Two of the greatest albums ever, released the in same year.

If, god forbid, you could only have one which one would you pick?

Pets Sounds for me only has one slight flaw.

Sloop John B. It sounds just a little out of place to me, but I still love it.

Revolver has my two favorite Beatles Songs in I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows, but It does have Yellow Submarine, which I by far my least favorite Beatles song.

Therefore I pick Pet Sounds.

Revolver all the way only because I'm partial to George Martin's production.

Pet Sounds by a hair.

Revolver is not my favorite Beatles album.

Revolver is one of my favorite albums ever.

pet sounds. you wouldn't have revolver without it. it's a fucking masterpeice. and the original smile if completed would have beat sgt pepper

and this is coming from a beatles fan

unique said:

pet sounds. you wouldn't have revolver without it. it's a fucking masterpeice. and the original smile if completed would have beat sgt pepper

and this is coming from a beatles fan

I strongly disagree. Much of Revolver was recorded in April and May of 1966 before Pet Sounds was even released. Even the tracks that were recorded after Pet Sounds was released don't sound like they were influenced by it.

Beatles fan here but Pet Sounds murks the best Beatles album.

rialb said:

unique said:

pet sounds. you wouldn't have revolver without it. it's a fucking masterpeice. and the original smile if completed would have beat sgt pepper

and this is coming from a beatles fan

I strongly disagree. Much of Revolver was recorded in April and May of 1966 before Pet Sounds was even released. Even the tracks that were recorded after Pet Sounds was released don't sound like they were influenced by it.

that doesn't matter. both bands were in competition with each other. pet sounds was released in may and revolver in august. back then there was plenty of time to record and put out an album in a short period. the beatles wouldn't have put out a sub par album if they thought it couldn't compete with pet sounds. it was a friendly rivalry however, with both bands admiring each others work. of course pet sounds is pretty much a brian wilson solo creation, recorded without the band when they were on tour, and they added vocals later in the recording process

both the beatles and beach boys have spoken about the period from rubber soul to sgt pepper/smile where they were influenced by each album to encourage them to do something better to outdo the last album. brian wilson was impressed by rubber soul and wanted to make something better, which is why he went out of his way and out of his head with pet sounds, and revolver was the beatles response, to which brian went mad recording the unfinished smile album. had that been completed and released before sgt peper people would look upon that album quite differently

Pet Sounds

unique said:

rialb said:

I strongly disagree. Much of Revolver was recorded in April and May of 1966 before Pet Sounds was even released. Even the tracks that were recorded after Pet Sounds was released don't sound like they were influenced by it.

that doesn't matter. both bands were in competition with each other. pet sounds was released in may and revolver in august. back then there was plenty of time to record and put out an album in a short period. the beatles wouldn't have put out a sub par album if they thought it couldn't compete with pet sounds. it was a friendly rivalry however, with both bands admiring each others work. of course pet sounds is pretty much a brian wilson solo creation, recorded without the band when they were on tour, and they added vocals later in the recording process

both the beatles and beach boys have spoken about the period from rubber soul to sgt pepper/smile where they were influenced by each album to encourage them to do something better to outdo the last album. brian wilson was impressed by rubber soul and wanted to make something better, which is why he went out of his way and out of his head with pet sounds, and revolver was the beatles response, to which brian went mad recording the unfinished smile album. had that been completed and released before sgt peper people would look upon that album quite differently

Of course it matters! If roughly half of the album was recorded before they had even heard Pet Sounds it seems silly to suggest that "you wouldn't have Revolver without it." I'm sure that The Beatles were familiar with The Beach Boys prior to Pet Sounds, it would have been virtually impossible for them not to have been, but you claim that the "rivalry" was started with Rubber Soul. Is Revolver really a significant departure from Rubber Soul? I believe that it was George who said in the Anthology video that he sees the albums as being similar, I think he said they were like part one and part two. I very much agree and I don't hear much of, if any, a Beach Boys influence on either album.

I'm not saying that The Beatles weren't fans of The Beach Boys or that they didn't have some influence on each other but I do believe that over the last twenty years or so there has been significant revisionism regarding how big of an influence Pet Sounds was on The Beatles. It was just one brilliant album at a time when every week someone was releasing something fantastic and innovative. Circa 1965-1966 you had some fantastic albums from Bob Dylan and The Byrds that also heavily influenced The Beatles and then you also had all of the other great music that was coming out of England at that time. Was Pet Sounds an influence on The Beatles? Sure, but it was hardly the only influence and they had countless other songs/albums by other artists that were pushing them to get better. Almost immediately after Pet Sounds The Beach Boys were essentially finished as an innovative and important group yet The Beatles somehow managed to keep going and release some of their best work (The Beatles, Abbey Road and a bunch of great singles), that suggests to me that The Beach Boys and Pet Sounds were just one among many rivals/influences that The Beatles had.

