Order you first listened to the albums in? | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Von Bontee said upthead

* “…I can’t completely recall in which order I heard all those 1986 acquisitions; I know I borrowed the early Capitols and “Let It Be ” early in the year, “The Beatles” and “Revolver ” were midsummer, and “Rubber Soul ” was autumn. Oh, and around the time of that first batch of CDs, I’d found a copy of Y&T with an unblemished butcher sleeve, but the fake stereo was horrendous and I probably played it four times tops. In any event, I would’ve first heard “What Goes On ” and John’s missing “Revolver ” trio on that album some weeks or months before hearing them in context on the proper Parlo CDs…”

…OK! so, update: from November 1983 to roughly March of ’93, I documented every album/cassette/CD acquisition, including albums I borrowed and then cassette-dubbed for myself. It runs to 48 notebook pages, documenting (occasionally rating) a collection that begins in late high-school with a modest 40-odd albums, grows into the hundreds (always with a constant eye to Beatles music in particular, hard to come by outside of pricey new vinyl/cassettes of select titles) in the next several years as I go off to university (in a city with many more record stores than my hometown), and ends about 1500 records later, at a time when I’ve entered the workforce, and live in the big city surrounded by used (and new) records & tapes (and CDs added in 1990 when I acquire my first player) so I’m buying EVERYTHING, and I suppose I just got too lazy to keep on updating it after ’93; but I never got rid of the binder. And having just found it hidden on the bottom of a box of books I never properly unpacked after moving from Toronto in 2017, I can now give more accurate dates for a fairly definitive reply! Along with my original scale-of-ten ratings, when I wasn’t lazy, which was often.

(Warning: kinda tl;dr and navel-gazey)

c. winter 1979-80 – Meet The Beatles! used vinyl, Capitol rainbow label. I’m not gonna rehash this album’s impact on me, but I gave it a rating of 7 (/10), and a little star signifying *classic* (in the rock-canonical sense, not necessarily my opinion)

December 1980-Mid-1985 – Long before I start pursuing further actual physical Beatles product, I record several dozens of spare tracks off broadcast radio. As a result, maybe my judgement of some of the albums is uniquely skewed: I heard my first “Sgt. Pepper ” tracks in on AM radio in 1980 and was impressed; then I taped a bunch more in 1984 and was even more stunned, especially by “WYWY”, but won’t hear the full thing till ’86…which is getting ahead of the story.

(Around the time I begin formally cataloging, November of 1983, I start regularly frequenting used (and new!) record stores, junk shops, yard sales by the dozens in spring and summertime, buying records and tapes by the dozens and eventually hundreds…yet I never come across a single used Beatle record until…

1985, late August – Abbey Road used (very used) vinyl, bought at a garage sale (a week or two after finding and procuring Imagine ) for maybe $0.50 or even a quarter ; terribly scratched and with a couple of skips. Plus, rather remarkably, two separate gouges on Side Two that produced a quick squeaky-whine sound after both repetitions of the “darling, do not cry…” lyric…and for a long period afterwards (until I upgraded to a decent used cassette copy a year or two later) I was convinced the whines were intentional Beatley touches. A truly tragic and beautifully ugly way to listen to an album that (no matter) earns a 10 – and another *. I may have tagged all Beatles albums as such, and I give up the practice altogether eventually, so I’m not gonna bother to cite ’em anymore. 

September – Yellow Submarine , used garage sale vinyl, either in “fair” or “poor” shape, depending on whether my 1985 handwriting or 2020 eyesight is worse. Under a dollar. I never played this one a lot; took me until the ’90s to really love “Bulldog” and “Too Much”, the highlights. And I couldn’t be arsed to flip it over. Having never bothered to write down ratings of 6 or less, I left this one unrated.

End of garage sale season, winter, snowmelt, beginning of next garage sale season.

