Why did the Magical Mystery Tour album become canon and Hey Jude didn't?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Pizza, Feb 13, 2018.

  1. Mike Visco

    Mike Visco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newark, NJ
    Well, Ballad was on it-same "rhythm section" as Come and Get it and Rev 9 was already released-IMO Mary Jane is more cohesive than Rev. 9. We're talking album cuts. Come and Get it is no less refined than the "all Paul" Why Don't We Do it in the Road.

    At that point, You Know My Name was not yet a B side...and Mary Jane was considered as an A-side. It would have crashed and burned on the charts of course, but the LP might have had more "era" cohesion.
     
  2. Colocally

    Colocally One Of The New Wave Boys

    Location:
    Surrey BC.
    Yeah I don't think people would have discerned differences in labels like that.
     
  3. Colocally

    Colocally One Of The New Wave Boys

    Location:
    Surrey BC.
    Point being that Come And Get It wasn't recorded for public consumption, it was recorded purely as a demo.
     
  4. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Yeah I knew someone would say that... point is, it’s a demo recorded by Paul for another band, not an unreleased Beatles song.
     
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  5. YpsiGypsy

    YpsiGypsy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    I bought the album when it came out just to complete the collection but I only played it once or twice.
    It was an all around bummer of an album because of the break up and it seemed like the record company was cashing in.
    Also I hated the cover pic, they looked bad and Lennon looked like what a high school kid would wear thinking he was real cool.
    A lot of bad vibes about the Hey Jude album for me.
    Of course this is how I felt in 1970, today not much has changed I think it was a useless release but I love Past Masters Vol 1 & Vol 2
     
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  6. Mike Visco

    Mike Visco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newark, NJ
    Yes it was a demo, but unlike many of their demos- recorded professionally in a studio. I didn't mention any of the Kinfauns songs for example.

    I think the Badfinger version had just been released in the UK, so they wouldn't have released it anyway, even if they later cleaned it up in early January.
     
  7. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    To put it another way, it wasn’t a loose end that needed tying up.
     
  8. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    It's too random to be a proper album. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" on the same disc?

    They could've made it a bit more coherent (cut the AHDN tracks and add things like "The Inner Light"), but they didn't....
     
  9. Maidenpriest

    Maidenpriest Setting the controls for the heart of the sun :)

    Location:
    Europe
    Er..... 'I Should Have Known Better' and 'Can't Buy Me Love' despite all tracks later day and the album cover Art ?
     
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  10. Six String

    Six String Senior Member

    That's what I remember but I don't always trust my memory and besides it wasn't as easy to ferret out that kind of info in the pre internet days.
     
  11. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Read what he said more carefully. He said we shouldn’t second guess the decision not to release it on CD.
     
  12. overdrivethree

    overdrivethree Forum Resident

    When I was very little, my parents played Beatles tapes in the car - they were dubbed from records, so no cover art. I had seen the moptop era clips on TV, and that was it. So my folks were playing albums like Abbey Road and Let It Be in the car, alongside the likes of A Hard Day's Night. I just knew it was all the Beatles, and even that young, I really liked it.

    Later on, getting into my dad's record cabinet and seeing the actual album covers (hairy bearded John, mustachioed George, the glaring potheads on the cover of Pepper) freaked me right out. That was the Beatles?!?

    To this day, the difference between AHDN John and White Album portrait John blow my mind. I bet that was a head trip for fans in the '60s as the Beatles themselves were evolving.
     
  13. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    Many of us had no idea that the Beatles were breaking up at the time of the release. The inclusion of the two early tracks seemed strange, but overall, this felt like a new Beatles album at the time. I suspect that Hey Jude would have become a part of the canon if side 1 had looked like this:

    Paperback Writer
    Rain
    Lady Madonna
    The Inner Light
    Revolution
    I'm Down
     
  14. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    I think it would have been better to have the MMT soundtrack and the new yellow submarine songs on one cd and then the side two singles forum mmt added to past masters.
     
  15. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    MMT album: 36:35
    Past Masters Volume One: 42:28
    Past Masters Volume Two: 51.01

    136:04 total -- well within the 160 minute confines of a 2-CD set.
     
