8th December - The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour

Artist – Album: The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour

Released: 8^th December 1967

Sounds Like: Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour

Around the same time that the Beatles quit performing live, the quality of their album releases went up several notches. December 1965 saw the release of Rubber Soul, August ’66 was Revolver, June ’67 was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, November ’68 was The Beatles (White album), September ’69 had Abbey Road and finally, after they’d split, Let It Be was released in May 1970. The other two albums that saw the light of day during that incredibly productive period were soundtracks – one was Yellow Submarine, which was poorly received and is generally considered to be one of their weakest efforts, and the other is Magical Mystery Tour, the forgotten great album from the Beatles catalogue.

In truth, it was never intended to actually be an album – in the UK, only the first six songs were originally released as a large EP, but in the US they added that year’s singles and B-sides to complete the set – and it doesn’t possess the same holistic approach of some of its siblings. The other factor that means it is comparatively ignored is that the parent film is, by all accounts, rubbish. But its lack of recognition should by no means dissuade you from giving it a spin.

The EP tracks are strong – from the rousing opener ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ to Lennon’s trippy ‘I Am the Walrus’ via the atmospheric ballad ‘The Fool on the Hill’ and the stately music hall of ‘Your Mother Should Know’ – but the singles are from another planet. Seriously, ‘Hello, Goodbye’, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ one after the other, my mind is blown. The ordinary ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ gives you time to breath, before the curtain is drawn with the wonderful sing-a-long ‘All You Need is Love’. It is an awesome album and one that completely deserves its place in the Beatles canon.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Magical Mystery Tour – 2:48

2.       The Fool on the Hill – 3:00

3.       Flying – 2:16

4.       Blue Jay Way – 3:50

5.       Your Mother Should Know – 2:33

6.       I Am the Walrus – 4:35

7.       Hello, Goodbye – 3:24

8.       Strawberry Fields Forever – 4:05

9.       Penny Lane – 3:00

10.   Baby, You’re a Rich Man – 3:07

11.   All You Need is Love – 3:57

Listen to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nehRB1FTeTo

26th September - The Beatles' Abbey Road

Artist – Album: The Beatles – Abbey Road

Released:  26^th September 1969

Sounds Like: The end of the road 

By Abbey Road, The Beatles knew it had to end. They may have only been together for eight years by that point, but their maturity from rhythm & blues and skiffle obsessed moptoppers to ever more experimental master craftsmen had left them with irreconcilable views on the direction their music should take. If John Lennon had once said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, then John, Paul, George & Ringo had collectively grown too big for the Beatles. Fortunately, rather than the messy divorce which so many great bands finally part with – and that very nearly happened with the earlier Get Back recording sessions – the group decided to have one last swansong before they parted ways. Abbey Road was their last hurrah.

The album showed the different directions that each of them were heading – John, with ‘Come Together’ and ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, was making the same spikey, hard-edged blues with which he’d score a 1970 hit in ‘Instant Karma’; Paul contributed “granny music” with the likes of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ and ‘Oh! Darling’, but the medley which makes up the majority of the second half of the album is mostly McCartney and is simply wonderful; George gave notice of just how far he’d come on as a song writer, and it’s hard to argue that ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ aren’t in the top tier of all time Beatles songs; and, Ringo, well… ‘Octopus’s Garden’ is a great stupid song.

They might all have been writing their songs separately, but on Abbey Road they also made concerted efforts to Come Together one last time. ‘Because’, written by Lennon, features stunning three part harmonies from each of John, Paul and George and is the last genre-bending effort they released, whilst the final singalong chorus of “Boy, you gotta carry that weight Carry that weight a long time” featured chanting from all of the Fab Four. Those lyrics were written with the knowledge that each of them would always carry the weight of being a Beatle. It’s just special.

