I love both albums with MMT being my favorite Beatles album. I was happy HJ finally made it to CD. Still, HJ didn't seem to get accepted everywhere like MMT did. I do wish they made a more conscious effort to have Hey Jude contain all later songs but it's still a great listen for me. So, why did Hey Jude fall short of canon? (Or maybe you do consider it canon.)
Perhaps only because it got released after the breakup and is a compilation. That would be my guess. Though tbh, it never occurred to me to consider any of their works as canon; I know that must sound weird !
Although released before Let it Be by a few months, Hey Jude really is a compilation closer to the red/blue albums than the regular catalogue. At least half of MMT was planned and arranged by the Beatles as the EP, and the rest filled out an album naturally. I would like to see Hey Jude pressed again, but it’s not super essential with albums like Past Masters. It does have a better cover than Past Masters!
Well, EP's weren't really popular in the US so the Magical Mystery Tour movie songs were never released on an EP here. I think that helped the Magical Mystery Tour album become canon but I think the main reason Magical Mystery Tour became canon is because it was era logical . In other words, it was all psych era songs with a uniformity of sound and style. The songs sound like they belong together. The Hey Jude album was more of a hodge podge , with early era songs colliding with late era songs . Not much continuity . Any album with "I Should Have Known Better " four songs before "Revolution " is gonna sound sort of slap dash to my ears.
I'm predicting we'll see the Capitol albums reissued on vinyl next, with the same versions of the tracks used on the US Albums box set from a couple years ago. Will I buy Hey Jude? You bet your green apple I will.
I was a kid when it came out, and so to my ears it was all of a piece - and still is! I mean, I know those two songs are much older, but the sequencing just works.
When the original UK Beatles discography was repackaged to fit the CD format in 1987-88 it made sense to include Magical Mystery Tour as it contained all the 1967 single/EP tracks. If they hadn't done this, Past Masters would have been a 3-volume album. A bit too much, probably. Hey Jude, on the other hand, contained two tracks already on A Hard Day's Night and was not a comprehensive compilation. A sort of Past Masters would have been needed anyway. The launch of Past Masters allowed fans to have all the up-til-then officially released Beatles songs on albums. It became the perfect companion to the Beatles studio albums and thus rendered all the other compilations (including Hey Jude) unnecesary. For a few years, Past Masters was the only Beatles compilation officially available on CD.
Well, it's the Beatles for cryin'out loud so you can throw pretty much any ten of their songs against the wall and they will all stick, because almost all of their songs are great. I'm glad the sequencing works for you but I was a grand old man of 18 when the Hey Jude album was released so "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" seemed like classic old songs from when I was a kid by 1970. Music was evolving seemingly every six months back then . So, although I love all the individual songs , the sequencing of the album is inferior IMO. It wasn't exactly a power value compared to the later Beatles albums either , clocking in at just under 31 minutes total time.
Because The Beatles released an EP called Magical Mystery Tour and the second side featured period correct singles. It fit. Hey Jude I enjoyed but, honestly, the songs are all over the place from different eras of the band. One could argue that it does provide a single album with their evolution as songwriters/performers.
It would have been nice to have a mop up record of late Beatles songs but problem is there aren’t quite enough 68-69 tracks to make up an album, unless you include single versions of songs like “Get Back” and “Let It Be”... and these songs were about to be part of Let It Be (along with “Across the Universe,” another potential inclusion on such a project).
Although I think the order of the songs is different Magical Mystery Tour is just the EP except it's delivered in an LP format with a compilation album on side B. Kinda of a single disc version of what was later done with Michael Jackson's History. It allows them to place it in the official catalogue of Beatles Music without is seeming out of place I guess. Hey Jude on the other hand is just a straight up Compilation and actually I think all of it's tracks are on Past Masters.
I think that Apple and EMI were a bit perplexed about what to do about the singles and EPs for CD release. They probably went round and round about it. No matter how you slice it, Magical Mystery Tour eventually becomes a no-brainer because a singles and EP collection would have all of those tracks anyway. Also, the artwork and booklet are great, too, so I guess they figured, why not? All the songs released in 1967 that weren't on Sgt. Pepper. That's pretty concise, isn't it? I think it still took them a while to decide because I seem to remember the White Album and Yellow Submarine being released on CD before MMT. Had A Collection Of Beatles Oldies, Hey Jude, and the UK Rarities albums been released on CD, three tracks would still have been missing: "Love Me Do" with Ringo on drums, the single version of "Get Back", and the single version of "Let It Be". Now, "Love Me Do" could easily have been added to Rarities with no heartburn, but the most logical place for the other two were to make them bonus tracks on either Hey Jude or Let It Be. I reckon that nobody liked that idea, so Past Masters was born. Still, they could have used the artwork for Hey Jude on Past Masters, Volume Two. At least it would have looked better.
Man, looking at this album cover again. Compared to this cover , the Beatles Rock 'n' Roll Music and Love Songs comps are fine art .
Because the stuff on Hey Jude not on any other album is also on Past Masters, which is absolutely an essential part of their catalogue, whereas nothing from MMT did.
Which would make sense. I just find it odd that I never saw it before seeing the White Album and YS. Is it possible that stores sold out of it?
Sure, anything's possible. I seem to recall that they were releasing the CDs in batches, except that they put out Sgt. Pepper by itself and promoted it's 20th anniversary, so MMT might have actually been released with the White album and YS.
When MMT was released in America, seven of the songs were brand new-- the Hello Goodbye/Walrus single was released the same week as the album, so this was fresh stuff and only four songs were familiar-- about the number we were used to from most of the Capitol albums. MMT was perceived as the new Beatle album, the next one after Pepper. Hey Jude was never really presented as a new album, just a warp-up of things we already had.
Other way around I haven't come across many posters here who dislike that cover. Most seem to like it. I love the swinging 60's Carnaby Street feel
MMT was an album of new music and Hey Jude wasn't. It was good to get some of my favorite singles that weren't on albums already but I never really think of it when I think of the Beatles albums. Now with Past Masters in stereo and mono I really never think about it. Like many things in life it was made redundant. Were the Beatles involved with creating Hey Jude?
Yeah, that'd be nice...can't say if I'd buy any of 'em since I'm happy with my original Capitol LPs, but if they did 'em up right I might consider replacing one or two... Yeah, Past Masters sorta made the Hey Jude LP redundant. Yes. IMO Oldies should have been issued in 2009 along with the rest of the catalog. It's canon as far as I'm concerned, as well as the only UK compilation album released while The Beatles were still a going concern. No. Klein had his people lash it together as a cash grab. Given the timeframe (Hey Jude was assembled and released after the group had all but officially broken up) The Beatles were aware of the album, but that's about it. George refers to Hey Jude in the note he gave Ringo to give Paul suggesting Paul roll back the release of the McCartney album making way for the imminent release of Let It Be- the incident that compelled Paul to throw Ringo out of his house.