1986, late May – I owned a functioning 8-track player (when the tapes felt like functioning) and back in late ’83 I’d excitedly found a used Magical Mystery Tour tape – that unspooled itself immediately, frustratingly, as they were prone to do, and it was discarded and never catalogued. (Exact scenario repeated on the Physical Graffiti 8-track I found around the same time, with twice the frustration. ) But my second used Beatles 8-track (“Hey Jude “) plays fine, and it’s a dollar well spent, not only to be able to hear favourites like Hey Jude /”Revolution ” and “Lady Madonna ” and “Ballad of ” whenever I want to; but also because it has the elusive and near-mythical “Rain “, which I’d only heard once before, ’84, when Ringo played it during “Ringo’s Yellow Submarine”, marveling at his own drumming, and I was stunned by this Beatles song I’d barely known of, and never had a chance to record off the radio.  And it’s my introduction to “Old Brown Shoe ” and “The Inner Light ” as well, interesting. 10. 

June, sometime – I’m a frequent customer at a pawnshop-with-records downtown, and I’ve had my eye on a $4.00 copy of Pepper in the racks for a few weeks. But when I see a more beaten-up one (without yellow border) in the $1.00 bin one day, I go for that one instead. Take it home, sounds weird on headphones…MONO?! This is supposed to be a pSYcHeDELiC album! Unsatisfied, I return to the store next day or week to buy the stereo. A bit underwhelmed by “Fixing A Hole ” and “She’s Getting Better “, among the five songs new to me, I’m still intimidated enough by the critical consensus and my own goodwill into giving another 10) The mono lies around for years and is eventually discarded; I have no idea how scarce it supposedly is, and it’s in terrible shape anyways, scratchy vinyl poking through rotted cardboard in every direction. In far better shape (still has the booklet attached) is a Capitol rainbow copy of Magical Mystery Tour , which I find later in the month at (I think) the same store. Of the four new-to-me songs, I like “Blue Jay Way ” the best and “Your Mother ” the least. And whether it’s my indifference to that track or something else, I award MMT a mere 9. Oh, and I’m suddenly a high school graduate.

(Additional Beatlish finds this month: A much-scratched Wonderwall Music (unrated, and barely listened to by 18-year old ignoramus Vonbontee, who enjoys it now), and Wings Over America on two full-length 8-tracks; thus my introduction to “I’ve Just Seen A Face ” is a Paul/Wings rendition. I won’t hear the original until October. 

July, early part– Realizing that my lucky streak of finding used Beatles recordings won’t last forever; and probably really desiring that lyric poster plus portraits, for the first (and final) time I buy a vinyl album by The Beatles brand-new, sealed, can’t begin to remember the price, $11.99 or $13.99 Canadian at a time when movies cost six bucks. Unlike my recent purchases of mostly familar material, more than a full vinyl’s worth of these two albums is completely new to my ears, though I recognize every song title, Beatlescholar that I am; since first reading about it goggle-eyed in 1979, I’ve been forced to imagine how “Revolution 9 ” sounds! Like the album as a whole, I find it captivating, sometimes thrilling occasionally irritating, and altogether overwhelming. Inevitably, 10. 

August – Visiting family out of town, I babysit for my much older cousin and immediately seek out and spin his old original Capital copy of Revolver , the same copy from which he played me “Yellow Submarine ” as a preschooler; I keep the volume relatively low in deference to his own sleeping kids. I’m already familiar with some of it, nice to hear “Taxman ” and the 1966 and 1976 hits again. Of the new stuff, “Tomorrow Never Knows ” is another track I’ve been desperate to hear, ever since reading “The Love You Make” two years before, and I finally play it last, and it’s SO worth it, I’m stunned. The two Lennon tracks and “Love You To ” are my favourites, but the whole album leaves me shaking my head in amazement – that the Beatles’ 1966 music was even further out that their 1967 variety! I borrow the vinyl, possibly tape-record and return it…never? I may still have the cover (minus the now-broken vinyl) in the closet, unless it’s a different used copy I found afterwards, I really have no idea. (At any rate, years later, mid ’90s, that same cousin would one afternoon borrow my own 14-song Revolver CD – and indeed, my complete Beatles CD collection – from my vacant personal bedroom without asking! His sister/my cousin Susan (we shared Toronto rent) gave him permission during a visit (“He won’t mind, he’s got lots of choices!”) and he took them all out of town and returned ’em like a month later. Sue’s a bit of an airhead, but she’s always been cool to me; 4 years 9 days older (October 12/21, two Libras), she’d play with me as a kid, and gave me her unwanted Foreigner and Supertramp and Fleetwood Mac albums when I was 12, and they’re right there on page one of the journal, among the sole alphabetical entries.) Anyways, Revolver gets another 10. 

