For Christmas I got 6 Beatles albums, giving me a complete set.
Most of what I got were the early albums: Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Days Night, and Beatles for Sale. I also got two late discs I’ve never really listened to: Yellow Submarine and Let It Be.
In iTunes I’ve arranged them chronologically and I’ve been going through them this weekend. I knew that in those early albums there were many covers, some of them very well known. There have also been plenty of songs I’d never heard before.
The Album that’s surprised me the most is Beatles For Sale. I’d heard so few of the songs. The most recognizable of the 14 on the album are “I’ll Follow the Sun,” “Eight Days A Week,” and their cover of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music.” Really, that’s it.
It was their 4th album, after A Hard Days Night, and it’s just at a funny period in their history. Their pop beginnings were fading, they were weary from international tours, and they still hadn’t found their new voices with Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver, etc.
It’s not a noteworthy album, but part of the fun of ordering these chronologically has been to listen to the evolution. On Beatles for Sale, you can really hear that they were in a transition.
if you don’t have it, I also recommend Let it Be…Naked, in which a lot of Phil Spector’s overdubs were stripped off at the direction of McCartney. I don’t know if I prefer it, but it’s an interesting counterpoint to the original.