The Beatles recorded 13 studio LPs during their career from 1963's Please Please Me to 1970's Let It Be (recorded in 1969.) That total of 13 includes Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine although it's debatable whether they should be considered actual albums or not.
I first cut my choices from those 13 down to 6. Which means I had to cut out seven choices. Please Please Me was their first album and it's an interesting piece of rock history but it's nowhere near their top three albums so I knew I could cut it. With The Beatles & Beatles For Sale were both easy cuts. Help! & A Hard Day's Night were a little harder to cut as I think they both have some great moments and they are great examples of their early music. Yellow Submarine was another easy cut as it only contained four new songs. Let It Be was possibly the toughest cut. Although it's definitely flawed, I do think it's an underrated album.
Next I had to drop 3 more albums to bring me to my final tally of the three greatest Beatles albums. I dropped Abbey Road because as great as it is it's almost too "clean" or "perfect" in some way. It doesn't have quite the feeling of unbridled creativity and imagination that the three albums I selected have. I dropped Magical Mystery Tour because it's not as consistent and it doesn't include as many new songs (some of it's best songs were previously released.) I left off Rubber Soul mainly because of "What Goes On" and I'm only slightly joking.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - People often claim that this album is somehow "overrated" and I suppose I can see that view point as far as the way the mass media seems to give it much more attention than The White Album and Revolver (the other two albums in my top three) but that doesn't make it any less great. I think people often unnecessarily dismiss this album because of it's legendary stature. When you listen to it with an opened mind you can hear exactly what makes it such a landmark album. Even to this day I think few albums have made a more complete artistic statement than this one does, and while some say that it's an album which seems contrived, I don't think that's the case. To me it actually sounds amazingly "easy" considering it's complexity.
Revolver - Fourteen amazing songs. No it doesn't have the cohesiveness of Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper. It doesn't have the sprawling genius of The White Album. But what it does have is four just absolutely incredible songs. One could make a very strong argument that this is the very best collection of songs The Beatles ever recorded. They were just overflowing with genius at this time and it was coming out in so many new and exciting ways. Who had ever heard anything like "Tomorrow Never Knows" in 1966? No one.
The White Album - If I have to choose just one Beatles album, it's this one. And that's not just so I get 30 songs instead of 13 or 14! Although that must have quite a bit to do with it. I think perhaps if the first LP of this double album was it's own album it'd still be my favorite album. The second LP isn't quite as great to me but it has some really great moments too. And it's really the whole sprawling masterpiece that I love. It's just such an endlessly enjoyable album. I never grow tired of it.
Great arguments can be made for including some of the other Beatles albums instead of the ones I've chosen. Hell I once went through a period where I was convinced Abbey Road was their best album. That's part of what makes The Beatles so astonishingly great. This isn't an easy question with them like it is for most bands. - 21704
I first cut my choices from those 13 down to 6. Which means I had to cut out seven choices. Please Please Me was their first album and it's an interesting piece of rock history but it's nowhere near their top three albums so I knew I could cut it. With The Beatles & Beatles For Sale were both easy cuts. Help! & A Hard Day's Night were a little harder to cut as I think they both have some great moments and they are great examples of their early music. Yellow Submarine was another easy cut as it only contained four new songs. Let It Be was possibly the toughest cut. Although it's definitely flawed, I do think it's an underrated album.
Next I had to drop 3 more albums to bring me to my final tally of the three greatest Beatles albums. I dropped Abbey Road because as great as it is it's almost too "clean" or "perfect" in some way. It doesn't have quite the feeling of unbridled creativity and imagination that the three albums I selected have. I dropped Magical Mystery Tour because it's not as consistent and it doesn't include as many new songs (some of it's best songs were previously released.) I left off Rubber Soul mainly because of "What Goes On" and I'm only slightly joking.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - People often claim that this album is somehow "overrated" and I suppose I can see that view point as far as the way the mass media seems to give it much more attention than The White Album and Revolver (the other two albums in my top three) but that doesn't make it any less great. I think people often unnecessarily dismiss this album because of it's legendary stature. When you listen to it with an opened mind you can hear exactly what makes it such a landmark album. Even to this day I think few albums have made a more complete artistic statement than this one does, and while some say that it's an album which seems contrived, I don't think that's the case. To me it actually sounds amazingly "easy" considering it's complexity.
Revolver - Fourteen amazing songs. No it doesn't have the cohesiveness of Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper. It doesn't have the sprawling genius of The White Album. But what it does have is four just absolutely incredible songs. One could make a very strong argument that this is the very best collection of songs The Beatles ever recorded. They were just overflowing with genius at this time and it was coming out in so many new and exciting ways. Who had ever heard anything like "Tomorrow Never Knows" in 1966? No one.
The White Album - If I have to choose just one Beatles album, it's this one. And that's not just so I get 30 songs instead of 13 or 14! Although that must have quite a bit to do with it. I think perhaps if the first LP of this double album was it's own album it'd still be my favorite album. The second LP isn't quite as great to me but it has some really great moments too. And it's really the whole sprawling masterpiece that I love. It's just such an endlessly enjoyable album. I never grow tired of it.
Great arguments can be made for including some of the other Beatles albums instead of the ones I've chosen. Hell I once went through a period where I was convinced Abbey Road was their best album. That's part of what makes The Beatles so astonishingly great. This isn't an easy question with them like it is for most bands. - 21704
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If you are looking to buy Beatles albums online then Marvin Marks recommends going to the Beatles Mall which includes a huge selection of Beatles stuff for sale including Revolver.
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