Which Beatle CD Had the Most Musical Impact From Date of Release to Now?

[Paperback Writer]

OK;  Which of these (or other Beatle album releases has proven to have had the most impact upon the music world, starting right from the day it was released up until today?
 
Content of lyrics, musicality, instruments, technology, spirit, innovations, mood, emotions, themes, love, politics, sheer performance, versatility, musicianship, production, musical composition, packaging, meaning, public reaction, critical response......EVERYTHING considered.... which ONE do you feel is the one album that has had the most lasting impact?


 

A. With the Beatles

B. A Hard Day's Night

C. Rubber Soul

D. Revolver

E. Sgt. Pepper

F. The White Album

G. (Nominate your own)

[Kylenz]

G - Abbey Road

Because it sounds more like a Seventies record than a Sixties record. It is the sound of the Seventies, if we think of those Queen and ELO albums with the lush production, layered vocals, medleys of songs, a sprinkling of smash hit singles, a little bit of synthesizer to give it a 'modern' feel, George Martin's production very much the way Jeff Lynne approached 'A New World Record' etc.

So I think Abbey Road made the most impact as far as intelligent contemporary music is concerned, and when somebody cuts a 'classic rock' sound these days, they revert to the sound of Abbey Road (think of 'Look What You've Done' by Jet, for example). The other albums, while perfect and brilliant, are good for their time but sound dated outside of that time frame (the only band of recent times to attempt a 'Rubber Soul' feel would be Panic At The Disco with 'their 2008 Pretty Odd' album, which is a pastiche of Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds too). Abbey Road is the only Beatle album with that timeless enduring quality - a template for classic rock - how a classic rock album should be made.

[Greg]

Pepper.  It's impact was so big at the time that I think that every band would love to make a Pepper.  A landmark/defining/direction-changing record.  It also said that developing and taking chances is a must (Or maybe Rubber Soul/Revolver already said that.)  But maybe just the idea of Pepper, or the concept of Pepper, is what has made the biggest impact.   

I liked Kylenz's points about AR especially the point about it being "timeless".

[lampie1970]

Sgt Pepper...definitely.

[mervap]

I recall a writer saying the Rock & Roll could be divided into these catagories: What came before "Sgt. Pepper" and what came after "Sgt. Pepper". That's pretty definitive...

[Paperback Writer]

Thanks for the intelligent, well thought out responses, so far!  I have to agree with both of you - and probably agree with whoever makes the case for the remaining albums on the list - they all fill the bill.

I will cast my personal vote for - The White Album.

Unplugged.  Understated production.  Stripped to the core instrumentation and production.  All production techniques heavily lauded in the 90's and this century. (See Rick Rubin, Don Was, T-Bone Burnett)

A musical collage of rock n' roll from the 50's through the sixties and into the future is all here, sometimes layered upon each other, sometimes whipped and whirled together and often sublimely flavored into Beatle yummy.

After feeling sensitive to the notion that 'Pepper" was all studio and parlor tricks, the lads were happy to distill their music, sound, musical growth and majestic mastery of variety and style into a leveled mountain of musical landscapes.

Back In the USSR ( See above,nuf said),
 Dear Prudence (evocative, natural and beautiful),
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The first 70's arena guitar rocker)
Happiness Is A Warm Gun (sex, violence, politics, love combining folk, heavy metal, punk and 50's doo wap)  
Four incredible songs on one album side - surrounded by several other superb songs.  And that's just the 1st of 4 sides!

Keeping it briefer, here, same pattern on all 4 sides.
2. Martha M D. I'm So Tired. Blackbird. I Will. Julia.
3.Yer Blues. Mother Nature's Son. Everybody's Got S T H E M+M . Sexy Sadie. Helter Skelter.
4.More great stuff, topped by Revoluion. Cry baby Cry. Savoy Truffle. Good Night.  

It also, as a by-product of their separation/individuation from Beatles previewed four excellent new artists - YES - Paul, John, George and Ringo's solo careers began here!

That's my vote - Please vote!

[2 of 3]

Yeah PW....I guess I would personally pick The WHite Album myself...though I think maybe Pepper had a more life changing effect on a lot of musicians. Dang..them Beatles was good eh?

[mervap]

Incidentally, all CDs have the same amount of impact if thrown at the same velocity...

[2 of 3]

Unless you are Chuck Norris 

[mervap]

Well, there IS only one Chuck!!

[oldasSoul]

This is a very interesting and challenging question. Nicely done!

How many bands were created in the wake of Meet...? And how many more from those bands, etc.?

HDN had no covers on it, which surely gave some musicians the idea that they could create their own music, rather than recycling others'. David Crosby described the switch from folk to rock by the Byrds as coming from their viewing of an instructional movie on how to be a rock band...A Hard Day's Night.