  16. Elton

    Elton I Hope Being Helpful, Will Make Me Look Cool

    Location:
    Carson Ca.
    nikh33 Obviously went to some official form for the answer as did I. As Wikipedia states:
    1. Magical Mystery Tour originally peaked at number 31 in the United Kingdom as an import of the United States issue. Parlophone officially issued the album in the UK on 19 November 1976. It did not chart in Australia until October 1974.

    The truth is Parlophone knew MMT was this was a stumbling block to making the Beatles catalog uniformed (they loss money to Capital with import of MMT) that is why officially issued the album in 76'. The Beatles Collection (78') was the UK albums but none of the song from singles or EP's (That was a different box (81)). In 82' MFSL did their The Beatles: The Collection. That is were Parlophone let them cobble together MMT (from the Capitol submaster) and offer it as a Beatles LP package. And it sold out!

    So.. In my summation, that is were when Parlophone was going to CD this solved half their completion problem, (US no EP, CD/EP to costly, making a chronological program), so Past Masters was born, (yes pretentious covers) get rid of every complation (Red/Blue Rock & Roll Music, Love Song, Hollywood Bowl, Oldies and Hey Jude). Now they have brought back those that make money (Red/Blue and Hollywood Bowl due to Ron Howard doc.) That is how Parlophone see Oldies and Hey Jude, not worth their time. I bought Hey Jude, I liked it, I still have the LP, but I think you'll see Love Songs reissued before I see Hey Jude again. (See what I did there!)

    Just My Opinion
     
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  17. MarkTheShark

    MarkTheShark Senior Member

    I haven't read through all the pages of this thread, so I am not sure if this has been covered, but it probably has been.

    Initially MMT was not going to be part of the Beatles on CD rollout, and indeed was not released (nor numbered) in sequence with the rest of the albums. It came out a little later, somewhat unexpectedly (at least by me), but still in 1987.

    Most likely, they originally were not going to release it in its U.S. configuration, but then when they were planning Past Masters, realized with MMT released as an official album, they could keep Past Masters to two CDs.

    I'd have to look up the release date for the MMT CD. But it did not come out between Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. (I know, I was there.)
     
  18. AlienRendel

    AlienRendel Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, il
    From what's been said earlier in the thread, it sounds like it came out in 1987 slightly out of sequence, after the White album and Yellow Submarine, but before Let It Be and Abbey Road.
     
  19. 81531

    81531 Forum Resident

    Location:
    World
    Was the "Hey Jude" album ever planned as a studio album? No
    Was "Magial Mystery Tour" planned as an EP? Yes
    I see MMT as a "little album" and not just an EP as the Beatles EP's always featured songs that had been released on either an album or on a single except for the "Long Tall Sally" EP.
    But I see a whole concept behind MMT so for me it is still a "little album" for me. As EP and as LP but the LP was done for the american market.

    Another funny idea: Imagine they'd have put MMT on side 1 and the YS tracks on side 2. Released in February 1968.
    That would have been something!
     
  20. YpsiGypsy

    YpsiGypsy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    MMT release date was 21 Sept, 1987 on CD but I can't find the Peppers and White Album dates
     
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  21. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    Maybe that's Steve's super secret, super special project he teased us with. :D

    I like HEY JUDE. I think I have a European version, perhaps German. Sounds good and I always liked the cover.
     
  22. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Me too. Even if it is not Beatles canon per se...I love it. An important part of my vinyl collection.
     
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  23. YpsiGypsy

    YpsiGypsy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Regardless of the slicing and dicing that Capitol did to all The Beatles albums before Sgt Peppers I give them props for the Magical Mystery Tour album because it gave Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am The Walrus a proper stage/format and not letting them go down in history as a couple of B sides, I never heard of this double A side explanation in 1967, but my local newspaper never got into music reviews in 1967/68.
     
  24. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    I was introduced to the Beatles via the Hey Jude/Beatles Again album and the sequence is wonderfully upbeat on Side 1. The good news is that 3 songs from that side are in the same order on Past Masters 2---Paperback Writer/Rain/Lady Madonna.
     
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  25. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    They released the first 4 in mono only, and then the next 4 in stereo only, which got them up to Sgt Pepper. Then the next 4 went thru Let It Be. Past Masters came out in 1988. Yellow Submarine....I don't remember what batch that was in.
     

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