music. Paul then continues by writing a song about parents and their daughter when "She's Leaving Home", and about what it's going to be like "When I'm 64". The songs that John and George wrote may not be that self-consciously adult, but are nevertheless suitably big.

Finally, to wrap it all up, there is that gigantic orchestral chord in "A Day in the Life", played once in the middle of the song between John's and Paul's vocals and once at the end of the song and the album.

The album was actually featured on the cover of Time Magazine when it first came out. This is when Time Magazine was written and edited by a bunch of old fuddy-duddies who heretofore had thought that rock music was just a noisy adolescent fad that would die like poodle skirts. Essentially, they made the announcement that rock music had arrived and attained maturity.

So even the US Capitol Records desk-jockeys finally had to realize the Beatles were bigger than they were, and their music had to be released as presented by the artistes - an album as art form. So the UK and USA versions are essentially the same except for the smallest details.

Many arguments have been made as to which Beatles album is the best, but everyone must know that "Sgt. Pepper" is the biggest. (Production, that is.)

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OPUS 9: REVOLVER (UK version)

Masterpiece #3: The avant-garde album

Released August 1966

"Revolver" simply stuns from one song to the next, each one starting fresh as a new expression of what Beatles music is.

Song One opens with the same "one-two-three-four" count which opens the very first Beatles album's youthful energetic lead into "I Saw Her Standing There". But here it's a greedy old coughing codger counting money - the "Taxman". It's a very stark spare song which allows its individual elements to stand out, particularly George's spikey guitar, heretofore like no other.

In stark contrast, Song Two is a driving string quartet, "Eleanor Rigby", but not the sweet syrupy strings of "Yesterday".

Song Three, "I'm Only Sleeping", rescued to its rightful place from the executive poaching of "Yesterday and Today", is based not on a spikey guitar or string section, but on a very fluid backwards guitar.

Topping that, Song Four is based on sitar, but not the seamlessly integrated sitar of "Norwegian Wood" but a fully fledged rock-raga, "Love You To".

Three more songs need special mention: "For No One" is a baroque pop masterpiece that echoes Rubber Soul's "In My Life" but with just a hint of modern dissonance near the end of each verse. On "I Want to Tell You", the dissonance gets much louder and central to the foundation of the song. Then finally, they let out all their avant-garde stops on "Tomorrow Never Knows" - which foreshadows "Revolution #9" at the end of the "White Album", but integrated into a fully formed song with sitar, mellotron and all manner of musical effects, not a mere sound collage.

The USA version of "Revolver" actually survives the theft of three of its fourteen songs fairly well, because all the songs stand so well on their own. In fact, the three stolen songs are among the least weird on the album, despite all being John Lennon songs, so the USA version sounds even more avant-garde without them. But more is simply better, 14 vs. 11. And why mess with a masterpiece?

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OPUS 8: YESTERDAY AND TODAY (USA version w/4 changes)

The butchering finally went too far

Released June 1966

It was time for another USA-only album, and this one did about as good a job of picking from the many excellent songs available as it could. But they poached three songs from the not-yet released "Revolver" album, which meant that record executives were already desecrating an album while the Beatles were still working on it. That crossed the line of tolerable tampering.

So to show their displeasure and flex their artistic freedom, the Beatles commissioned the infamous "butcher cover" for the "Yesterday and Today" album.

Soon after that, Capitol Records retaliated again by removing the butcher album covers from the stores and replacing them with innocuous non-offensive sleeves.

But what still needs to be done is to remove the offending songs, "I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Dr. Robert" from the album, so that the integrity of the then-upcoming "Revolver" album can be kept intact. These can be ably replaced by the then-current single, "Paperback Writer" / "Rain" and by two other songs which were previously rejected during the "Help!" sessions and never released until three decades later on the 1996 "Anthology 2" album, "That Means a Lot" and "If You've Got Trouble".

Another song that fits in chronologically, if not musically, is "I'm Down". Astonishingly, it was recorded during the same session as "Yesterday" - two songs which could hardly be more different. Obviously, the Beatles didn't know what to do with it at the time, but this album is the best place for it, where the contrast can be highlighted to best advantage.

Overall, this album is solid if not particularly consistent. It starts with a winner, "Drive My Car", a hard rocker which proved its value as an opener on the British "Rubber Soul" album. From there, it's somewhat top-heavy with Ringo vocals - "Act Naturally" which never really fit the "Help!" album, "What Goes On" which never really fit "Rubber Soul" and (on this rebooted version) "If You've Got Trouble" which never fit or was even heard anywhere. Good old Ringo fits in by not fitting in.

In effect, the whole album makes a virtue of not fitting in. And it finally makes a home for the unique and ever-popular "Yesterday" for Paul and string quartet. Unique, that is, until "Revolver" which outdoes the Paul and strings thing with "Eleanor Rigby" in a way that's not just unique for the Beatles, but for all music.

