I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

Maxwell's isn't simple enough! it's not half the song that Octopus's Garden is, OG is easy to learn, easy to sing for anyone, it's a pure song. Maxwell's is 10 lbs. of shit in a 5 lb. sack.

Zappa is actually a great comparison, it's a song that only exists to illustrate how clever the songwriter is, the lowest form of music and art.

i don't think it's too clever or anything, it's just a dreadful tune

paul could make his whimsy nonsense compelling on occasion but absolutely failed there

The Beatles did lots of children's songs, which is a pretty great way of getting people to like your band also.

I was just about old enough when "Yellow Submarine" first came out

I think I may be the only person to have been unenthusiastic about Dig a Pony on this thread. It’s not filler like Dig It or Maggie Mae, but I’m not generally a fan or the Beatles going bluesy and the lyrics leave me pretty cold. Actually, in simple terms, I quite like Dig a Pony but All I Want Is You hurts my head.

loved john raving about seeing fleetwood mac on tv

Oh yeah, that was good. Their reports of what they watched on TV last night are generally a highlight. I hope there are more of them on a 16hr DVD.

is it a huge challop to think 'let it be' is better than 'abbey road'?

Good morning!

I've really cooled on Abbey Rd - it's tainted by a 70s glossiness, particularly the second side. I really like the minimalist direction John went in for after that with the POB album, and that 'classic albums' episode is a good watch after 'Get Back'.

I'm fairly sure that "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was played on Top Of The Pops a couple of times, as I remember the animation that accompanied it, with Maxwell as a kind of grinning Dennis The Menace-type figure. So I was surprised to discover, a few years later, that it was never a single. Turns out that the animation was originally aired in a Late Night Line-Up TV special that premiered Abbey Road in full (produced by Kevin Ayers' dad, Rowan Ayers). The animation has never been recovered.

loved john raving about seeing fleetwood mac on tv

Was certain he was gonna come in with Here Comes The Sun King the next day after that bit of commentary.

Also warmed to I Dig A Pony after having seen it played a billion times during Get Back.

I saw Let It Be a couple of times many years ago, the first time in a cinema in the 1970s, and I remember thinking both times re "Dig A Pony", "Christ, was this the best they could come up with by then, things were clearly falling apart". But yeah, it sounds alright on the finished album.

is it a huge challop to think 'let it be' is better than 'abbey road'?

― flopson, Tuesday, December 7, 2021 5:33 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess so, but I definitely feel this way. Some of the Paul songs on side 2 of Abbey Road feel like they're trying so hard to make a grand final statement that they make me wanna roll my eyes a bit. Let It Be has its share of lightweight material, but "Two of Us," "Dig A Pony" and "I've Got a Feeling" do more for me than anything on Abbey Road.

... it's a huge challop, let it be is prob my least favorite beatles album lol

it's barely a real album

probably tied with Help! as the one i've listened to and loved the least.

The thing that gets me about Maxwells. . . which I hate but neither here nor there. . .

It's the THIRD song on the album. Right after Something and Come Together! Like stash it at the end of side 1 or start of side 2 for fucks sake

Let it Be is the worst Beatles album

Help has a lot of good songs

xp Let It Be is an album that exists!! :)

agreed about Help!, just for whatever reason it's never grabbed hold of me and become my favorite album for a week or two.

(Thinking about Gary Wilson repeatedly yelling "she's so real!" about his girlfriend that probably doesn't exist)

It helps that Help! was the one I listened to most as a child (we only had that, Let it Be and Abbey Road) but I think it's at least as consistent an album as Rubber Soul, which I often want to skip tracks on.

I can't listen to anything pre-Revolver. Not into the moptop stuff. Rubber Soul has its moments but it's still basically a pop album. I only like the Beatles once they turned into a rock band, which they did with Revolver.

if i went to see a 'pop' band and they rocked as hard as the Beatles do on Please Please Me thru A Hard Day's Night, i'd feel pretty darn rocked.

is it a huge challop to think 'let it be' is better than 'abbey road'?

