As noted when I gave my score, I don't think that I've ever listened to a Beatles album all the way through. I've put that right this week and listened to most of them. A few observations:-
1. A fantastic body of music and as others have noted, incredible that one band could produce so many top-notch songs in a seven year period.
2. I don't think that I'd give any of their albums more than 8/10. Most of them, particularly A Hard Days' Night, Help, Rubber Soul, The White Album, and Abbey Road have a handful of brilliant songs, but there is a lot of filler on every album.
3. Whilst Lennon & McCartney get most of the praise, some of George Harrison's songs are among the best in The Beatles' catalogue - I'm thinking of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes The Sun" and "Something" among others.
4. Don't get the hype for Sgt. Pepper - a couple of half decent tunes but not up with the aforementioned albums. Yes, I know it probably has to be taken in the context of the time it was released, but all the same, it lacks the better songs of the other albums.
I feel the same about a couple of artists who I really like - Tom Petty and Rush - I know some others will disagree, but neither artist has a single album that I would put above all the others (I put Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever in our recent Top20 vote, more to represent the artist than anything). But take their best 30-40 songs and you have a playlist that will rival any artist in history.
Now, of course, The Beatles did it all first, and whilst their music doesn't mean as much to me as my favourite artists, I don't think that many people could argue that most artists would kill to have written and recorded any of their top 30-40 songs at any point in their career ..... yet The Beatles did them all in seven years. Incredible.
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