If you’re only just starting to get into The Beatles, you might be wondering what order the band’s albums came out in. Here’s a complete list of all The Beatle’s albums in order…
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To say The Beatles were influential would be the understatement of the century. The mark left on music by Paul, John, George, and Ringo has touched billions of people over the last six decades and continues to do so even today. Paul just recently headlined Glastonbury, for instance, at the ripe old age of eighty!
With respect to The Beatles’ enduring influence and popularity, the reason they remain so consistently popular is that nearly all of the most well-known bands and artists – from Black Sabbath to Bruno Mars – cite The Beatles as one of their core influences. That and the fact that their songs and melodies have a timelessness to them that seems to transcend time and space.
Tracks like Hey Jude, Get Back, Eleanor Rigby, and Back in The USSR sound as fresh today as they did fifty or even sixty years ago. And a lot of that is down to the fact that The Beatles was comprised of three of the best songwriters in history – Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison. But also because, during the latter part of the band’s career, they stopped touring and simply became a recording band – this was when The Beatles got REALLY experimental.
But if you’re just getting started listening to The Beatles, the best place to start is the beginning. Why? Because this way you’ll not only be able to appreciate how the band evolved over time but also how their approach to songwriting changed – and, believe me, it changed pretty significantly towards the end of the band’s career. If you want to listen to The Beatles’ albums in order, here’s the correct order (based on release dates):
The Beatles Albums In Order
- Please Please Me (1963)
- With The Beatles (1963)
- A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
- Beatles For Sale (1964)
- Help! (1965)
- Rubber Soul (1965)
- Revolver (1966)
- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
- The Beatles (White Album) (1968)
- Yellow Submarine (1969)
- Abbey Road (1969)
- Let It Be (1970)
The Beatles’ First Album
The Beatles’ first full-length studio album, Please Please Me, was released in the United Kingdom on 22nd March 1963 by Parlophone Records.
At this point, the band had yet to reach international stardom, after slugging it out in Berlin for a solid few years. But international acclaim was just around the corner.
Please Please Me secured the number spot in the UK Albums Chart after just 11 weeks, thanks in no small part to the success and strength of its singles which includes Love Me Do and Twist and Shout.
The response to Please Please Me outside the UK wasn’t brilliant at first; the album, as well as its lead singles, failed to make it into the Top 20 Charts in the USA. But the Beatles would crack the US eventually, once Beatlemania kicked off in earnest.
Please Please Me also stood the test of time and, decades after its release, was inducted into Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, where it was listed in position 39.
The Beatles’ Last Album
The Beatles’ last studio album, Abbey Road, was released on 26th September 1969 by Apple Records. The hype around this album was immense and the stress the band were under during its production made created a nightmarish procession of events that saw George Harrison famously quit the band, only to rejoin a few days later.
By this point, John had checked out mentally, George wasn’t getting on with Paul, and the band, while still able to churn out classics like “Come Together” and “Here Comes the Sun” were essentially done. They’d stopped touring years before and, as Lennon pointed out numerous times, the song writing process had become stale.
I liked the A side. I never liked that sort of pop opera on the other side. I think it’s junk. It was just bits of song thrown together. And I can’t remember what some of it is.
John Lennon
Abbey Road topped the charts in several countries, of course, including the UK and the US, reaching number one in both the Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart. At the time, no one knew it’d be the last Beatles album but there were plenty of rumors – John was pretty vocal about his distain for the band at this point.
Beatles Albums Ranked
Ranking the Beatles’ albums in order of greatness is, of course, an entirely subjective process. You may think Revolver is the best album, while other Beatles fans will prefer Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or The White Album.
Me personally, I like Revolver the best followed by Abbey Road and then The White Album. But what is the best Beatles album according to the critics? Here’s a complete breakdown of the best Beatles albums ranked by some of the biggest and most well known music review sites:
Rolling Stone
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
- Revolver (1966)
- Rubber Soul (1965)
- The White Album (1968)
- Abbey Road (1969)
Ultimate Classic Rock
- Revolver (1966)
- Abbey Road (1969)
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
- The White Album (1968)
- Rubber Soul (1965)
NME
- Revolver (1966)
- Abbey Road (1969)
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
- The White Album (1968)
- Rubber Soul (1965)
Best Beatles’ Album Overall?
As you can see, both the NME, Ultimate Classic Rock, and yours truly, here at ELECTRIKJAM, think that Revolver is the best Beatles album.
Rolling Stone reckons its Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and, while I do love that album, for me, it doesn’t quite have the urgency or energy that is present on Revolver.
If you’re new to the Beatles and you’re looking for an album to get started with, your best bet would be Revolver – it is CLASSIC Beatles. It has all the classic hallmarks of an iconic album, some of the best riffs and bass lines ever put to track, and Macca and Lennon’s vocals and harmonies never sounded better.
Revolver is, basically, the PEAK Beatles experience. It is the band at their best, performing at the very edge of their capabilities, and, importantly, it was recorded during a time when all four members’ hearts were truly into what they were doing.
And that, alongside its near flawless track listing, is what makes Revolver, for me, the best album the Beatles ever put out.
Why The Beatles Were So Influential…
The scope and impact of The Beatles’ music cannot be understated, multiple books and documentaries have been made about the bands’ effect on the world and the music business at large. No other band has ever achieved what these four lads from Liverpool did – and they did ALL of it before any of them were even thirty years old.
After The Beatles, George, John, Paul, and Ringo all had solo careers, with John and Paul’s arguably being the most successful – Paul is still releasing music today, for instance. But the main reason why they’re all still famous, household names is because of The Beatles and the band’s enduring legacy which, after more than six decades, is still as prominent today as it was thirty and forty years ago.
As a long-time fan of The Beatles, I’ve often wondered what each of the band’s members’ favorite album was. I needed to find out, so I did some digging – here’s what I found out…
The Beatles’ Favorite Beatles Album
As it turns out, each member of The Beatles has a completely different favorite record. It is well known that both John and George weren’t massive fans of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, this album was a concept album predominantly driven by Paul McCartney, although it is now considered one of the band’s finest studio albums.
So what albums did John, Paul, George, and Ringo like the best from The Beatles’ back catalog of records?
John Lennon’s favorite Beatles album was The White Album; Paul McCartney has stated numerous times that his favorite is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; George Harrison’s favorite album was Rubber Soul; and, finally, Ringo Starr’s favorite Beatles album is Abbey Round, especially the second half of the record.
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