Revolver is not even top 5 Beatles albums for me, but I still pick it over Pet Sounds. There's only 4 tracks I like at all on Pet Sounds.

CrabalockerFishwife said:

Revolver is not even top 5 Beatles albums for me, but I still pick it over Pet Sounds. There's only 4 tracks I like at all on Pet Sounds.

If there was a rock throwing emoticon I would be using it.

I'm curious, how do you rate their albums?

rialb said:

CrabalockerFishwife said:

Revolver is not even top 5 Beatles albums for me, but I still pick it over Pet Sounds. There's only 4 tracks I like at all on Pet Sounds.

If there was a rock throwing emoticon I would be using it.

I'm curious, how do you rate their albums?

Hmm.. well I don't want to derail the thread, but listed in order of preferece: Let It Be (original or Naked) - Abbey Road - Rubber Soul - The Beatles - Beatles For Sale - Revolver - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Please, Please Me - Help! - Magical Mystery Tour - A Hard Day's Night - With The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

I'm not much a fan of the 'psychedelic' period ('66/67).. they released some of their best songs during that period, but I don't like a single one of those albums the whole way through - I probably love about 25-50% of each, and the rest is bottom of the barrel Beatles for me. I only rank Revolver as high as I did for "Here, There and Everywhere", "For No One" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"..

rialb said:

unique said:

that doesn't matter. both bands were in competition with each other. pet sounds was released in may and revolver in august. back then there was plenty of time to record and put out an album in a short period. the beatles wouldn't have put out a sub par album if they thought it couldn't compete with pet sounds. it was a friendly rivalry however, with both bands admiring each others work. of course pet sounds is pretty much a brian wilson solo creation, recorded without the band when they were on tour, and they added vocals later in the recording process

both the beatles and beach boys have spoken about the period from rubber soul to sgt pepper/smile where they were influenced by each album to encourage them to do something better to outdo the last album. brian wilson was impressed by rubber soul and wanted to make something better, which is why he went out of his way and out of his head with pet sounds, and revolver was the beatles response, to which brian went mad recording the unfinished smile album. had that been completed and released before sgt peper people would look upon that album quite differently

Of course it matters! If roughly half of the album was recorded before they had even heard Pet Sounds it seems silly to suggest that "you wouldn't have Revolver without it." I'm sure that The Beatles were familiar with The Beach Boys prior to Pet Sounds, it would have been virtually impossible for them not to have been, but you claim that the "rivalry" was started with Rubber Soul. Is Revolver really a significant departure from Rubber Soul? I believe that it was George who said in the Anthology video that he sees the albums as being similar, I think he said they were like part one and part two. I very much agree and I don't hear much of, if any, a Beach Boys influence on either album.

I'm not saying that The Beatles weren't fans of The Beach Boys or that they didn't have some influence on each other but I do believe that over the last twenty years or so there has been significant revisionism regarding how big of an influence Pet Sounds was on The Beatles. It was just one brilliant album at a time when every week someone was releasing something fantastic and innovative. Circa 1965-1966 you had some fantastic albums from Bob Dylan and The Byrds that also heavily influenced The Beatles and then you also had all of the other great music that was coming out of England at that time. Was Pet Sounds an influence on The Beatles? Sure, but it was hardly the only influence and they had countless other songs/albums by other artists that were pushing them to get better. Almost immediately after Pet Sounds The Beach Boys were essentially finished as an innovative and important group yet The Beatles somehow managed to keep going and release some of their best work (The Beatles, Abbey Road and a bunch of great singles), that suggests to me that The Beach Boys and Pet Sounds were just one among many rivals/influences that The Beatles had.

based on the above you seem to be thinking of influence as "copying". that's not what most people mean when they say such a thing. they both had their own sound, but they each challenged each other to push the boundaries and progress

as you say, revolver isn't a huge difference from rubber soul, but it's a progression and the start of the dip into psychedelia and a more grown up sound, with rubber soul being a more grown up sound than help

but the change in sound between the beach boys party! album or summer days and summer nights is vastly different. it's like a different band recorded it. but then, it actually was

half of revolver sounds like it could fit on rubber soul, but the rest is moving away to another thing

and who knows, just because pet sounds wasn't officially released until may doesn't mean the beatles didn't get to hear any of it prior to then. it's on record that bruce johnson few to london to let the beatles hear it in may 66 and macca has often spoke of it's influence. but that doesn't mean they tried to copy it, rather than it motivated them to a more progressive and mature sound

CrabalockerFishwife said:

rialb said:

If there was a rock throwing emoticon I would be using it.

