The Best Beatles Albums Part 2

 Beatles for Sale - Released 12/4/1964

Many critics and historians consider this album, their fourth, to be their 'weakest' album. I'm  still inclined to give it a little notch up compared to With the Beatles.  It did have one #1 song - Eight Days a Week - as well as I'll Follow the Sun.  I'll Follow the Sun is considered one of McCartney's best songs from the early days. As most observers  note when looking at the album cover, the wear and tear of Beatlemania is clearly taking their toll.  Another controversial album cover was initially envisioned, with the four in butchers' smocks, and dismembered doll babies and slabs of meat spread about.  It was poorly received and quickly replaced by this cover (the 'Butcher Cover' being used for later, supplemental releases).  Again, it shows the exhaustion they were feeling as the weight of their fame was settling down on them.  They were, in many ways, prisoners.  They couldn't go anywhere.  Everywhere they appeared drew thousands of fans, even if only to see them enter a building.  Not to mention Brian Epstein's strategy of 'tour the world.'  For Epstein, the entire world was their oyster.  It's been joked that the Beatles went to some countries before there was a music industry there to sell their albums.  It was that which likely helped establish them as the first bona fide global superstars.  It also no doubt contributed to the strain.  Meanwhile the money was piling up fast.  As was the feeling of responsibility.  According to their producer George Martin, it was McCartney who said he didn't want people in future decades to look back and say the Beatles were more famous than they deserved.  He wanted them to live up to the hype.  It was then that they began poking around at breaking down not only their own barriers, but those within the music industry as a whole.  For its part, the tone of the album is darker than the previous three albums.  Two songs - Baby's in Black and I'm a Loser - have definite Dylan influences.  Nonetheless, they were still shackled to the 'Mop Top' image.  After all, that image had allowed them to dominate the music world in a way that has never been repeated.  Because of that, the breakthroughs and unhindered innovation would have to wait.  

Beatlemania: It didn't take long for it to start fraying their nerves

Let it Be - Released 5/8/1970

Following the less than stellar reception for The White Album, and the dismal showing of the Magical Mystery Tour television special, the Beatles - especially Lennon and Harrison - insisted it was time to 'get back' to basic rock and roll.  Hence the name of the project would initially be Get Back. Launching a tirade against their producer George Martin for polluting their music with all of those fancy orchestra and studio tricks, Lennon and Harrison wanted to get back to basics. Then came the idea of producing an album and filming the process.  A 'How the Beatles do it' documentary, so to speak.  Brought in to aid the musical side was keyboard virtuoso Billy Preston, a close friend of George Harrison's.  Some suggest there was talk of letting him join the band.  He is, after all, the only person to share billing with the Beatles on any of their records.  Up until him, it was typically George Martin, or at times McCartney, who provided the keyboard parts on various recordings.  Nonetheless, not even Preston's upbeat enthusiasm or piano skills could save this project.  From contemporary accounts, and the general assessment through most of the decades that followed, this was what sealed the deal.  After these sessions, it was merely a matter of time. Their final live performance, on the office rooftop of  Apple Corps headquarters, was the most  noteworthy contribution of the entire project. Most of the music recorded was acceptable, but nothing unusual or groundbreaking.  George Martin became especially disenchanted, and began making plans to cease working with the group.  All during this time, each of the Beatles had threatened to quit, but were talked out of it by Paul.  Then, on April 10, 1970 (almost six years to the day that they monopolized the Billboard top five), Paul made if official. Long after the Get Back project was shelved, and after the release of their final album Abbey Road, he announced he was leaving the Beatles, by releasing his first solo album titled McCartney.  As can be guessed, it made headlines around the world.  Through the 1970s  a favorite media parlor game was wondering when they would reunite.  On December 8, 1980, that question was finally and tragically answered.  

The Get Back album was salvaged by their new manager Alan Klein, who came in to save their floundering Apple Corps label.  He brought in producer Phil Specter, both having formerly worked with the Rolling Stones.  It was renamed Let it Be, perhaps prophetically.  McCartney sued Specter because of the work he did, feeling his famous 'Wall of Sound' ruined McCartney's vision for the songs.  In fairness, however, it was Specter's work that provided the final two number one hits of the Beatles' career: the aptly titled Let it Be and The Long and Winding Road. 

The "Rooftop Performance", 1/3/69 - The Beatles' final live performance

Magical Mystery Tour (technically an EP as released) - Released 11/27/1967

Released initially in the  UK as an EP (Extended Play) album with songs from the much maligned movie of the same name, Capital Records in the US didn't miss a chance to add some stand alone songs and make it a full (and more expensive) Long Playing album (LP).   In the summer of 1967, the Beatles were at the top of the entertainment universe, and unprecedented in their cultural and musical influence.  Headlining one of the largest television broadcasts ever, and certainly the largest to that date, they were, to use the phrase, on top of the world.  Therefore, it came as a devastating shock when their manager Brian Epstein, the man who discovered them and secured their recording contract and presented them so successfully to the world, was found dead from a drug overdose on August 27.  For years, many dismissed Epstein's influence on the group by that point.  They were so phenomenally successful, did they even need him?  What happened over the subsequent years suggests strongly that yes, they desperately needed him.  Following Epstein's death, Paul emerged as the unofficial, self-appointed replacement manager, a move that caused tension and resentment from the others.  His first priority was a made for television movie special.  The movie would tap into the emerging psychedelia fad that they helped fuel with the release of Sgt. Pepper.  The idea was to get a bus full of actors and circus performers and friends and strangers, drive about the countryside in a bus, and film whatever happened.  As can be expected, several new songs were written for the movie.  Among them was a song that contained about everything the Beatles or the recording industry had learned by that time: Lennon's I Am the Walrus (a song that inspired Jeff Lynne to start his own band, Electric Light Orchestra).  It was truly a song with everything plus the kitchen sink in terms of content and recording techniques.  Other songs were of varying quality.  Though I have to put in a plug and mention that the song The Fool on the Hill was, per my parents, the first song I ever liked as a child.   Perhaps also prophetic.  Nonetheless, though the music echoed the whimsical and innovative sounds of Sgt. Pepper, it failed to save the production as a whole.  Though the album went to #1, the movie itself was panned by fans and ravaged by critics. It was also, in a dose of irony, the only time the Beatles attempted so purposefully to recapture the sound and feel of a previous album.  Still reeling from the death of Epstein, and facing the first true commercial failure of their stellar career, there wasn't much to do.  With tails tucked firmly between their legs, it was off to India, and a new phase in their evolving story. 

Three of that other 'Fab Four' who made the Beatles: L-R, Producer George Martin, Music
Publisher Dick James, and Manager Brian Epstein (Sound Engineer Geoff Emerick not shown)