The greatest album of all time discussion board

[Galactus]

OK Ken if I had to edit The White Album to a single vinyl record it'd look like this...

A:
Back In The USSR
Dear Prudence
Yer Blues
Honey Pie
Ob-la-di Ob-la-da
Happiness Is Warm Gun
While My Guitar Gentely Weeps
I Will

B:
Martha My Dear
I'm So Tired
Blackbird
Don't Pass Me By
Everyone's Got Something To Hide, Except Me & My Monkey
Helter Skelter
Cry Baby Cry
Good Night

Some songs were dropped soley in the interest of flow...

[phil]

ritalinpants said:

The Beatles VS the Velvets (in a nutshell)

(*or a possible justification of why Rocky called the Velvets ahead of their time*)

The Beatles claims to godhood rests on their being the most universal and central to the “canon”. But The Velvets are even more universal by virtue of the fact that they embodied more well-rounded values.

eh? Okay, see… The Beatles were universal because they wrote catchy pop tunes, which is a convention that artificially empowers the musician(s), by creating a bracket around him or her and his/her relationship to the audience, via the gigantic Music Industry that mediates between audience and artist. So far, so good. This is the normal run of things.

The Velvets instead liberated all the fringe elements and were genuinely the humanitarians of the ‘Scene’, coz they made music as true to themselves as they possibly could, IN SPITE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY…….. which alerted anyone with integrity enough to see it that here was a real spark of artistry and liberating music best expressed

….which has occurred throughout rock and roll history ever since, time and time again, scores of artists have referenced the Velvets for being the most important SPARKS to their IMAGINATION and the way they see themselves in meaningful ways.….. & Lou Reed still managed to be a highly accessible writer, no matter that he was writing the songwriting rules up from scratch with no reliance on foppish Tin Pan Alley shite

Didn't have time this afternoon to comment on R.i.t's post
but there are two assertions here I really want to address ...

First ... The Beatles did indeed wrote many "catchy pop tunes"
but they also created quite a few musical masterpieces
that were(are)unique, highly original and very influencal ...

Second ... Saying that the VU made their music "in spite of the music industry"
fails to take into account the very simple fact that during their creative period (mid 60's to 1970)
the music industry was nothing like we have today ... !

I would even dare to say that at that moment, the music industry
was the exact opposite of what it is today ...

It was very open to creations from as many artists experiencing
as many different genres as it was possible ...

There were millions of young people eager to listen to new kinds of music
and thousands of AM radio stations willing to put that music on the air ...

And The Beatles did buck the trends when they decide not to make a third film
when they decide to stop touring and when they decide
to take as much time as they wanted to make the music they wanted to make.

But the main point is that at that moment in time,
the "gigantic Music Industry" you talk about simply didn't exist ...

[phil]

And this is probably the worst english writing I've ever done ...

Here or on the old RS.com ... Yikes !!

[kmc]

I like that, DED. I am a huge fan of Julia, though, and would love to see it fit in everywhere.

[Galactus]

Julia only fits at the end of a side...if you like you can switch it with I Will. I'm a bigger Paul fan so...

[rockysigman]

So long as this board is so busy, I may as well mention that we're going to start matching people up for the covers CD swap pretty soon, so head on over to the Mix CD Swap board if you want in.

[Galactus]

shin said:

rockysigman said:

That's only because they couldn't get away with the cover they wanted for it.

Boy, if that doesn't scream "best album of all time" I don't know what does.

This has been bugging me. I've read a whole lot about the Beatles, but I don't remember anything about a different cover. In Paul's book, Many Years From Now, he says the cover was always intended to be plain white, they debated over whether to add a ring or something and settled on the numbers being the only thing that wasn't white. On later reissues Capitol made "The Beatles" gray when they stopped embossing them.

[rockysigman]

ded said:

shin said:

Boy, if that doesn't scream "best album of all time" I don't know what does.

This has been bugging me. I've read a whole lot about the Beatles, but I don't remember anything about a different cover. In Paul's book, Many Years From Now, he says the cover was always intended to be plain white, they debated over whether to add a ring or something and settled on the numbers being the only thing that wasn't white. On later reissues Capitol made "The Beatles" gray when they stopped embossing them.

Eh, maybe I'm getting it confused with something else then. I like this better though, because if it was always intended to be white, then Shin can't pretend like a plain white cover is somehow another shot in its favor.

[Kensterberg]

The only Beatles album that I know of where there was controversy over the cover was the U.S. release, Yesterday ... and Today. This was (obviously) an album that consisted of cuts from several different UK releases and singles, and the Beatles wanted to use a cover which depicted them as butchers, with bloody aprons, knives, slabs of meat, and (here was the big problem) dismembered baby dolls. Capital (naturally) had a freakin' cow over this ... though not before a few thousand of the LPs had been pressed with this cover. Rather than simply destroying these, Capital just pasted over the "butcher cover" with the tame standard PR photo that would normally adorn an LP intended for mass juvenile consumption. As a result, the "butcher cover" is one of the most sought after Beatles collector pieces.

And this happened in 1965 ... keep that in mind when you describe the early Beatles as the "nice guys" in the British Invasion and the Stones or the Who as the dangerous ones. As always, the Beatles were the ones pushing the boundaries.

[Paul]

Off topic, but I didn't want to start a thread for this question....

Does anyone know if there will be any remastered reissues of the Beatles catalog? Some of the albums (at least the ones I have) sound good, but have crappy packaging (Abbey, Rubber, Revolver); and the White album just sounds awful in my book....There is no low-end; was it meant to sound that way, or is this just bad mixing/mastering? My copy of Rubber Soul sounds way better (crisper, warmer, and more low-end) than my copy of the White album.

[Thorngrub]

kmc said:

I spent a good time today thinking about this from work. I would personally like to endorse these foloowing two for consideration:

The Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach



John Coltrane - A Love Supreme



Two of the best albums there, for sure.

But WHY dammit ! ! *pulls hair out* ;b

No I totally get you Mantis. The "why", uh huh.

[Thorngrub]

Soon as I untie my tongue from this knot I'll get around to fulfilling your requisite need for an explanation as to why any particular album I happen to come up with might be considered "the best", Mantis. See you in twenty years.

[Kensterberg]

I'm amazed that Capital (Sony? whoever the hell owns it now) hasn't reissued the Beatles catalog a couple of times by now, but the releases from the late eighties are still it. I understand that the box set of the early US LPs has distinctly better sound than so the standard versions, though I haven't heard them to verify this. Also, the expanded Yellow Submarine "songtrack" from a few years back is supposed to sound dramatically better than the original issues.

If anyone knows about upcoming reissues, I'd love to hear about it. But unless they contain some extra tracks, I don't know how many of 'em I'll buy. I mean, I've already bought most of these things on LP, CD, and I'm not in a big hurry to buy 'em again.

[phil]

[phil]

Oh well ...