I'm curious, how do you rate their albums?

Hmm.. well I don't want to derail the thread, but listed in order of preferece: Let It Be (original or Naked) - Abbey Road - Rubber Soul - The Beatles - Beatles For Sale - Revolver - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Please, Please Me - Help! - Magical Mystery Tour - A Hard Day's Night - With The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

I'm not much a fan of the 'psychedelic' period ('66/67).. they released some of their best songs during that period, but I don't like a single one of those albums the whole way through - I probably love about 25-50% of each, and the rest is bottom of the barrel Beatles for me. I only rank Revolver as high as I did for "Here, There and Everywhere", "For No One" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"..

Interesting. I don't know many people that rate Let It Be as their favourite. I'm not much of a fan of the "psychedelic" albums either. That era gets a lot of credit for the innovative production techniques but I just don't think the songs were that good.

Pet Sounds is a spectacular, ground breaking album. However Revolver is the perfect Beatles album imo and that is saying A LOT. From Taxman, to Elenor Rigby, to She Said She Said, to Here There and Everywhere, to Got to Get You into My Life, to Tomorrow Never Knows...the sheer variety of songs are mindboggling. Even the throw away Yellow Submarine, not amoung my fave Beatles tracks does have its charm imo.

So Revolver wins this one for me!

rialb said:

CrabalockerFishwife said:

Hmm.. well I don't want to derail the thread, but listed in order of preferece: Let It Be (original or Naked) - Abbey Road - Rubber Soul - The Beatles - Beatles For Sale - Revolver - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Please, Please Me - Help! - Magical Mystery Tour - A Hard Day's Night - With The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

I'm not much a fan of the 'psychedelic' period ('66/67).. they released some of their best songs during that period, but I don't like a single one of those albums the whole way through - I probably love about 25-50% of each, and the rest is bottom of the barrel Beatles for me. I only rank Revolver as high as I did for "Here, There and Everywhere", "For No One" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"..

Interesting. I don't know many people that rate Let It Be as their favourite. I'm not much of a fan of the "psychedelic" albums either. That era gets a lot of credit for the innovative production techniques but I just don't think the songs were that good.

The 1962-1966 Beatles were far more interesting than the the 1967-1969 Beatles.

Timmy84 said:

rialb said:

Interesting. I don't know many people that rate Let It Be as their favourite. I'm not much of a fan of the "psychedelic" albums either. That era gets a lot of credit for the innovative production techniques but I just don't think the songs were that good.

The 1962-1966 Beatles were far more interesting than the the 1967-1969 Beatles.

Gonna have to disagree there.

At any rate, I think Revolver is overrated. It's full of some great songs, but it also has "Yellow Submarine" and "Doctor Robert." It's my 4th-favorite Beatles album at best.

OTOH, Pet Sounds is sublime. It gets my vote.

AlexdeParis said:

Timmy84 said:

The 1962-1966 Beatles were far more interesting than the the 1967-1969 Beatles.

Gonna have to disagree there.

At any rate, I think Revolver is overrated. It's full of some great songs, but it also has "Yellow Submarine" and "Doctor Robert." It's my 4th-favorite Beatles album at best.

OTOH, Pet Sounds is sublime. It gets my vote.

Eh "Yellow Submarine" sucked ass. "Tomorrow Never Knows" is the cut though.

Timmy84 said:

rialb said:

Interesting. I don't know many people that rate Let It Be as their favourite. I'm not much of a fan of the "psychedelic" albums either. That era gets a lot of credit for the innovative production techniques but I just don't think the songs were that good.

The 1962-1966 Beatles were far more interesting than the the 1967-1969 Beatles.

I will have to disagree with this statement too. I can see why someone would not like the Beatles' later period, but to criticize it as being less interesting as their earlier work baffles me.

[Edited 6/4/12 14:53pm]