The Beatles' catalog is a mess! Here's how we fix it!
Sept 5, 2020 10:40:52 GMT
Post by guffman on Sept 5, 2020 10:40:52 GMT
Shockvalue:
srsly
The Beatles' catalog has always been a mess, and my hope with this thread is to straighten it out.
For context:
The Beatles burst onto the scene in Sept. 1965 with their cartoon, which was an immediate hit. Early on, the show's producers realized that releasing Beatles records would represent a lucrative tie-in to the cartoon.
But the musicians behind the cartoon had their own ideas.
Instead of releasing the show's theme, "A Hard Day's Night," as their debut single, the group chose a somber ballad, "Yesterday," which was never even featured during the entire first season of the cartoon.
A few months later, the group released their debut album, Rubber Soul, containing 12 tracks, none of which had even appeared on their TV show. This must be the first time that a soundtrack album didn't contain any music from the movie or TV show it was meant to represent. Songs from this album were not featured on the show until the second season.
The (real) Beatles kept releasing singles and albums, defiantly containing new music that was not previously featured on their TV show. To keep up with demand, producers retroactively assembled LPs containing music from earlier episodes of the cartoon, under such titles as Meet the Beatles, The Early Beatles and Beatles '65.
All of this came to a head in 1968. The Beatles had written and recorded a lot of new music for what they assumed would be the fourth season of their cartoon, but the show was cancelled. The Beatles were very sad. In addition to all the songs that John and Paul wrote, George and Ringo had written scripts for the fourth-season episodes. "What are we going to do?" the Beatles asked. "Say, I've got an idea," said the group's producer, George Martin. "Why don't you do a DOUBLE LP with all the songs that would have been on the cartoon?"
And so it was decided. The White Album contained all the songs that would have been on the fourth season of the cartoon. But the group broke up shortly afterward, because they no longer had the cartoon series as the organizing principle behind their music.
But anyway, I would like to propose album track listings that would match the chronology of the cartoon episodes, so that we may finally place this catalog into a reasonable sequence and context.
For example, the first album of season 1 may have looked like this:
A Hard Day's Night
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Not A Second Time
Devil In Her Heart
Do You Want To Know A Secret
If I Fell
Please Mr. Postman
Slow Down
Baby's In Black
Misery
I'll Get You
Chains
In retrospect, this may have been a better choice than Rubber Soul.
Anyway, it would be great if we could once and for all get this catalog untangled.
For context:
The Beatles burst onto the scene in Sept. 1965 with their cartoon, which was an immediate hit. Early on, the show's producers realized that releasing Beatles records would represent a lucrative tie-in to the cartoon.
But the musicians behind the cartoon had their own ideas.
Instead of releasing the show's theme, "A Hard Day's Night," as their debut single, the group chose a somber ballad, "Yesterday," which was never even featured during the entire first season of the cartoon.
A few months later, the group released their debut album, Rubber Soul, containing 12 tracks, none of which had even appeared on their TV show. This must be the first time that a soundtrack album didn't contain any music from the movie or TV show it was meant to represent. Songs from this album were not featured on the show until the second season.
The (real) Beatles kept releasing singles and albums, defiantly containing new music that was not previously featured on their TV show. To keep up with demand, producers retroactively assembled LPs containing music from earlier episodes of the cartoon, under such titles as Meet the Beatles, The Early Beatles and Beatles '65.
All of this came to a head in 1968. The Beatles had written and recorded a lot of new music for what they assumed would be the fourth season of their cartoon, but the show was cancelled. The Beatles were very sad. In addition to all the songs that John and Paul wrote, George and Ringo had written scripts for the fourth-season episodes. "What are we going to do?" the Beatles asked. "Say, I've got an idea," said the group's producer, George Martin. "Why don't you do a DOUBLE LP with all the songs that would have been on the cartoon?"
And so it was decided. The White Album contained all the songs that would have been on the fourth season of the cartoon. But the group broke up shortly afterward, because they no longer had the cartoon series as the organizing principle behind their music.
But anyway, I would like to propose album track listings that would match the chronology of the cartoon episodes, so that we may finally place this catalog into a reasonable sequence and context.
For example, the first album of season 1 may have looked like this:
A Hard Day's Night
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Not A Second Time
Devil In Her Heart
Do You Want To Know A Secret
If I Fell
Please Mr. Postman
Slow Down
Baby's In Black
Misery
I'll Get You
Chains
In retrospect, this may have been a better choice than Rubber Soul.
Anyway, it would be great if we could once and for all get this catalog untangled.
srsly
