The Beatles were so prolifically great over such a short time frame that we tend to underrate their achievement. Here’s something that I developed mostly to remind myself how great they were:
Between 1965 and 1969, The Beatles released the following 20 songs, among others:
- Help
- Ticket to Ride
- Yesterday
- We Can Work It Out
- Day Tripper
- Paperback Writer
- Rain
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Penny Lane
- All You Need Is Love
- Hello Goodbye
- I Am the Walrus
- The Fool On the Hill
- Lady Madonna
- Hey Jude
- Revolution
- Hey Bulldog
- Get Back
- Don’t Let Me Down
- Across the Universe
That’s far from a comprehensive list of their best work, but it would easily surpass just about every other act’s Best Of collection.
And they released these albums (though not only these albums) between 1965 and 1969:
- Rubber Soul
- Revolver
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The Beatles (the White Album)
- Abbey Road
Those are five indisputably great albums. They released a top-50 all-time caliber rock album each year for five years.
You’ve probably already figured out this part: None of the 20 tracks in the first list appeared on any of the albums in the second list. In other words, just between 1965 and 1969, they released five classic albums (one of which was a 30-song double album) plus three sides’ worth of original Greatest Hits-level material.
This exercise raises a question that I’ll tackle some time in the future: What’s The Beatles’ best run of three consecutive albums? Beginning with Help!, and ending with Abbey Road, I could make a case for any string of three.
How do you make sense of their greatness? Email me at beatletrack@gmail.com, and include your own favorite string of three consecutive albums.
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