It's worth clearing the way on "Yesterday and Today" so that "Revolver" could achieve such a special status and more.

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OPUS 7: RUBBER SOUL (USA version)

Masterpiece #2: American triumph of folk-rock

Released December 1965

While it is widely agreed that "Rubber Soul" is the album that pushed the Beatles' boundaries into the new frontier, it is not so clear how and why.

The USA version shows quite a different artistic direction from the UK version, with the emphasis on artistic.

"Rubber Soul" actually concedes to the British sensibility of not including the concurrent single, "Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out", and actually goes two steps further than the Brits in also excluding the follow-up singles "Nowhere Man" and "Drive My Car" as well. All of these songs are just too electric and too rocking to fit the artistic vision. 

So while the British version is seen by critics as the album that opens up a new eclectic world of artistic freedom, the American version is more disciplined and focused, and thus even clearer and more powerful - and better.

And what the American version opens up is a new world of folk-rock. Did the control freaks at US Capitol Records know what they were doing when they selectively dipped back into the leftovers from the "Help!" album to do this?

Apparently they did, because they did not take the easy way by grabbing "Yesterday", which was already becoming the song that finally opened up the Beatles to acclaim among all generations, young and old, even though it had not yet appeared on an American album.

What they grabbed instead was "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love" to open Sides 1 and 2, songs whose guitars are so wooden and organic as to truly lead the way. Yes, Bob Dylan came first to folk-rock, and John Lennon already gave his nod to him with "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", and Dylan had already been stylishly slicked up with electric twelve-string guitar by The Byrds, and Simon and Garfunkel had turned all this into highly produced precious poetry.

But it was the Beatles who turned folk-rock into a genre for the ages. The second song on "Rubber Soul", the Bohemia with sitar "Norwegian Wood", could not have segued better from the first. And it keeps on going from there. Even the heavier electric songs miraculously sound light and organic. "In My Life" has been a favorite cover for mature adult folkies like Judy Collins ever since, but nobody else has ever given it the double tape speed piano that sounds like baroque harpsichord like the Beatles did. Non-folk rockers were also inspired, most notably the Beach Boys, who cited "Rubber Soul" as a key influence for their masterpiece album, "Pet Sounds".

All this emerges far more clearly in the American version than the British version. The American record execs had been messing with the Beatles' albums since the beginning, but here they somehow finally got it right.

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OPUS 6: HELP! (UK version w/5 changes)

Side 1 is "Help!" Side 2 needs help.

Released August 1965

Side 1 is the movie music and Side 2 is the you-name-it. The movie music has a purpose. But what can you say about Side 2 when it begins with Ringo's cover of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos rockabilly hit, "Act Naturally", then eventually gets to "Yesterday", the absolute ultimate schmaltz adult-pop classic for crooning Paul and soothing string quartet, then suddenly collides into John's disembodied larynx screaming "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"?

Side 2 simply doesn't work. But at least the UK version safely consolidates all the movie songs onto Side 1, unlike the USA version where the actual songs are messily scattered and diluted among a bunch of vacuous soundtrack instrumentals, such as for the nineteenth century Wagner opera "Lohengrin", of all things.

The only good thing about the UK version's Side 2 collection of songs is that they formed a reservoir for the two next US releases, "Rubber Soul" and "Yesterday and Today". They're all good songs. They just need to find good homes. Some of these songs point the ways to various future directions for the Beatles, when what they should do is capture the present. More about that later when we address those two albums.

But here's how to turn Side 2 into something that makes some sense. The key is to link the songs into compatible pairs. There's the great single "I Feel Fine" / "She's A Woman" which was released concurrently with their previous album, "Beatles for Sale". Then there is the B-Side of "Ticket to Ride", "Yes It Is". None of these songs were put on the album, but if not here, then where?

Then there are two songs which were included in the album and form a pair by virtue of their innocuousness, "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See". If any two Beatles songs could be considered the last representatives of the innocent early era, it would be those two.

Finally, there are John's two great Larry Williams covers, "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Both were recorded in the same session and included in the American "Beatles VI" album, but they were probably considered too similar to both be included here. But why not? They're both great and represent the boy and girl sides of rock-crazed adolescence. Most importantly, what Side 2 of "Help!" needs more than anything is some consistency. These two, plus Paul's "I'm Down", are the final pages of the Beatles' crazy screaming phase.

In the conventional UK discography, "Help!" is the fifth Beatles album and a somewhat fuzzy transition between their early and middle periods, but as reorganized here, it is the sixth album and serves as a very clear and resounding closure to the early period.