RS moved away from "I love her," "she loves him"-type lyrics into something a bit more obtuse, which was brought to fruitiion by Revolver. New sounds, techniques, subject matter, instrumentation all had profound effect on the musicians of the day, as well as many since then.

Pepper of course begat a whole new approach to recording, packaging, and changed the concept of an album from a collection of songs that could each stand on their own, to a group of numbers that should be enjoyed as a whole. And so we have The Pretty Things' SF Sorrow, Who's Tommy, and so on.

The WA showed how broad a range a band could have. There are challenging songs, fun songs, politics, religion, bizarre little ditties, and a rawness that had been lost. Why did they choose to include that performance of Yer Blues, with its dead-mic last verse? Was that the best take of WDWDIITR? What's up with the time signature at the start of EGSTHEFMAMM?

As for AR, well I can make no better argument than that noted above.

In closing, I'll paraphrase Paul from the Anthology video: "Shut up, it's the bloody Beatles!"

[chris]

talking on a world wide scale here, are we? not a personal one? it has to be sgt pepper. as said before me...the album not only influenced music, it influenced the way bands made albums. looking back, it DOES sound dated. but that doesn't change the fact that when an artist or band finally gets it right and creates their masterpiece...it is said they have made their sgt pepper. 

[acebackwords]

Song-for-song, I think REVOLVER is their greatest album.  But SGT PEPPER probably had the most cultural impact.  The effect on popular culture was almost instantaneous. In America, you can divide society up into before-SGT PEPPER and after-SGT PEPPER, and its almost like two different worlds.

In my book ACID HEROES I focus a lot on the effect that that album had on American culture. I experienced it firsthand through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy in 1967, still very much a fan of the clean-cut Mop Tops and all that. And then suddenly the Beatles had long hair and were talking about LSD and drugs and all that.  I suspect most of the people on this board weren't of age when that album first hit, so they might under-estimate the impact that it had. But for the kids of my generation, the Beatles were big influences, big role models.  They effected how millions of people dressed, acted, and thought.  People to this day are still debating the actual effect.  It was a spiritual, as well as political, cultural and musical effect.  So intertwined were the effects of the Beatles and the effects of the '60s, that its difficult to even separate the two.

I maintain the biggest effect was psychedelic drugs.  That was the extra dimension that the Beatles put in the soup.  The lyrics to "Tomorrrow Never Knows" were basically lifted word-for-word from a Timothy Leary pamphlet that was a how-to-take-LSD guide.  And "Magical Mystery Tour" was basically inspired by Ken Kesey's Acid Tests (McCartney in his autobiography states that they made the MMT film as a simulated drug trip).  What the Beatles basically did was take the message of the two greatest LSD proselelyzers of the '60s  -- Leary and Kesey  --  and instantly transmit what had been a relatively obscure message up to that point, directly into the mainstream of American culture, thanks to the mass popularity of the Beatles.  LSD happens to be an extremely powerful, and unpredictable drug.  And the effect of the Beatles whole trilogy of psychedelic albums  -- Revolver, Pepper, Mystery Tour (not to mention the psychedelic kiddie film "Yellow Submarine"  -- is still reverberating around the world today.  For good and ill, I might add.

[Greg]

Was the McCartney admission a huge turning point in the LSD scene?  Also, was The Beatles drug use reported as much, and in the same way, in Britain as it was in America. 

I am definitely going to get a hold of your book somehow.  It just sounds fascinating. 

[acebackwords]

Was the McCartney admission a huge turning point in the LSD scene?  Also, was The Beatles drug use reported as much, and in the same way, in Britain as it was in America. 

I am definitely going to get a hold of your book somehow.  It just sounds fascinating. 

Drug use is so common nowadays, people forget what an uproar Paul's statements about LSD caused back in 1967.  Hardly anybody in America had even heard about LSD before Paul's big statement to the press  -- which the other Beatles sorely regretted at the time.  Their LSD use was pretty much a secret before that.  And then it got trumpeted in LOOK magazine where Paul's saying he saw God thanks to LSD and reccomends that politicians should all take it to help end war and poverty and etc.  It was a big furor at the time.  Paul has some quotes in the Beatles anthology book where he says he didn't want to excite people into taking LSD and that its difficult to even talk about the subject nowadays considering what a "menace" drug usage has become.  But he certainly set off a sensation back then.  Before "Sgt Pepper" drugs like LSD and marijuana were pretty obscure and mostly known on the bohemian fringes of society. After "Sgt Pepper" they pretty much became mainstream.

Anyways, if anybody's interested in my ACID HEROES book they can check out my signature address below, or you can find the thing on amazon.com .