The Beatles
Every album we have reviewed, graded S to F.
- Albums graded
- 13
- Highest grade
- Average grade
- Graded S
- 1
- Span
- 1963 to 1970
Every album
13 albums, 1963 to 1970, each placed by its grade, then sorted onto the board.
The records
Newest first, each with the line its review opens on.
1970Let It BeA back to basics session buried under strings and choirs eighteen months later. Great songs, wrong clothes.
1969Abbey RoadThey knew it was the last one and they went out arranging, not arguing. The medley is the finest ending in pop.
1969Yellow SubmarineFour new songs, two reused ones and a side of orchestral film score. A contractual object, not an album.
1968The Beatles (White Album)Thirty songs, four solo careers running in parallel, and a sprawl that is the point rather than the flaw.
1967Magical Mystery TourHalf a soundtrack to a bad film, half the best run of singles anyone released that year. Compiled, not composed.
1967Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club BandA landmark of studio craft that is admired far more often than it is actually put on.
1966RevolverFourteen songs, no two alike, none of them longer than they need to be. The best thing they ever made.
1965Help!Two of the best songs of their career and six that are simply on the same disc as them.
1965Rubber SoulThe moment the band stopped writing to a formula and started writing about people, with a sitar in the room.
1964A Hard Day's NightAll originals, no filler, and a twelve string chime that half of pop spent the next decade trying to copy.
1964Beatles for SaleThe exhaustion album. Six covers, a grey sleeve, and three genuinely great songs buried in the fatigue.
1963Please Please MeCut in a single day, and you can hear both the hurry and the hunger. Twist and Shout on its own pays the rent.
1963With the BeatlesThe same formula tightened by a year of touring, with better covers and a Harrison song that points somewhere.