Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Discuss official releases and re-issues. The only links allowed here are to the Beatles YouTube channel or other band-sanctioned platforms.

Pick your LEAST FAVORITE from the list below

Poll ended at Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:45 pm

Revolver
28
39%
The Beatles
43
61%
 
Total votes: 71

wizz
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2021 12:31 am
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Results!)

Post by wizz »

WilliamShears wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:26 pm Official Album Survivor has ended and just in time for the upcoming SDE, Revolver is the winner. Not really a surprise to most I'm sure, but an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Most enjoyable and interesting following this poll. My favourite came second.

How about doing a poll of the songs contained on each individual album next?
BeatleG
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2022 1:48 am
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 18 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by BeatleG »

I just looked at the final results. It was a very interesting and fun poll and I appreciate you doing it Mr. Shears. This is despite all along the way my opinions of the best and the lest best Beatles were not held by many others. In fact, neither of the last two standing were favorites of mine though I thought both were excellent for various reasons. MMT, Sgt. Pep, and AR are for me the best of the latter part of their historic run of albums and I'd say AR the best of the best. MMT was full of hits and even the non-hits hit the spot. (I'm a sucker for Paul's "Your mother should know" like i was for "Honey Pie" on the White Album. And George's "Blue Jay Way" was cool even if it doesn't hold up that well over time. Sgt. Pep was a mind blower and so original. It changed what an album, what pop/rock could be and it will be talked about 100 years from now more than any other Beatles work, IMHO. Just focusing on Paul's bass parts on Pepper at one point helped me appreciate how important that instrument can be in a guitar band. AR was great from track one to the big finish and the album I would likely play in its entirety most often. Meet/With the Beatles was probably my fav early Beatles (which I think I mentioned in an earlier post). I really looked forward to reading the replies along the way as much as I did looking to see the progress of the poll. I hope I don't have the last word about the poll.

geo
User avatar
Ziggy C
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:10 am
Location: Woodland Hills, CA
Has thanked: 96 times
Been thanked: 125 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by Ziggy C »

Kwai Chang wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:16 pm The MOST clever thing about The White Album is ALL of its gimmicks made the the music secondary...

...REVOLVER was almost gimmicky but then, LSD was legal and still just a novel piece of journalistic cannon fodder.
I appreciate the treatise on how The White Album presents an onion from which many layers can be peeled back. But careful, it's glass.
I agree with the sentiments and appreciate the many facets of the individual Beatles as presented in this tome of a record. I was listening to it the other day, in fact. Well, it was a collection of fan remixes. But still...

Revolution is an onion unto itself. I only just began to appreciate #9 after I heard it as part of a much longer Revolution edit. Then it made more sense. The Lennon mind movies and general screwing around with tape recorders to create monstrosities of whimsy. I tended to that a couple decades ago as a kind of release from the rigidity of being in an originals band. And to use it as a self forum for coming up with riffs, mashing them together, seeing what happens.

And that's inspiration from just a single track from The White Album. Your appreciation of this album is more than warranted. And I am just one Beatle fan. So what do I know, anyway? A cavernous posit. I know that if my patient's hgb suddenly drops below 4 that most likely the RN made a boo boo. And that appears nowhere in Beatles music. Yet I was led there, in part, through my love of The Beatles.

Revolver, to me, presents a solid step forward into new horizons. New studio tricks. The Beatles seizing more control over the expression of their ideas onto tape. And the eschewing of all that came before. Yeah Yeah Yeah is far in the past, though it's only been three years at that point. Simple songs of puppy love? The same fate. Much more complex tales of desire, communication gaps, and impending loss. Certainly the lysergic stuff is there in spades. They navigated through its many chasms and made probably the most unique album of the time. Not too many albums stand up to it. Pet Sounds and Forever Changes maybe. Revolver presents The Beatles harnessing all their horses and bringing the listener with them. It is at once accessible and confounding. It took many many years for me to appreciate Love You To. So even today, there are new wonders for me when I listen to this record.

I still find Revolver (and Rubber Soul) more frequently in my playlists than the rest of the catalog. And then there's tomorrow, where I'll place a different album on the pedestal. What album will it be? TNK.
User avatar
Kwai Chang
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 3:46 am
Has thanked: 329 times
Been thanked: 177 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by Kwai Chang »

Ziggy C wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 9:47 pm Revolution is an onion unto itself. I only just began to appreciate #9 after I heard it as part of a much longer Revolution edit. Then it made more sense. The Lennon mind movies and general screwing around with tape recorders to create monstrosities of whimsy.