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       Come Together – 4:20

2.       Something – 3:03

3.       Maxwell’s Silver Hammer – 3:27

4.       Oh! Darling – 3:26

5.       Octopus’s Garden – 2:51

6.       I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – 7:47

7.       Here Comes the Sun – 3:05

8.       Because – 2:45

9.       You Never Give Me Your Money – 4:02

10.   Sun King – 2:26

11.   Mean Mr. Mustard – 1:06

12.   Polythene Pam – 1:12

13.   She Came In Through the Bathroom Window – 1:57

14.   Golden Slumbers – 1:31

15.   Carry That Weight – 1:36

16.   The End – 2:05

17.   Her Majesty – 0:23

Listen to ‘Medley’:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pM3PVzDUCY

Also released on 26^th September:

1994: R.E.M - Monster

Also released on 26^th September:

1994: Massive Attack - Protection

5th August - The Beatles' Revolver

Artist – Album: The Beatles - Revolver

Released:  5^th August 1966

Sounds Like: The Daddy

The Beatles kicked off 1965 with Help!, the last album of the Fab Four’s mop top era, which featured classic pop tunes such as ‘Help!’ and ‘Ticket to Ride’, as well as olde-worlde folk songs like ‘Yesterday’ (apparently the most covered song of all time, which is just crazy, as I can’t recall a single other version of it). Two years later, they released the psychedelic kaleidoscopic menagerie that is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. What happened in between? The daring, inventive, masterpiece Rubber Soul, and the daringer, inventivier, and masterpiecier Revolver.

Every single one of the Fabs were on top form for this landmark album. Ringo’s most obvious contribution may have been the lead vocals on the Technicolor nursery rhyme ‘Yellow Submarine’, but his real strength was to be able to cope admirably with the rhythmic demands and styles that the wide variety of genres and moods required. George Harrison provided his biggest input yet, chipping in with the acerbic album opener ‘Taxman’, the raga tinged ‘Love You To’ and the frustrated ‘I Want to Tell You’, all of which are excellent.

Lennon and McCartney, as always, supplied the majority of the works here though and as wonderful as the likes of ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, ‘For No One’ and ‘Got to Get You into My Life’ are, they are overshadowed by the each of the duo’s crowning glories. McCartney gave us ‘Eleanor Rigby’ an orchestral, spooky paean to those in society who are desperately lonely. It serves as a counterpoint to his nostalgic ‘Penny Lane’ – both are character studies, but where the latter is charmingly goofy, the former is chillingly desolate. Lennon’s ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, meanwhile, is a blistering, hypnotic slice of sequenced experimental rock, one which was completely unique until the Chemical Brothers stumbled upon its alchemical formula 30 years later and proceeded to forge a long and successful career out of rehashing it time and time again.

Revolver is the greatest album in the history of the greatest band in the history of music. It’s as good as an eleven out of ten, could it be anything else?

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       Taxman – 2:39

2.       Eleanor Rigby – 2:08

3.       I’m Only Sleeping – 3:02

4.       Love You To – 3:01

5.       Here, There and Everywhere – 2:26

6.       Yellow Submarine – 2:40

7.       She Said She Said – 2:37

8.       Good Day Sunshine – 2:10

9.       And Your Bird Can Sing – 2:02

10.   For No One – 2:01

11.   Doctor Robert – 2:15

12.   I Want to Tell You – 2:30

13.   Got to Get You into My Life – 2:31

14.   Tomorrow Never Knows – 2:57

Listen to ‘I Want to Tell You’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y9W8tgXKQU

Also released on the 5^th August:

1969: Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

1st June - The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Artist – Album: The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Released:  1^st June 1967

Sounds Like: Sgt. Pepper’s one and only lonely hearts club band

Ok, so firstly I think I need to make two things absolutely clear:

1. Yes, Sgt. Pepper’s is a great, great album.
2. Nooooo, this is not the best album of all time. It’s not the best Beatles album of all time. It’s not even in their top three (I reckon).

