Jedey

Help! is a great album absolutely no filler there, in fact the only song in The Beatle catalog that is filler is Revolution 9 everything else is pure gold!

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Howard the Duck

^^that's debatable - i like Revolution 9

Sneer

Shocking, you again find a post of mine and attempt to debunk it.

I happen to think the likes of Help!, You've got to Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen a Face, Ticket to Ride, Tell Me What You See, I Need You, Yesterday, The Night Before, You're Going To Lose That Girl, You Like Me Too Much and Its Only Love are great.

Lets do the maths, thats 11 songs I love. There's 14 on the album. That's what, a 78.5% hit rate? If that means I have low standards, do one.

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s_k

I've just seen a face is probably one of the best beatles songs.
Apart from that I prefer the more modern beatles, but that is such a beautiful song

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Sneer

I said it was a near perfect pop album, and I stand by that, but it's still only my 6th favourite Beatles release.

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Rainard Jalen

I apologize if it seemed I was trying to debunk your posts. I didn't mean to come across like that.

There are some real gems on this album. To clarify my view point, the whole album is certainly very catchy and listenable. It's a hell of a lot better than virtually all pop releases that existed when it was released. But there's still a feeling that at least more than half of the songs are formulaic ditties that had little value to their respective composers. The point that those very same songs are so strong is merely a testament to the brilliance of Lennon/McCartney: even when they wrote filler, they did it like nobody else. They could disguise it as credible composition.

I think the filler only begins to entirely disappear once we hit Rubber Soul. On that album more than 85% are compositions that writers were proud of. But even then, there are songs on RS that they disliked, e.g. Wait, and the much despised (by Lennon) Run For Your Life. As it happens, I love both songs.

bahama

Strange but I like both Tell Me What You See & I Need You. What is so horrible about these ? Are you talking about the performances, lyrics, melodies, all the above or???

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Sneer

No worries dude.

I think, looking at the album purely in terms of 'pop song' formulaic convention, its quite brilliant. I know there are better Beatles albums (as I said, Help! is probably my 5th/6th favourite), and certainly they released work of a significantly greater creative quality as they progressed, but purely as standard, enjoyable pop songs, this album holds up for me. Plus it's highlights are arguably highlights of The Beatles entire back catalogue.

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Rainard Jalen

Yesterday, Ticket To Ride, Help, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away. I guess it would be hard to argue that those songs were not highlights of the Beatles' back catalogue. The first three definitely are, for sure.

The rest of the album however, while it stands up in terms of pop gratification, is nevertheless firmly outside the realms of Beatles essentials.

Gavin B.

Act Naturally was not only a good song for Ringo's vocal talents but the Beatle's cover of the Buck Owens song is a showcase for their skills at playing country & western music. Act Naturally originally appeared as the B-Side 45 rpm single of Yesterday, another unusual Beatles' song in which Paul McCartney sings a somber ballad accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and a string quartet. None of the other Beatles were involved in the writing or the recording of Yesterday & producer George Martin gave some thought to releasing Yesterday as a Paul McCartney solo single.

From my perspective the Beatles' cover trumps the Buck Owens original for a number of reasons. Ringo's plaintive vocal is more inspired that Buck Owens and Ringo's smooth phrasing of the lyrics is a lot less awkward than Buck's sing-song phrasing that lags behind the tempo at times. George Harrison improves the original by adding some twangy Carl Perkins inspired double-tracked guitar licks. Paul & Ringo's pumped up backbeat and Ringo's innovative stick tapping punches up the mid-tempo original by the Buckaroos. The Beatles version of Act Naturally sounds like a rootsy rockabilly version recorded at Sun Records and the Beatles version sounds more authentically country than the Buckaroo's trademark Bakersfield sound.



Compare to the 1965 Beatles version to 1963 Buck Owens & the Buckaroos original recording of Act Naturally.



As it turned out Buck Owens loved the Beatles cover and he re-recorded Act Naturally as a duet with Ringo in 1988. It's interesting how each of the Beatles had hit & miss musical careers following the breakup in 1970 but they all were brilliant musicians during the years they played collectively as the Beatles. I'm convinced that Gram Parker & Roger McGuinn had nothing on the Beatles & if they would have chosen to do so, the Beatles could have made a better country rock album than Sweetheart of the Rodeo,which came out 3 years after the Beatles release of Act Naturally.

McGuinn has said that hearing the Beatles 1965 version of Act Naturally inspired him to move the Byrds in a more countrified direction. You can hear the country music influence creeping into the Byrds' psychedelic sound on the song Time Between, which was recorded in late 1966, two years prior to Gram Parsons' entry into the Byrds.

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