Best American Releases

[PennyLane]

I was thinking about the fact that the Beatles released different albums in the States and England. The American albums aren't widely distributed anymore. I was wondering which American releases everyone likes best. I'd have to say Magical Mystery Tour (The LP) and Hey Jude. These were both amazingly strong albums.

[jtal909]

The American version of A Hard Days Night consisted of half songs and half orchestral arrangements like the Yellow Sub soundtrack. However, a good American release of some of that material can be found on "Something New", the third Beatles album on Capitol. Tracks:
side one:
I'll Cry Instead
Things We Said Today
Anytime At All
When I Get Home
Slow Down
Matchbox

side two:
Tell Me Why
And I Love Her
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
If I Fell
Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand

[bearkat77]

As far as early American releases go, my favorite would be Yesterday And Today. There's a lot of good songs on it like "Yesterday", "Nowhere Man", "If I Needed Someone", "Drive My Car" and "And Your Bird Can Sing".

jtal, MMT (the LP) was not released in England until 1976. Before that, the Brits had to rely on the US import.

------------------
Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page (http://www9.50megs.com/bearkat77)

[jtal909]

Now that's an unusual switch!

[bearkat77]

Before the LP of MMT was released in the UK, they only had the MMT EP. It was a double EP package. Record One had "Magical Mystery Tour"/"Your Mother Should Know" b/w "I Am The Walrus". Record Two consisted of "The Fool On The Hill"/"Flying" b/w "Blue Jay Way".

------------------
Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page (http://www9.50megs.com/bearkat77)

[beatlemethisbeatlemethat]

I love the A Hard Day's Night album. The instrumental music was great on it.

------------------
Peace, Love, and Beatles,
Stefanie

Beatle Me This, Beatle Me That (http://beatlemethisbeatlemethat.virtualave.net/)

//0-0\\//0-0\\//0-0\\
"After all is said and done, you can't go pleasing everyone, so screw it"
--John Lennon

[jtal909]

Meet The Beatles, and Rubber Soul were always favs of mine. MMT was the same British and American trelease.

[Harbidge]

Although I've never listened to the actual record, I reckon Yesterday and Today is the best American as it contains some of the best songs from Rubber Soul and Revolver.

------------------
Did Paul McCartney die in a car crash on November 2nd, 1966? Visit Paul is Dead - The Conclusive Evidence (http://crash.to/paulisdead), read the clues and decide for yourself.

[bearkat77]

Yesterday And Today consisted of tracks from the UK albums Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver. Here's the track listing with the British LP it was on:

A Side
Drive My Car (Rubber Soul)
I'm Only Sleeping (Revolver)
Nowhere Man (Rubber Soul)
Doctor Robert (Revolver)
Yesterday (Help!)
Act Naturally (Help!)
B Side
And Your Bird Can Sing (Revolver)
If I Needed Someone (Rubber Soul)
We Can Work It Out (Single)
What Goes On (Rubber Soul)
Day Tripper (Single)

------------------
Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page (http://www9.50megs.com/bearkat77)

[jtal909]

No wonder the Beatles submitted a butcher cover.

[Paperbackwriter]

hey jude, nothing has made it bad, they took a lot of good songs which made it better. i remebered to let it into my heart. then and only then can you start, to hear it better
forever///o-o\\\

[jtal909]

When yesterday and today came out, I loved it just like any other Beatle release. After the cd's came out with the British versions the way the Beatles had intended, one can see the conceptual grouping of material and style. Yesterday and Today is like a greatest hits album.

[bearkat77]

Another great American release, was the mail-order LP, Beatles Vol. 1 (Alpha Omega). This was a four record set which included many classics plus a few solo hits. It came out as a box set. The artwork for the cover is something to see, with multi-colored drawings of the four.
The tracks are as follows:
Side 1
Act Naturally; All I've Got To Do; All My Loving; And I Love Her; Baby's In Black; Yesterday; The Ballad Of John And Yoko; Bangla Desh
Side 2
Can't Buy Me Love; Come Together; Day Tripper; Do You Want To Know A Secret; Eight Days A Week; Eleanor Rigby; Uncle Albert
Side 3
I Should Have Known Better; It Won't Be Long; I Want To Hold Your Hand; Lady Madonna; Ticket To Ride; Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; Michelle; Mr. Moonlight
Side 4
I Feel Fine; If I Fell; I'll Be Back; Hey Jude; I'm A Loser; I'm Happy Just To Dance With You; I Saw Her Standing There
Side 5
Nowhere Man; Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da; Paperback Writer; Penny Lane; Help; Roll Over Beethoven; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Side 6
Get Back; Hello Goodbye; Revolution 1; Here Comes The Sun; I'll Follow The Sun; Imagine; Honey Don't
Side 7
We Can Work It Out; With A Little Help From My Friends; Yellow Submarine; Baby, You're A Rich Man; You Can't Do That; You've Got To Hide Your Love Away; Maybe I'm Amazed; A Hard Day's Night
Side 8
She Loves You; Something; Strawberry Fields Forever; Tell Me Why; The Long And Winding Road; Let It Be; Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

There was supposed to be a Vol. 2 released, that you could mail in an order form, but as far as I know, the company that issued this LP went out of business.