The positives: It’s the Beatles you guys, it’s obviously good. McCartney contributes a legion of great songs, from the uplifting indie rock of ‘Getting Better’ (with unnerving allusions to domestic abuse) to the psychedelic anthem ‘Lovely Rita’. Lennon chirped in with a couple of the all time great Beatles tracks ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, as well as contributing the bulk of the work to ‘A Day in the Life’. Meanwhile George Harrison contributes his obligatory brilliant slice of exotic psychedelia ‘Within You Without You’.

The negatives: It just doesn’t flow that well. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous – this is supposed to be one of the best albums of all time. And the underlying concept helps to bring some of the most disparate songs together nicely. But really, the druggy ‘Within You Without You’ straight into the pastoral whimsy of ‘When I’m Sixty Four’ doesn’t go. Also, the strength of the songs is a bit patchy. For every ‘Lucy in the Sky...’ there’s a ’Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’. The main theme, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is nothing more than average, if you ignore the fact that it’s the motif for this most acclaimed of albums.

Albumaday... rating:  8/10

1.       Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 2:02

2.       With a Little Help from My Friends – 2:44

3.       Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – 3:28

4.       Getting Better – 2:48

5.       Fixing a Hole – 2:36

6.       She’s Leaving Home – 3:35

7.       Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! – 2:37

8.       Within You Without You – 5:04

9.       When I’m Sixty-Four – 2:37

10.   Lovely Rita – 2:42

11.   Good Morning Good Morning – 2:41

12.   Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) – 1:19

13.   A Day in the Life – 5:39

Listen to ‘Lovely Rita’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAb8NqatE-s

Also released on the 1^st June:

1983: The Police – Synchronicity

Also released on the 1^st June:

1985: A-Ha – Hunting High and Low

Also released on the 1^st June:

2004: Animal Collective – Sung Tongs

6th May - The Beatles' Let It Be

Artist – Album: The Beatles – Let It Be

Released:  6^th May 1970

Sounds Like: Fab

How – how – have I got to May and not yet done a Beatles album? (Well, apart from the fact that all of their best loved albums were released in June or later...). And, why would the first Beatles album I do get round to be Let It Be, arguably the most controversial of all of their recordings?

In truth I don’t really understand the negativity surrounding this record. Sure, it may not be their very best, and considering they were on a run of at least one masterpiece album per year – 1965: Rubber Soul, 1966: Revolver, 1967: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1968: The Beatles, 1969: Abbey Road (honestly, can you imagine any group managing a sequence like that) – you can see why their 1970 offering was something of a disappointment. But by any other standards it’s great.

Opener ‘Two of Us’ has a sweet harmony between Lennon and McCartney but, knowing the real tensions between the two at the time, it’s impossible to not find it forced and fascinating. ‘Dig a Pony’ is a standard blues rocker, no more, but ‘Across the Universe’ is probably the coolest track the group ever laid down. Phenomenal psychedelic lyrics – “words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup” – permeate the fab four’s most cosmic arrangement. ‘I Me Mine’ has understated beauty, like most of George Harrison’s contributions, but two of the next three songs are poor. They’re also less than a minute long each though, so that hardly matters, and sandwiched between is ‘Let It Be’, McCartney’s tour de force hymn, and a song that is so much better than I can be bothered to describe. The second half of the album does waiver slightly, but with ‘The Long and Winding Road’ (yes, it’s overproduced, but it’s still fantastic) and the rocking ‘Get Back’ in tow, it’s still considerably above average.

Underrated and understated genius.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Two of Us – 3:37

2.       Dig a Pony – 3:55

3.       Across the Universe – 3:48

4.       I Me Mine – 2:26

5.       Dig It – 0:50

6.       Let It Be – 4:03

7.       Maggie Mae – 0:40

8.       I’ve Got a Feeling – 3:38

9.       One After 909 – 2:54

10.   The Long and Winding Road – 3:38

11.   For You Blue – 2:32

12.   Get Back – 3:09

Listen to ‘Across the Universe’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN9n1bAahg4