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. anthontherun

    anthontherun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    MMT was released on CD about a month after the White Album and YS.
     
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  2. Sytze

    Sytze Senior Member

    It's the only comp released during their existence, right? So a cd release would make sense in a way.
     
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  3. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    As an aside, I realise the MMT EP may have been sequenced specifcally to accomodate the longer tracks with their own 'side' but I wonder why Capitol reshuffled the EP tracks for the LP?
    Anyone here re-sequence the MMT CD or create a playlist to replicate the original EP once in a while?
    Or is it just me... :D
     
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  4. spherical

    spherical Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    cuz HJ had all old songs and MMT had some new songs..
     
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  5. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Compilation as in a best of and not the Capitol compilations, then yes I think so. Also contained one new track "Bad Boy". This is common practice these days but probably not back then.
     
  6. varitone

    varitone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lincs, UK
    In the early 70s, I used to go to HMV to see the Beatles rack and discover what I didn't have. It was the only place I could see U.S. albums and by far the most desirable was Magical Mystery Tour, so that was my first one. I bought that even before Yellow Submarine and A Collection Of Beatles Oldies. It became "canon" to me just for being so great.

    Weirdly, the one U.S. album I never saw in HMV was Hey Jude. I didn't even know of its existence until Virgin opened in 1972 and they happened to have it (also other rarities like The Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks). I went back to get it as soon as I had the money. It always seemed too odd a collection to really fit in but I was happy to have it.

    So my answer to the OP is that for people with the UK albums, Magical Mystery Tour seemed a great and essential extra and worth paying the import price, whilst Hey Jude not so much and it was probably less well known.

    In 1987, when The Beatles albums were released on CD, I was surprised to see Magical Mystery Tour included but it made perfect sense to me. It was almost as if they'd asked me.
     
  7. sathvyre

    sathvyre formerly known as ABBAmaniac

    Location:
    Europe
    HEY JUDE is such a strange compilation - I can't stand it.
     
  8. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Awesome cover, though:
    [​IMG]
     
  9. ToneLa

    ToneLa Forum Resident

    I don't consider it canon:

    - Didn't initially release in the UK, where the Beatles were FROM
    - Devised by Allen Klein
    - When the Beatles canon first all went to CD, this was missing
     
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  10. Maidenpriest

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

    Location:
    Europe
    Because as an album MMT is great, Hey Jude not so much it doesn't flow it is just a missmash of songs and two of them are already released on there original albums !! IMO they should of dropped the 1964 songs and replaced them with That Inner Light and Across The Universe (WWF) and then it would have been equal to MMT and should be cannon !!
     
  11. x2zero

    x2zero Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn USA
    That MMT became canon and HJ didn’t made complete sense to me at the time and still does. It is the the most sensible and obvious way to release the catalog. I really don’t see what there is to second guess.
     
  12. ralph7109

    ralph7109 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Franklin, TN
    My first copy of Hey Jude on vinyl had the same issue.
     
  13. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    It was an official release. It is canon. It was even put together by the person managing the majority of the band. It is now also reissued on CD which emphasizes (but is not essential to) that point.

    I'd say the only non bootleg Beatles albums which are not canon are the releases of the Star Club recordings (which they sued to block) and, arguably, the releases of the Hamburg sessions with Sheridan, apart from Anthology 1.
     
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  14. dlokazip

    dlokazip Forum Transient

    Location:
    Austin, TX, USA
    That was my recollection.

    • The first four (in mono)
    • Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver
    • Sgt. Pepper
    • White Album, Yellow Submarine
    • Magical Mystery Tour
    • Abbey Road, Let It Be
    Then, the following year, I remember they promoted the two Past Masters CDs about a month before releasing them.
     
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  15. I have asked this before but didn't get a satisfying answer. If the MMT album was supposed to be part of the canon before the advent of the CD format, then why is it absent from the BC-13 (blue box) LP collection (released in 1978)?
     
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  16. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Well put.

    All true for me -- as I was 17 when MMT was released in Nov of 1967, so it was Beatles canon. They were still a band.

    We all new The Beatles had disbanded by the time of Hey Jude's release so it was more of a final tribute and wrap up of songs that hadn't appeared on LPs as yet. Nice but not a new Beatles release by any stretch, as in their catalog thru Let It be -- loved it, though -- still do, track order n'all.

    Not that it is canon, but even wiki does not include Hey Jude in the Beatles discography. So Hey Jude is not Beatles canon.

    Let's say it is essential...just sayin'.
     
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  17. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Because they were wrong...

    :doh:
     
  18. I'm not confronting you, but am just curious. I was only 12 at the time and not hip to anything. How did you know about this? Was it something alluded to in those Beatles Monthly mags or something? Or did some influent DJs leaked it perhaps?
     
  19. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Exactly, while Rock and Roll Music looked like the artist either thought The Beatles were '50s band or else he was enamoured with this schlock and a homage for The Beatles would be a great idea:

    [​IMG]
     
  20. Mike Visco

    Mike Visco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newark, NJ
    The Inner Light, You Know My Name, Mary Jane and Come and Get it, all in the can would have me this like a new LP or at least closer to MMT.
     
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  21. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    Don't know the answer, but I'd have certainly preferred a copy of MMT instead of Rarities in the blue box.
     
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  22. 905

    905 Senior Member

    Location:
    Midwest USA
    I consider it canon , but of course being out of print for years and not being released during 1987/88 on CD it was not known by younger fans.
    I was just old enough (born in '77) that I got to know it on cassette in the late '80s.
     
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  23. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    "We all" certainly did not know The Beatles had broken up in Feb 70. If that were the criteria it would exclude Let It Be.
     
  24. I like the album but I have always considered it a quick management cash-in. Put together some tracks from singles and rake in the money. Good cover though.
     
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  25. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    You're right, I am off in my life chronology. Hey Jude came out several months before the Let Be Film. The film made it obvious that the Beatles were finished...we all knew it after walking out of the movie theatre.

    We did hear rumors thru various sources that the Beatles were in trouble--and would break up at any point. Even by the release of The White Album there were rumors about how it was recorded, often individually. Harrison's release of White Wall Music seemed odd and gave us an inkling...

    Of course we had the whole silly "Paul is dead" thing going on since Sgt Peppers, play it backwards stuff. So we were ready-ha!-they weren't really The Beatles if true, eh?? Was that really Paul in those White Album poster pics....or a double in disguise. We never believed it. Urban legend hadn't been coined but it was the first one for us kids.

    ;)

    But seriously, we didn't know of or even suspect their breakup at all until after Let It Be in 1970 and Paul releasing his solo LP made it clear.

    But back to facts, I didn't buy Hey Jude until after I saw Let It Be, hence my loss of memory in time -- but still to me it was just another kind of best of compilation...still not canon, even if I had bought it first before Let It Be. Just as I wouldn't call the best of Lovin' Spoonful canon in their history. Just as I wouldn't call Capitol's "The Early Beatles" LP release canon--just a way to sell "Meet The Beatles", repackaged.
     
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