Later in the month, returning to home with borrowed Revolver in hand, and at this point, there’s no stopping the flow nor my pursuit of new Beatlesmusic (while still amassing the Stones/Lou Reed/Dylan/Alice Cooper/etc. offerings as they present themselves.) Pepper and MMT already filed and semi-forgotten on my new old shelves, when I discover Beatles vinyl at the local library! I buy some blank cassettes and borrow Something New!, Let It Be , and Beatles ’65; “Second Album” is also available but three is the limit, so it’ll waits a few weeks. Most of ’65 is new to me, and I find it an early Beatles delight, all those BFS highlights plus the superb “I Feel Fine ” pairing. It earns another 10; but those other three library loans are hugely disappointing 7s. Two of them are indifferent Capital assemblages, with godawful fake-stereo on “Second Album” in particular. And I find “Let It Be ” the most underwhelming, although “Two Of Us “, “One After 909 ” and “Across The Universe ” stand out among the new-to-me tracks. (Which is all of them, aside from Paul’s three hit singles.) I really don’t recall the circumstances around my introduction to the Beatles final release very fondly at all: I found it sad that the mighty Beatles could end their album career on a subpar release, after such dizzying highs; I was already a bit depressed and anxious about leaving home for uni in the coming weeks, and the far-colder-than-normal August weather (even a few flakes of snow one day!) made me more gloomy. And when I find a beaten old UA “Hard Day’s Night” soundtrack at one of my final garage sales of the summer, I’m even less impressed. Only seven songs (almost all familiar) plus a bunch of George Martin instrumentals, I don’t even bother to rate it. “I’ll Cry Instead ” is my favourite of the new discoveries.

September/October – Now attending university in between scouring the new, bigger city for new treasures, I’m soon rewarded twice, Beatlewise. A used Yesterday & Today costs me about $15.00, and that’s entirely too much to pay for such horrible fake stereo, but I still give it an 8. Far more worthwhile is the dollar I pay for a used Rubber Soul 8-track, found at a rummage sale while visiting relatives during Thanksgiving.. Almost everything besides “Norwegian Wood ” and “Michelle ” is unheard, and it’s all enthralling, even considering Capital’s meddling and an altered track sequence (common with 8-tracks) that finds the album opening with “Think For Yourself “. After my last few relatively disappointing additions, I’m once again left shaking my head at the greatness of “In My Life “, “The Word “, “If I Needed Someone ” – hell, all of it. They’ve done it again, those Beatles! A 10.

December – Another piece in the puzzle, a poor-condition copy of Capital’s Help ! (Can’t recall where I bought it; possibly back home during Xmas break.) Another inferior 7-song soundtrack album that I don’t bother to rate. Really don’t like “I Need You .” (Now: It’s okay.)

1987, April or March – Huh, apparently I bought a cassette of Capital’s “Rarities” album; or possibly recorded a borrowed vinyl copy. I have no recollection of that at all, but I rated it an 8, so it happened.

And that’s it, no more Beatle entries after that last one, although a few more Lennon and Wings albums do appear before the entries stop in about March of 1993. And oddly, therer’s no entry for Please Please Me , even though I definitely dubbed a cassette recording of my friend’s CD copy sometime after 1987 or –8.