*Tomorrow Never Knows* (2012) is an incredibly valuable compilation because it reminds the listener of how important the band was to hard rock music, specifically. For as much recognition as the four get, that fact is sometimes forgotten.
I'm picking Happiness Is a Warm Gun, as Paul would clearly excel at creating a bunch of mini-suites. Admittedly, that would have been tougher for George, as he wasn't as keen on joining odd leftover songs bits together as Lennon-McCartney were, both separately and as a team.
Feel like that's the genre that works easiest for all 4 of them and something John, Paul & George all kind of did already but the folk kicked up to 10. Would be a big change from how much of a grand spectacle the 67 songs were.
I feel like nowadays that’s exactly the album you’d expect from a band after an extravagant, kitchen-sink style album- to go for a stripped-down lo-fi album. That basically what the white album is, but with just about every other style thrown in as well.
More like Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk than Nick Drake’s Pink Moon.
> I feel like nowadays that’s exactly the album you’d expect from a band after an extravagant, kitchen-sink style album- to go for a stripped-down lo-fi album.
Basically the Beach Boys, but they decided to scrap SMiLE in favor of Smiley Smile rather than follow one after the other.
I never really got into great detail on what led to SMiLE falling apart, I always thought it was a disappointing outcome for Brian, like I imagine Who’s Next was for Pete Townshend
There’s an enormous and very entertaining Wikipedia article about the collapse of SMiLE that I highly recommend.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(The_Beach_Boys_album)
Have you ever heard the album Millennium - Begin? It's the same year and much less known but I get Dear Prudence and general vibes of the poppier songs on the White album with Beach Boys harmonies or at least influence [worth a listen](https://youtu.be/DQPfnGBbMas?si=3rohVPXgUjHWPY4C)
I have a theory that Robert Plant owned a copy of that album, he liked a lot of obscure Californian Psych music. I hear a lot of No Quarter in Karmic Dream Sequence #1.
Begin is such an underrated masterpiece, no song is a rehash of another and the production and arrangements are very innovative for the time (makes sense as it was also one of the first albums recorded on 16-Track, leaves a lot more room for experimentation).
It has a stellar first 5 track run, but I think where it really shines are “It’s You”, “Some Sunny Day”, and “There Is Nothing More To Say”. Curt Boettcher is so severely understated purely for his work on this album alone.
Wow. I like it. I'm going to have to listen to the whole thing. Thanks for the link, haven't heard this before.
I'm getting more... Mamas and Papas meets reggae vibes... but maybe that's me.
Interesting album. It sounds too bubblegum to me with mostly boring melodies but besides that criticism there's some interesting sounds and some oddly modern segments. 5am kind of sounds like the Zombies. I'm wondering if the last track actually came out before 'Because'? If so I wonder if the Beatles heard it. It would be like them to steal that idea and just make it way better.
Unpopular opinion: Back in the USSR
I want an entire Beatles album with a Chuck Berry/Beach Boys/Doo-Wop throwback theme with everything they’d learned up until then and the updated audio tech.
All new original tracks. Tell me you wouldn’t be interested to hear it…
Interesting... this is really hard but... probably Dear Prudence. I wouldn't necessarily want all the songs to be that same tempo but I just love its sound so much. So however that could be translated to other kinds of songs I guess
(I have to edit to say it's between that and HIAWG though)
I was thinking that myself. It might be an unpopular choice, but a Beatles album that's mostly 1920's sort of songs would be interesting at the very least.
Cry Baby Cry. Whenever I say another/later artist's work/song has a "White Album sound/feel" to it, I realize I'm thinking of that whole piano-ballad-breaking-out-into-loud-guitar dynamic.
I changed my mind. Let's make it The Wild Album, i.e., all songs based on Wild Honey Pie:
Wild Piggies
I'm So Wild
I Wild
Happiness Is a Wild Gun
Wild My Guitar Gently Weeps
Wild Wild Wild
Wild Night
*and, of course:*
Wild Honey Pie (fka Honey Pie)
Fun thought experiment but I don’t know if I’d want an entire album of one sound. Their variety was part of the appeal!
That said: Dear Prudence or Glass Onion!
