All Time Top 1100 Albums (Aerosmith - Big Ones) P265

[Marklr]

I still quite like it. First time for yonks. Sounds better now, actually. Good with a smoke too. In fact...can't be arsed typing. too blurred.
6/10
Tangereeeeeeen nice.

 

[Bill Walker]

Totally, it's beyond staggering.

To think a band can go from Help! (a great pop song) to Sgt Pepper in about 2 years or so astounds me. I don't think we'll ever see anything like it again.

I remember listening to Revolver for the first time when I was about 13 and I loved every track on the album. When Tomorrow Never Knows came on, I was completely gobsmacked by it. I listened to it 10 times one dinnertime I was so mesmerised by it. I still to this day can't imagine how that sounded in 1966 if you'd had been a fan of "All My Loving" in 1964 or so!

Their workrate was quite staggering, this new Get Back video, they were making up these new songs only 2 months after releasing the White Album, which had 30 odd songs.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I think you have to remember that everyone was a singles band back then. In the early 60s, pop music was catchy singles. If you listen to pretty much any pop album from around the time The Beatles started, they were the same.

However, their singles blew everyone else out of the water. Songs like She Loves You, Hard Days Night etc at the time were so full of energy, inventiveness and catchiness. Every year that passes, their music becomes much more complicated than pretty much anything their contemporaries could do and they introduce ideas that transform pop music.

The idea that you'd make albums with a theme just wasn't there in pop music - it had to be invented. I'd say that in Sgt Pepper you've got the first transition from pop albums to a full-blown concept album. They made that transition in a few years! Listening to Abbey Road and Help is astonishing - it's 3 years but the difference is 100 years.

They took pop from something for kids to being a full blown art form to be taken seriously. Albums like Sgt Pepper, Revolver, Abbey Road, The White Album hold some of the finest music recorded in the 20th Century. You can easily make the case they were THE greatest musicians of that century - better than Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Schoenberg, Glass, Cage, Stockhausen etc. No historian will ever look back and disregard them because their influence on every single band who comes after them is enormous.

I think labelling them as a singles band it a bit harsh :)

Absolutely -- that’s what I said — all (most) bands were singles bands when the Beatles got started. When I say they are a singles band it means I (not necessarily anyone else) personally prefer a collection of their singles over any record those singles and other less good tunes were on. I don’t think they were as consistent on any single one record relative to some other artists whose music I also like.

Sgt Pepper is a “concept” album, but what’s it actually about? Well, I’d say nothing, but I’d also say they didn’t just invent the concept album — they invented the album, period! It’s why Revolver and Rubber Soul (and Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys) we’re so important.

I’m certainly not disparaging the creativity nor the rapidity of the transformation, but they were a phenomenon unto themselves — they could do anything they wanted (not tour, change directions radically) with no impact on their sales or popularity. Most if not nearly all other bands could never have that luxury.

That we wouldn’t even be talking about the album as the way rock and roll has been designed, produced and consumed (for 50 years, though that’s now changing) is fundamentally down to them. I think the distnction I'm trying to make is this: I prefer as an ALBUM “Exile on Main Street” to any Beatles album, but I prefer The Beatles' MUSIC to The Stones' generally. In that regard I think some others would agree.

 

[RobMCFC]

That we wouldn’t even be talking about the album as the way rock and roll has been designed, produced and consumed (for 50 years, though that’s now changing) is fundamentally down to them. I think the distnction I'm trying to make is this: I prefer as an ALBUM “Exile on Main Street” to any Beatles album, but I prefer The Beatles' MUSIC to The Stones' generally. In that regard I think some others would agree.

I know exactly what you mean. After we reviewed Help! on this thread, I listened to all of the Beatles albums from the mid 60s onwards and most of them had some right stinkers on there. The biggest offender was Sgt Pepper which had two or three decent tracks but the stinker-to-gem ratio must have been about 4:1.

But put their best 40 songs in a list and they would wipe the floor with anybody from a music history point of view.

 

[Saddleworth2]

Yes it is.

T Bone's production is quite special.

and there are those that doubt Percy’s singing ability....
They really need to listen to this.

You are right about T Bone.

 

[Saddleworth2]

but I prefer The Beatles' MUSIC to The Stones' generally. In that regard I think some others would agree.

that’s a tough one. I think the Beatles music is more varied, often the melodies are more beautiful to the ear, their production and instrumentation more complex....
but just to sit and listen completely depends on the mood. Sometimes it’s the Stones I prefer, sometimes the Beatles.

I also think the media coverage the Beatles have had historically vs the Stones edges towards Liverpool FC vs City proportions.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

that’s a tough one. I think the Beatles music is more varied, often the melodies are more beautiful to the ear, their production and instrumentation more complex....
but just to sit and listen completely depends on the mood. Sometimes it’s the Stones I prefer, sometimes the Beatles.

I also think the media coverage the Beatles have had historically vs the Stones edges towards Liverpool FC vs City proportions.

Which way round........? ;-)

 

[OB1]

and there are those that doubt Percy’s singing ability....
They really need to listen to this.

You are right about T Bone.

He's my favourite singer and has proved himself quite versatile. His voice has matured well.

 

[MCFCTrick]

As a teen, I didn't take to III much, barring Immigrant Song and Since I've Been Loving You. But I was more into RAWK! then, and the folky, lighter side passed me by mostly.

However, as I grew up, and came to appreciate a wider spectrum, III has become my third favourite Zeppelin album. (Houses and Grafitti being the two above it)

It sounds fresh and contemporary today still 9/10

 

[OB1]

As a teen, I didn't take to III much, barring Immigrant Song and Since I've Been Loving You. But I was more into RAWK! then, and the folky, lighter side passed me by mostly.

However, as I grew up, and came to appreciate a wider spectrum, III has become my third favourite Zeppelin album. (Houses and Grafitti being the two above it)

It sounds fresh and contemporary today still 9/10

Looks like III might out score Grafitti, which does surprise me a little. But hey, hey what can I do!

Hope the random number generator picks out IV before too long.