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OPUS 5: BEATLES FOR SALE (UK version)

A step back to rockabilly roots

Released December 1964

After "A Hard Days Night", the pressure was off and The Beatles were able to let up on the gas pedal and just have fun. The title "Beatles For Sale" seems to refer to the idea that after their recent frenetic pace of albums, live appearances, touring and even a movie, they had become a well-oiled production machine that could just go out and sell anything they want.

It's a bit similar to "Let It Be" at the end of their career, but this time it worked. It even seems logical that they would follow the British marketing strategy and leave the single off of the album. So there's no "I Feel Fine" / "She's a Woman" here. Those two songs are both more Beatle-esque and more forward looking than anything else here, so they'd stick out a bit too much.

But in the USA, they included the single and split the album in two, Beatles '65 and Beatles VI, with help from stealing a few songs from elsewhere. That makes the USA albums a bit more contrived and reduces the spontaneity of it all. The UK "Beatles For Sale" is a fresher statement.

Rockabilly is the overarching theme, particularly in the selection of cover songs, in contrast to the previous covers which tended toward Motown/R&B. But there was still room for another Chuck Berry song, "Rock and Roll Music".

John seems slightly more dominant than usual on this album, just as he also seemed to become on "Let It Be". And as with the latter, this may be more of a political than artistic outcome. His soulful wail on "Mr. Moonlight" and countrified bass voice on "I'm a Loser" are real stretches. Paul gets only three lead vocals, "I'll Follow the Sun", "Kansas City" and "What You're Doing".

The twang of George Harrison's lead guitar on this album seems a long way from the Indian flavored songs he would move toward later, although its really just the distance between Country/ Western music and Country/ Eastern music. Once you know George, it all makes sense.

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OPUS 4: A HARD DAYS NIGHT (UK version)

Masterpiece #1: Half movie music, all Lennon-McCartney

Released July 1964

The Beatles released four soundtrack albums in their career. All the others (Help, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and the USA version of this one) consist only half with songs from the movie. The other half is either vacuous soundtrack instrumentals or else filled-in with previously leftover songs.

But the UK version of "A Hard Days Night" is quite an exception. It could be described as the most consistent and concentrated album of pure Beatles music that they ever did. 

There are no covers. It's all originals, and since George had not yet blossomed as a songwriter, its all Lennon-McCartney. All of it is still largely the same style as their very first music, but hewed to a fine perfection. At this stage, John and Paul are still more together than separate, and show their individual styles only as they always had or in other subtle ways. They hadn't yet tried to branch out onto any creative limbs.

There's also not much difference between the songs from the movie on Side One and the remaining songs on Side Two (to use vinyl parlance). There is no distraction regarding whether to include singles because the only two UK singles ("Hard Days Night" and "Can't Buy Me Love") are from the movie. Most other Beatles albums have some twist or anomaly, and often many of them. On this album, all the songs are cut from the same cloth. Clearly, if you don't like "A Hard Days Night", you don't like The Beatles. Is there anybody out there like that?

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OPUS 3: BEATLES SECOND ALBUM (USA version w/3 changes)

The almost lost album devoted to cover versions

Released April 1964

As soon as "Meet the Beatles" started flying out of the record store bins in early 1964, the "suits" at Capitol Records finally realized what flaming idiots they had been to reject their parent British company EMI's first Beatles album "Please Please Me". So they quickly decided to put out another album, and they decided to call it the "Second Album" in a ridiculous fit of denial of the fact that it would actually be the Beatles' third album - as if any Beatles album that's not on Capitol isn't really a Beatles album.

But in the late 1980s, the British record company (EMI, Parlophone, Apple) got the last laugh with their international release of the CD versions of the Beatles catalog, which expelled all the U.S. Capitol versions. And since there is no British equivalent to the USA "Second Album", that knocked it into virtual obscurity.

That's a shame, because the USA "Second Album" is a truly unique artistic statement all its own. It's the only Beatles album focused squarely on cover versions of other artists.

The album starts with a bang - Chuck Berry's seminal "Roll Over Beethoven", one of only two cover songs ever to begin a major label Beatles album ("Kansas City" on Beatles VI is the other). By 1964, Chuck Berry had been marginalized in the US as just another 1950's guy stuck between blues and rock, who had not yet been been conferred his rightful place in history as "The Father of Rock and Roll".

But the Beatles knew it, and the song itself is all about rock music's place in history, which was still being freshly written with every new Beatles release. It indeed goes all the way back a century and a half to Ludwig Van Beethoven. (His last piano sonata even includes a passage interpreted by some pianists as the beginning of rock.) Chuck Berry wanted Beethoven to "Tell Tchaikovsky the news", as the first step in passing the legacy along to the present.