I still find Revolver (and Rubber Soul) more frequently in my playlists than the rest of the catalog. And then there's tomorrow, where I'll place a different album on the pedestal. What album will it be? TNK.
There you go man...keep as cool as you can.
Face piles of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. And, keep on thinking Free!
OOps! That's the Moody Blues.
But, It's true. Reflection might never be the objective but when you see it...it's never for nothing. That's why the best things can only come from the worst things. I like gimmicks, but I like it more that The Beatles never relied on gimmicks until...(wanna guess?)
AFTER REVOLVER! Then they almost had to. Their own successes confounded their imagination...You might want to THANK Mr Harrison. He balanced out the TWO BIGGEST EGOs ever to pass through the glass onion. And, gimmicks are fine. But as much as I've praised Revolution 9, I think its main function was to allow for the bulk of EGOTISM that the White Album carried. George Martin tried. They wouldn't have it...so we get Wild Honey Pi and a bunch of mediocrity. But it's still music as long as that monstrosity of whimsy closes the wound. Man that's one noisy Band-Aid. And yet, the high points are pure altitude. So George wrote Not Guilty but it was too good. Everybody knows who he's singing to. The conjoined egos were trying to run rampant through three studios and all caution was thrown to the wind. They aced tunes by George that would have been better than many songs but it was really quite simple. George saw through it. He didn't panic. He knew that it had nothing remotely to do with the room not big enough for three stars. And so, Harrison steps up to the plate and counters the Mellotron guitar tape with something transcendental. So what if it was played by his Blues purist guitar-cryer Brutus Judas Clapton. There could have been...there already was a blazing single L.P. within the White Album's sleeves but it it was lost in the joke. I'm pretty shocked that McCartney didn't insist on redoing Eric's lead guitar. You know...the rumors...err...I mean the insecurities of too much cutting edge. If you really believe Wild Honey Pie is what made them famous. then they should have made an album called Suggestion Box. It would include with four blank index cards(Postpaid/Addressed) and so on. If 'somebody's' cocaine had not been so pure, Get Back would probably have been a 3-record set. That is really my issue with gimmicks. It can make you throw all of your discipline in the bin and a FIRST RATE producer along with it. AT Abbey Road. Those guys were destined to bounce. They were pretty high up there. And, in a year, they wouldn't even know how they did it. George Harrison will show the world on ATMP. The front cover is no gimmick..."I'm bigger than ALL of you, NOW!"
Thanks for indulging me!
KC
beatlbay
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2021 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by beatlbay »

OK... now it's time for Ringo Survivor!
(Alright, I'll settle for a McCartney, if you're feeling up to it...)
MorseMoose
Posts: 169
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:21 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by MorseMoose »

beatlbay wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 1:51 am OK... now it's time for Ringo Survivor!
(Alright, I'll settle for a McCartney, if you're feeling up to it...)
Everything from Ringo through to Bad Boy in my opinion is brilliant. Especially Ringo, Ringo's Rotogravure and Ringo the 4th.
User avatar
dmh84
Posts: 377
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:47 pm
Been thanked: 28 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by dmh84 »

Joined too late to partake but this is a lot of fun to read--thanks, all.
Yeah, I'd be up for a Macca Survivor!
User avatar
Ziggy C
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:10 am
Location: Woodland Hills, CA
Has thanked: 96 times
Been thanked: 125 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by Ziggy C »

A Macca Survivor would be a great weekly issue. Since his catalog is so vast, it'd certainly go on for a bit.

Should it include live releases or no? (Wings Over America, for me, was a critical launching point into his back catalog....But then again, so were the Red and Blue albums, which were not part of the initial Survivor poll.)

If no live releases, then would an exception be made for Unplugged?

How to handle The Fireman releases?
Liverpool Oratorio?
Collaborative releases?
The as yet unreleased Frank Sinatra Macca Duets? (still awake?...just checking...)

If such a poll were to be undertaken, I'd predict that these albums would be very close to the top of the list:
Band On The Run
Ram
Venus And Mars
Back To The Egg

and this album would be near the bottom:
Give My Regards To Broadstreet
User avatar
dmh84
Posts: 377
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:47 pm
Been thanked: 28 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by dmh84 »

Your predictions match my predictions--who'da thunk it?!
I would say include only Paul solo (and Paul/Linda), and Wings studio albums.
Could be some fun!
User avatar
Lee67
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2022 4:55 pm
Location: Somewhere in the Czechlands!
Has thanked: 112 times
Been thanked: 136 times

Re: Official Album SURVIVOR (FINAL Round!)

Post by Lee67 »

"Revolver" isn't even close the best Beatles' album. The best is "Sgt. Pepper" followed by "Abbey Read" and "The Beatles" a.k.a. "White Album".
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." (Psalm 23)
Post Reply