For With The Beatles, I often want to skip the whole album.

With the Beatles has All My Loving on it you lunatic.

With the Beatles is excellent. "It Won't Be Long," "All I've Got To Do," "All My Loving," the Motown covers, all great.

if you do not rate the early beatles records then i do not respect your opinion lol

Not only is Help an underrated album, but underrated George's song "I Need You" is underrated.

Maxwell's is 10 lbs. of shit in a 5 lb. sack.

Haw, OTM.

I keep thinking about how much I'm enjoying this 9-hour documentary on the making of my least favorite Beatles album ever. It's made me wonder whether I would enjoy the same kind of treatment to any of the other albums. Maybe seeing them record "I Want You" in a broom closet or whatever instead of the asteroid careening through space that I have pictured in my mind would kill it for me.

I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't mind a field trip to the sausage factory because you know what? I'm not really all that crazy about sausage in the first place.

1st and 3rd records are excellent - but WTB does nothing for me, though I quite like the 'bugger off everyone' attitude of 'Don't Bother Me.'

my brain can barely take the suggestion that the beatles only became a rock band with revolver, that's a new one

arguably they codify power-pop on that one, i'll give you that

They rocked and popped hard from day 1

One of the things that made the Let It Be album seem second-class when I was growing up in the 80s was that every copy of the LP seemed beaten-up - scratchy, with the binding coming apart and stains on the jacket. This is the true physical manifestation of this music for me, not a box set with multiple discs and a coffee-table book.
Also, growing up with the blue album, it had the "wrong" versions of "Get Back" and the title track.

The blue album had the "correct" (single) versions, I mean.

They rocked and popped hard from day 1

― J. Sam, Tuesday, December 7, 2021 10:21 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one of my fav moments from part 1, when paul put on the old man voice and said "remember when we used to rock??"

Contend that the LIB guitar solo on the album is the superior one, the way it screams out of the chord bed instead of mellowing out in it

lol yeah, Let it Be is totally one of those records where every copy is shabby from edge-wear and ring-wear. agreed that this is somehow more fitting than the cover in pristine condition; the design itself is nice, but also somewhat misplaced IMHO. the music within is neither a serious statement piece, nor a snapshot of these four musical personalities coming together.

My friend and I used to laugh at the note on the back cover: "This is a new-phase Beatles album".

birdistheword OTM. With the Beatles is in my top 5 Beatles albums for sure, and possibly higher. Also the incredible EP that comes out just after that. It's gotta be the closest their recordings ever came to what they sounded like on a great night at the Cavern or in Hamburg.

one of my fav moments from part 1, when paul put on the old man voice and said "remember when we used to rock??"

someone else remarked on it upthread, but one of the true astonishing moments of the doc for me was seeing the 1966(?) setlist taped to john's guitar. so powerful to be shown such a banal little item as a totem from what seems like a completely different world. people remark on it all the time but it still never fails to blow my mind how relatively brief the whole arc of the beatles' career was, it feels like a generation of time passed between shea stadium and twickenham, its breathtaking to then be reminded it was still recent enough for the setlist to just be right there, like "oh huh, lookit that"

the early catalog is kind of annoying with all those cheapo american releases, UK vs US tracklistings, semi-packaging of albums under different names and slightly different tracklistings, even revolver the u.s. version omits the perhaps best song on the album (and your bird can sing)

Paul's 1963 violin bass (his second) is famous for having the 1966 set list taped to it. I believe it was still taped there as recently as 2010.

One of John's Rickenbackers also had a 1966 set list taped to it, but I don't remember that being in the film (wasn't he mostly using the stripped Casino)?

Can I very quickly hate on this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/12/06/beatles-get-back-documentary-songwriters/

idk guitars but theres def a brief moment of john showing off a setlist on his guitar while in the apple studio (unless it was other footage inserted thru some kind of editing fuckery)