(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

One of the most-read posts on this blog was my early 2025 post about my interview with Bob Dylan. While this remains a travel blog, I see no problem with doing the occasional post about music. Especially when I have written related posts in the past, such as the posts about my 2005 visit to Liverpool, my Beatles pilgrimage in 2014, or my broader “Beatles journey.”

So, today, I will take on the difficult task of ranking the Beatles studio albums from “least best” to “best”. I could probably write an entire post about each album, but I’ll keep my comments as short as possible.

13. Yellow Submarine (1969). This album had only one side of Beatles music, and even then only four of those songs were previously unreleased. “Hey Bulldog” is a good song, but these leftovers can’t hope to compete with their other proper albums.

12. Beatles for Sale (1964). Their fourth album in two years sounded tired. They looked tired on the cover. Even their cover version choices seemed uninspired. “Eight Days a Week” and “I’ll Follow the Sun” are highlights, but this will never be a Desert Island Disc for me.

11. Please Please Me (1963). Their debut album contains three incredible performances: “I Saw Her Standing There”, the title track, and “Twist and Shout”. The rest is generally fine, but they haven’t really found their feet yet. It wouldn’t take long: their second release of 1963 would be much better.

10. Help! (1965). When I listen to this album, I think of the word “competent”. They tentatively explored some different directions here, but I still get the feeling that they are in a bit of a holding pattern. “Yesterday” was ultimately overplayed, but who can complain about the melody? “Help!”, “Ticket to Ride”, and “You’re Going to Lose that Girl” are among the other highlights.

9. Let it Be (1970). Millions of words have been written about this trying phase in their career. I will just say this: despite some acknowledged classic singles, I just don’t find this album as enjoyable as the ones ranked above it. It’s a different kind of fatigue from “Beatles For Sale”, but it is fatigue all the same. Some questionable production decisions don’t help. The “Naked” version that came out in 2003 was preferable in that regard.

8. Magical Mystery Tour (1967). Side two, which collected their recent singles, is mostly brilliant. “Penny Lane”/”Strawberry Fields Forever” may be the best single ever released. How could you call either of those a “B”-side? “Hello Goodbye” and “All You Need is Love” also keep the quality high. But side one is a tougher slog, and keeps this from ranking higher.

7. A Hard Day’s Night (1964). An amazingly consistent release, with all 13 songs written by Lennon-McCartney. And pretty much any of them could have been a single. Indeed, some of them became successful singles for others. The title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and “And I Love Her” are justifiably classics. Maybe the lyrics were still simple, but by now they had mastered the musical side of the equation.

6. The Beatles (a.k.a. “The White Album”) (1968). Some people would rank this a lot higher. And I admit, there is a lot here to like. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Blackbird”, “Dear Prudence”, and “Helter Skelter” are undoubtedly among their very best. But, as a listening experience, this double album might be just a little too long. I think I would have left “Revolution 9” as a B-side or an EP track, and culled some of the undeveloped fragments. “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” came out as a single around this time: wouldn’t they have made an excellent addition?

5. With The Beatles (1963). This starts with the breathless “It Won’t Be Long” and doesn’t let up until “Money (That’s What I Want)”, the fierce closing track. As an album, it is perfectly paced. And despite having six cover versions, they don’t diminish the album at all. Both “Money” and “You’ve Really Got A Hold on Me” achieve the rare feat of dwarfing the Motown originals. And the bass on “All My Loving”…

4. Rubber Soul (1965). This was a significant leap forward from “Help!” and the albums that came before. A couple of soft spots mean that it doesn’t quite make my Top 3, but by and large the songs are outstanding. “In My Life” is a remarkable accomplishment that thankfully hasn’t been overplayed over the years. Any other band would have killed to have this as a single, but the Beatles never bothered.

3. Revolver (1966). My Top 3 is basically interchangeable. If you pitted the individual songs from those albums against each other, I think Revolver might prevail. “Taxman”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Here, There and Everywhere”, “She Said She Said”, “Good Day Sunshine”, “And Your Bird Can Sing”, “For No One”, “Got to Get You Into My Life”, and “Tomorrow Never Knows”…all amazing, and also mostly without precedent. The only reason why I don’t rank it higher is the top two albums hold together as albums just a little bit better. But this is really splitting hairs.

2. Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). It’s very hard for me to rate this album objectively, as it contains “A Day in the Life”…my favourite Beatles song, and possibly my favourite song period. Nothing had ever sounded like that before (or since). And tracks as diverse as “She’s Leaving Home” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” push the envelope of popular music too. By virtue of having a theme (for a couple of songs at least), it just sneaks past Revolver.

1. Abbey Road (1969). It’s definitely the best-sounding Beatles album. And even if the songs aren’t as uniformly great as Revolver, I currently think this is the best Beatles album experience. The huge medley that concludes side two is a stunning suite of music, despite being bunged together from a collection of half-finished fragments. And don’t sell the other songs short: “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something” are my two favourites, and are justifiably famous, but “Oh! Darling” and “You Never Give Me Your Money” are two of the many underappreciated and lesser-known tracks. To me, this album sounds like a band knowing it is going to split up, but is still determined to set the standard even higher…just one more time.

[The copyrights in the album covers lie with Parlophone/Apple Records. And the photo at the very top of the post is a photo of me crossing Abbey Road at that zebra crossing.]