------------------
Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page (http://www9.50megs.com/bearkat77)

[Tim]

My personal fave is Beatles '65-great songs(plus out month before I was born)

Side One
No Reply
I'm A Loser
Baby's In Black
Rock And Roll Music
I'll Follow The Sun
Mr. Moonlight

Side Two
Honey Don't
I'll Be Back
She's A Woman
I Feel Fine
Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

[fifthofnovember]

Here's why I didn't consider the following american 'albums'


Introducing the Beatles - No explination necessary. I mean Puh-lease, it's a bad rip off of Please Please Me

Meet the Beatles - It's basically an inferior version of With the Beatles. The GOOD thing about this album is it stays relatively faithful to its superior UK counterpart, only dropping the five cover versions (which are better than some of the original songs)


The Beatles Second Album: Very unoriginal, and boring name. Half-assed thrown together collection of leftovers, drenched in reverb to the point where it isn't even listenable. It does feature the most nonstop rock n roll, but it's drenched in reverb to the point where it causes a headache

Something New: Unoriginal name, good content. AHDN leftovers, non film songs mainly. It sort of stayed faithful to AHDN but not really. This one is decent at best, but I'd pick the superior UK AHDN over it any day

Beatles 65: This one would be decent (considering it roughly stays faithful to the superior Beatles for Sale album) had it not included the atrocious single "i Feel Fine/She's a Woman" don't get me wrong, the SONGS themselves are good, what's atrocious is what Capitol did to them, not only are they in fake stereo, they're drenched in echo and reverb, to the point where it sounds muddy, and sounds like they're singing from the bottom of a well

Help!: While the instrumentals are interesting at best, and the film music is good, it just doesn't hold up.

The Early Beatles: Another rip-off of Please Please Me. How many times are they gonna sell the SAME set of songs (for the record, they sold the same set of songs like 4-5 times over 2 years)

Beatles VI: Another poorly thrown together collection of some of the strong songs off Beatles for Sale, the album filler of Help!, a song not released in the UK (Bad Boy) and an unnoticed gem (Bad Boy). Did I mention that the name is bad? Beatles VI? Cmon.

Rubber Soul: I don't buy into the folky sound. I don't think it flows very well, something is missing. I've Just Seen a Face and It's Only Love don't belong. They're HELP songs, not Rubber Soul. Aside from that I'm too used to the proper and superior configuration to consider this one, though it's better than the way in which they massacred Revolver

Yesterday and Today: yet ANOTHER poorly thrown together collection of the three Revolver tracks, which should have appeared on the album, but Capitol pulled them so they could finish this not-so-great collection. Thankfully, Revolver was the final album that Capitol massacred, but they had already done damage, ruining two of the Beatles' best (Rubber Soul, and especially Revolver)

Revolver: Same as the UK configuration, minus the three essential Lennon tracks. Again, thankfully this was the last massacred album by Capitol.

which leads me to my choice

Magical Mystery Tour: Woah, Capitol..did something right? Yeah, the Magical Mystery Tour LP outsold the clumsy Double-EP set, and for a good reason. Though the B-side was just a bunch of singles tacked on to the end, it made for a good album, and it sold. I find this is the only US-released album worthy of noting, because frankly, it's the only good US album.

[AMBOISVERT]

Was Hey Jude (It's real, as in real pathetic, title was The Beatles...Again)a US-only release? Because if so, I think it wins the prize, hands down. Great collection of songs that doesn't feel thrown together at all, and none of which were taken from deserving British LPs.

Tony

[BadLittleKid]

The Beatles Second Album: Very unoriginal, and boring name. Half-assed thrown together collection of leftovers, drenched in reverb to the point where it isn't even listenable. It does feature the most nonstop rock n roll, but it's drenched in reverb to the point where it causes a headache

I disagree about everything except the name. It is a very rocking album with elsewhere non available stereo versions, and only She Loves You is drenched in reverb. The songs are also pretty strong ones.


Roll Over Beethoven
Thank You Girl
You Really Got A Hold On Me
Devil In Her Heart
Money
You Can't Do That
Long Tall Sally
I Call Your Name
Please Mister Postman
I'll Get You
She Loves You

[fifthofnovember]

No, like 3/4 of the album is completely drenched in reverb, like 9 of the 11 songs. She Loves You/I'll Get You are in fake stereo, and really the track order was just shottily thrown together. Complete cash-in

[digdad]

As far as all the drenched in reverb complaints (on Second Album and especially on I Feel Fine and She's A Woman on Beatles '65), as far as I understand, this was not done by Capitol or even at the request of Capitol. This was done by the engineers at EMI studios in London trying to mimick what they thought of as an American sound. Am I wrong on this?

[Legs]

That's only true for "I Feel Fine" and "She's A Woman". Capitol didn't know that reverb was already added in the EMI studio's, so they added a second layer.

[BadLittleKid]

I listened 'The Beatles' Second Album' through and the reverb was on "I'll Get You", "You Can't Do That" and "She Loves You". I didn't find it annoying, just different. And I really enjoyed "Money" which was in a good stereo and not only two track edit with music into other ear and instruments into other.

[fifthofnovember]

No, it was Capitol that added the extra echo, and reverb, to keep up with the American practise of putting things in stereo. It was believed that if a song did not have a true stereo mix, it should be simulated to be stereo.

[fifthofnovember]

Actually, it's on those three songs that you mentioned, plus the five leftovers dropped from With the Beatles, the superior version of the Beatles' second release

[Blackguard]

My fave American releases were:
Yesterday and Today
Magical Mystery Tour
Hey Jude
and
Something New

[Mccartney-rocks]

i think that abbey road, rubber soul, help, 65, are all great alblums but for me the best one in the u.s. is the very 1st one that made #1 in u.s. I want to hold your hand!! and all of the ones on please please me, and with the beatles

[I've Just Seen A Face]

My aunt's copy of The Beatles' Second Album is crenched in reverb, Not the point. We're talking about the songs themselves, not the quality of the record! Or What Capitol or EMI diid to them!