Which do you prefer - *Early* Beatles or *Late* Beatles (red/blue timeline)

Yes the early songs were deceptively complex - at least musically. Bob Dylan praised their chords - outrageous!

Someone needs to read this

The Times: What Songs The Beatles Sang by William Mann

 

Early v. late is such an arbitrary distinction that as alluded to by the OP was created in many minds by Capitol's release of the Red and Blue compilations as separate releases. There had to be a dividing line somewhere, but it is arbitrary.

Imo a better argument between early and late, where for example people get stuck in a huge digression like where does Revolver go?, is to see the Beatles has having five periods with transitions even between them. These are:

Early Beatles. Basically Love Me Do through the Capitol release of Beatles Second Album. This period is characterized by the mix of covers with originals much influenced by the music they covered and followed, with a smattering of truly original songs like Not a Second Time. The sole outlier here is that You Can't Do That is on the Second but recorded in their A Hard Day's Night sessions.

Hard Days Night to Beatles for Sale/65 Beatles VI. While still doing covers, this period is characterized by significant advances in songwriting and production techniques that were innovative. The later comes in front and center with the opening chord of A Hard Day's Night itself. Advances in songwriting could be found in album cuts from And I Love Her, Things We Said Today, I'll Be Back - songs that could not have been found in the earlier period - and then transitioning even further with songs like No Reply, Baby's in Black. The single I Feel Fine and She's a Woman I think represented real advances in production as well. Four covers are found on the Capitol Beatles VI, one of their lesser efforts, but you still had further advances with songs like Yes It Is.

Middle Period. Help to Rubber Soul. (And part of the Capitol release Yesterday and Today) Material on the Help album can be seen as transitional from the previous period, but still you had advances in songwriting with the folk influence on songs like Hey You've Got to Hide Your Love Away. Ticket to Ride employed early hard rock production techniques. By Rubber Soul the distance from the previous period was fully in evidence with songs like Norwegian Wood and In My Life. Paul advanced his own songwriting with efforts like Yesterday. That Y&T release of course borrowed three songs from the Revolver recordings, but that made it more an outlier than a pure transition effort.

The Psychedelic Period. Basically from Rain through the winter of 68, including all Revolver sessions, Pepper's, MMT, the Yellow Submarine songs, and early 68 efforts like Lady Madonna and Across the Universe (albeit the later not released until Let It Be). There is much more in common in this period's songs than anything that separates them. It's true that Revolver came before they officially retired as a live band, but the newer production techniques were quite evident here, from Rain right on through. By Pepper's the fruit of that focus was clear, and the songwriting further advanced, with LSD influence everywhere. Masterpieces of this period also include For No One, She Said She Said, Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life, I Am The Walrus.

Late or Autumn Beatles. The White Album through to the end. TWA represented a conscious break from the preceding period. What is common to this period other than leaving behind the overt psychedelic aspects is the increasing evidence of songs written as solo projects, with less collaboration. This led to the presence of a certain amount of tension, but also high points such as most of the second side of Abbey Road.

So, imo it's five periods, not two.

 

Granted but you can't base rockin' on any one song.

 

What stuff are you thinking of?

By the way, I didn't experience the Beatles first hand and I prefer the early stuff.

 

I guess specifically I'm thinking about songs like Little Child, I'll Get You, It Won't Be Long, that type of thing.

 

There are other later tracks that rock hard or heavy. "Revolution" "Yer Blues" "Birthday" "EGSTHEFMAMM","Sergeant Pepper","I Want You (She's So Heavy)". Not many early tracks rock as heard as those - perhaps "Money" which is heavy for 1963

 

Yes, I get it. I'm pretty tired of arguing this stuff now. The Beatles vortex has got me.

 

Do you prefer George Washington or Abraham Lincoln?

 

I will add a few more into the mix then - I've Got A Feeling, Yer Blues, Come Together, Revolution

A lot of it, at least to me just comes from the fact that rock was evolving in general at that point too and the "rocks harder" ceiling was expanding to allow for more extreme sounds such as Helter Skelter. To me the later era Beatles, at the peak of that harder rocking sound, rocked way harder

But I mean when it comes to The Beatles, its all good regardless of which period!

 

Later dude.

 

I got to go with Washington. Lincoln got 600,000 Americans killed and another million wounded for life.

 

My favorite era musically was the "Help through Sgt. Peppers period. However, the most exciting was the very early era 1964. They were dominating the airwaves and we couldn't get enough of them..

 

Not really. You can't imagine a psychedelic song like Think for Yourself on A Hard Days Night.

 

Those songs rock, but how many of them even come close to the pace, tempo and drive of Long Tall Sally, I Saw Her Standing There, I'm Down, Roll Over Beethoven, Boys, Slow Down, the manic drive and excitement isn't there with the later material!

 

I’d argue there’s even more than 5 periods, but if we’re being general, to me the inarguable seperation would be from PM-Help!, Rubber Soul-Let It Be.

 

Well with all due respect to me Helter Skelter is the most manic excited song of everything The Beatles ever did - ever! haha and plus all in all I just think that the hardest rocking of the later Beatles tunes are more in line with more contemporary rock of that time, to me the late 60's progressed a lot in terms of rocking.

 

Every album the Beatles made is it’s own period.

You could describe every one as “transitional” (I don’t consider “Magical Mystery Tour” an album).

 

Not sure that's psychedelic but I'd agree. But Rubber Soul IMO is closer to those early albums than it is to Revolver

Yeah those early rockers are almost pop compared to "Helter Skelter" and others. And "Back In The USSR" has a faster pace/tempo then any of the early rockers

 

It progressed in terms of heaviness, not necessarily rocking.

 

Yeah but for me, I can tell that You Won't See Me and the happy Good Day Sunshine and Here There and Everywhere are from the same band

 

The Beatles 1962-1970 – The “Red ” and “Blue” albums on CD

 

EARLY Beatles! 1962–66: Please Please Me thru Revolver, the "Red Years"

 

Revolver and Rubber Soul is intermediate Beatles. There's no leader of the group, perhaps the best period. Tipped it for me!

 

That's no a fair question. Like asking a kid Who do you prefer mummy or daddy?

 

Can't relate to the poll.

For me it starts with Rubber Soul.

Substance and artistry blossomed.

More importantly, The Screaming finally stopped.