The Semicanonical Beatles Discography
I love the Beatles. There's scarcely a Beatles song that I don't enjoy (Revolution 9 is the only one that springs to mind, and while I'm on the subject it's an absolute Crime Against Culture that it made it onto the White Album but Hey Jude didn't. We could've even gotten an alternate version of Hey Jude from the single version, like Revolution 1 was to Revolution but noo John Lennon had to do his stupid shitty interminable unlistenable sound collage that by itself makes the White Album the second best Beatles album instead of the best [Revolver]). Their official discography is unfortunately a bit of a mess. Firstly, the most widely available versions of their songs are the stereo mixes, which up to and including Magical Mystery Tour were not overseen by the Beatles at all and, in addition to all the weird hallmarks of early stereo mixing in general like hard panning certain instruments to the left or right channel for the whole song, also frequently differ in terms of content. Added or subtracted reverb, double tracking, sound effects, etc. In the case of She's Leaving Home the song is friggin' slowed down in its stereo mix.
More than that though, there's a whole bunch of non-album singles that are available on Mono Masters, but that collection is missing Old Brown Shoe and The Ballad of John and Yoko because they weren't released in mono at all, and the songs are also intermixed with alternate versions of album tracks that barely differ and odd curiosities like German-language versions of a couple of their early songs. Wouldn't it be great if there were a playlist of all their non-album singles put together with the care and consistency of an official album? What if we rearranged the entire discography just a bit to allow for the best versions of each song with no overlap? Well, here is the "Semicanonical Beatles Discography", starting with a full tracklisting for the "Semicanonical Beatles Singles Collection", constructed by yours truly:
All songs/albums are their mono versions unless marked by an asterisk (*)
All albums are the U.K. release unless otherwise noted
0. The Semicanonical Beatles Singles Collection
Side A:
- Thank You Girl
- From Me To You
- I'll Get You
- She Loves You
- I Want To Hold Your Hand
- This Boy
- Long Tall Sally
- I Call Your Name
- Matchbox
- Slow Down
- I Feel Fine
- She's A Woman
- Yes It Is
- I'm Down
- Bad Boy
- We Can Work It Out
- Day Tripper
- Rain
- Paperback Writer
- Only A Northern Song
- Hey Bulldog
- All Together Now
- It's All Too Much
- Lady Madonna
- The Inner Light
- Revolution
- Hey Jude
- Old Brown Shoe*
- You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
- The Ballad Of John And Yoko*
02. With The Beatles
03. A Hard Day's Night
04. Beatles For Sale
05. Help!
06. Rubber Soul
07. Revolver
08. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
09. Magical Mystery Tour (LP version)
10. The Beatles
11. Let It Be... Naked*
12. Abbey Road*
For the singles collection, I tried to follow chronological order as best I could while still maintaining a good album-like flow. One might notice that the four songs unique to Yellow Submarine are included, while the album itself is left out of the discography. I left the album out because it overlaps with Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour while including an entire side of non-Beatles material that is the soundtrack to the Yellow Submarine film. It's very odd to me that it's officially considered to be an album and a followup to the White Album no less, so in my idealized discography those four songs are basically a maxi-single and can be reasonably included in the singles collection while the rest is discarded. Revolution is a very different song from Revolution 1, hence its inclusion. Old Brown Shoe and The Ballad of John and Yoko are in stereo because they were never officially released in mono, which leaves an odd stereo-mono-stereo situation with You Know My Name splitting them up, but that song is so fucking weird that I think it works best as the next-to-last song to Ballad's perfect closer.
The now-official U.S. mono release of Magical Mystery Tour was kept, because to break up side B and put them into the singles collection would just leave behind this weirdo E.P. that I would also feel compelled to include in the singles collection, so it retains its status as a kind of disjointed L.P. that feels more like a companion to Sgt. Pepper's instead of a follow-up. The songs are still great at least.
I chose the mono mix of The Beatles because I just think it sounds better without the old-style stereo mixing of weirdly panned instruments, and also you can barely hear Paul's backing vocals in I'm So Tired. We have to put up with the odd sped-up Ringo vocals in Don't Pass Me By, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Probably a more controversial inclusion is Let It Be... Naked over the original. I hate what Phil Spector did to some of the songs on the original album, and as an aside I hate what he did to All Things Must Pass. Yeah let's just keep layering on loud-ass orchestras and choirs until you can't hear the fucking lead vocalist anymore great idea!!!!!!!! I'm also not a fan of the snippets of dialogue in the original album, especially John's sarcastic remark before Let It Be. I like the track order more on the new version and the stereo mix sounds way better. It also includes Don't Let Me Down, which is a great addition to an album otherwise rather light on John; this of course is why I did not include that song in the singles collection. I placed the album in its rightful spot before Abbey Road as, save for some overdubs, it was all recorded before Abbey Road, which additionally itself feels much more like the final Beatles album than Let It Be. We lose out on Maggie Mae and Dig It, but who cares.
With the Beatles catalog arranged in this manner, we get all of their songs in their best versions with no filler; you could listen to the whole thing front-to-back without skipping a song or hearing a repeat or barely different alternate version. The Singles collection gives a wonderful overview of their entire career and a sense of how their musical tastes and ability evolved over the mere seven years they recorded together, and it has some of the best songs they ever recorded arranged into something resembling a double album. The main mono albums are, as far as I know, only available to purchase in physical form, but resourceful readers can easily find rips on the internet. And the singles collection I've put together and tagged in flac format, well, I'm sure you could find somewhere. Seek it out and you may find it within your soul...