Interestingly, all the covers here are from black American artists. Three are from Motown (Got a Hold on Me, Mr. Postman and Money), one was a very obscure Motown wannabe girl group from Detroit, the Donays (Devil in His Heart), and one from Little Richard (Long Tall Sally). In the early sixties, Motown was still in relative infancy, not yet the powerhouse label/genre it would become, while Little Richard's persona was not clear then at all. The Beatles did their part to change that.

So in all, six of the eleven songs are cover versions. But one of the other Lennon/McCartney compositions, "You Can't Do That", was stolen from the upcoming "Hard Days Night" album, and so does not really belong here. It should be replaced with more cover songs. The Beatles had a huge repertoire of cover songs from their old Hamburg days to choose from. Possibly the best choice would be Little Willie John's "Leave My Kitten Alone", which practically jumps off the disc as the best and most finished track on "Anthology 1".

Two other worthwhile picks would be "Slow Down" and "Matchbox" (both on the flip side of the "Long Tall Sally" / "I Call Your Name" EP), even though they were not recorded until two months later. That would make this album 9 out of 13 cover songs (and 8 of the first 9). In our revisionist scenario, the album could either be postponed for two more months or the recording session moved up. "Slow Down" and "Matchbox" were the beginning of The Beatles rockabilly phase, so they would also be at home on "Beatles For Sale".

Of the four remaining Beatles penned songs, three have always languished in relative obscurity. One of them, "I Call Your Name", is actually more associated with The Mamas and the Papas, so here it sounds like a cover of a cover.

The album's only truly famous Beatles composition is saved for last - "She Loves You". Its iconic "yeah, yeah, yeah" chorus fittingly ends the album with its revolutionary resounding coda, rather than the kind of wimpy fade-out which was customary for the time.

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OPUS 2: MEET THE BEATLES (USA version w/2 changes)

Putting hit singles on albums is the American way

Released January 1964

The Beatles first US album on Capitol came out just as Beatlemania was finally sweeping the country. It was highly anticipated, since it was the American version of "With the Beatles", their second UK album which was released in the UK two months before.

But the British version did not include the runaway hit single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which leads off the American version and was a major theme song for Beatlemania and the British Invasion. Really... How could such a momentous album be released with such a gaping omission? 

For that reason, the American version wins. But the second track on the album, "I Saw Her Standing There", which was the flip side of the same hit single in the US, was already released on the first UK album, so it should be replaced on your streaming playlist, mixtape, MP3 file list or other format version with "This Boy", the UK flip side of the hit single. 

Of course, as per tradition, USA albums are stingier than UK albums so more songs should be found. That bill is filled by "From Me to You", another fairly recent single, and "I'll Be On My Way", a great Everly Brothers inspired track from the BBC Sessions collection, which sounds polished enough to meet the Beatles already high studio standards. So that gets it up to 13 tracks.

Another advantage of the American version is that it is all Lennon-McCartney originals, except for just one cover song, "Til There Was You", which Paul croons from "The Music Man". The UK version has six covers. We could go higher than 13 tracks by including a couple of those cover songs from the UK version on the USA version, but Lennon-McCartney originals should take priority. There will be plenty of room for the Beatles cover song repertoire soon enough.

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OPUS 1: PLEASE PLEASE ME (UK version)

The first rock album as an artistic statement

Released March 1963

Way back in 1963 when the whole idea of rock albums as artistic statements was still in its infancy, the formula for the Beatles first album was simple: Just collect the best fourteen songs they had recorded to date. Among these were two hit singles, "Love Me Do / PS I Love You" and "Please Please Me / Ask Me Why". 

This allowed the Beatles first album to be presented on as high a note as possible. The British predilection for avoiding putting singles on albums was ignored, so there they are in all their glory, along with ten other songs.

There is something uniquely special about the fresh innocence of this album, the start of something that became as great as the Beatles. So why would anyone second guess it? Certainly not the American branch of The Beatles' EMI record label, Capitol Records. They stupidly rejected the entire album outright, so the temptation to tamper with this nascent greatness in the U.S. fell to the second-string VeeJay Label. What VeeJay did was simply discard two of the songs because Americans weren't used to getting 14 songs on an album. But why settle for 12 when you can have 14? Eventually, Capitol released all the songs in one form or another, mostly on a bastard compilation called "Early Beatles", but by then, the context of the specialness of the 1963 premiere was gone. Only the greatness of the songs themselves remained.

But knowing this album was recorded as long ago as 1962 and early 1963 makes it even greater - before the British Invasion, when Elvis had gone from the Army to Hollywood, Buddy Holly had recently died in a plane crash, schlock-pop was king, and rock music was still considered a fad that was already fading out. 

So this album is essentially the beginning of the great rock era which lasted until the end of the 1970s. Given all that, the unaltered 1963 UK album release of "Please Please Me" is the only version to have.

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