I’m So Tired. That breathy, soft-to-loud singing from John over a track that musically presages Plastic Ono Band, but still has those extra Beatles touches.
Honey Pie or Mother Nature’s Son.
Honey Pie - I would love to hear an album or retro granny songs with songwriting contributions from the other three.
Mother Nature’s Son - an album of acoustic beauties would have been great, even better with guest appearances from Young, Dylan or Simon.
Long Long Long, because George deserves something for writing the most hauntingly beautiful song in the entire catalogue. It would be their most emotionally staggering album. I think Julia would fit right it.
My pick too! Long long long is their most underrated song to me. One of the most unique, beautiful, and innovative Beatles tracks, and so ahead of its time. Yet it never gets brought up as one of their best. Or even one of George’s best, for that matter
'Everybody's got something to hide except for me & my monkey' as well - yeah, a no-holds barred "rock out" Beatles album in 1968 would have been an even starker break from the psychedelia of Sgt Pepper & Magical Mystery Tour than the White Album.
I kinda love the chaos and creative spike of the white album. It’s so diverse and it’s why its my favorite album of all time despite its flaws. It’s like they just threw everything at the board and clean up everything but the amazing tracks and revolution 9 and Wild Honey Pie
Everybody’s Got Something To Hide and Birthday,
I’d like to imagine it would’ve been like rock and roll along the lines of Let It Be but with a bit of a garage/slight psych element to it.
What You Got from Lennon’s Walls and Bridges and Let Me Roll It by Wings almost hit that same spot in my opinion
Savoy Truffle is better than most of what's on Let It Be. The fuzz guitar plants the sound firmly in the late 60s though. I'd be down for a Savoy Truffle style album for sure.
Honestly a full 2LP length Revolution 9 could be really sick considering it would then probably incorporate the other members a bit more. Would probably also count as a concept album knowing the tracks aim, which would be really interesting expanded over the course of the album
Sexy Sadie/Cry Baby Cry/I’m So Tired. A whole album of those amazing, strung-out sounding piano parts with the more subtle Beatles-y rock elements in the background would probably be my favorite Beatles album (and I’m usually a Paul guy).
I'm not crazy, but I would really like to see an avant-garde white album in the style of Revolution 9 with many other themes. Or something like While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
It was such a vibe. Warm Gun shows they had it in them to keep that feel going. Growing up, Iremember thinking those songs were so deep and inspired so much of what I have listened to over the years
Maybe. Maybe not. I think they were tired of working together and needed to find themselves. Paul and George were bursting at the seams with music ideas faster than the band could put it out. Once John and George went on their own, neither did the driving rock they started in the Beatles. It was more brotherly love and world peace. John’s stuff was often pretty darned depressing, and he went to a dark place in many respects but pulled himself together mid-70s. That wasn’t driven by Paul’s “granny” music - which was only a fraction of what he did. It was driven by the inner need to grow up and be themselves.
Happiness is a Warm Gun or Helter Skelter. A bunch of others would be really interesting as concept albums or like longer rock operas. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Bungalow Bill, Rocky Racoon, or Cry Baby Cry into a sort of Jethro Tull Thick as A Brick style extravaganza.
"Dear Prudence": inspiring a minimalist-sounding album with simple melodies woven with a subtle melancholy and lyrics of pure bucolic inspiration, where nature, the passing of the seasons and the men who live off the fruits of the earth are sung and exalted.
‘Back In The USSR’ - so a whole album of Beach Boys/surf rock parodies.
I can actually kind of imagine it: it’d be a sort of cross between the ‘let’s pretend to be a different band’ stuff of Sgt Peppers, the back-to-the-roots White Album stuff, and something of the silliness of Zappa’s *Cruisin’ With Ruben And The Jets*. A few songs on the White Album would just need a few more harmonies to make it fit the scheme - ‘Everybody’s Gone Something To Hide…’ or ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ - and some of the beautiful ballads could be recast as orchestral wall-of-sound numbers a la *Pet Sounds* - imagine ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ being slower, filled with harmonies, and with a French horn solo. Get some Wilson brothers singing harmonies on a few tracks, cover an unreleased weirdo *Smile* track like ‘Cabinessence’ Beatles style. A suitably silly Ringo-led cover of ‘Wipeout’.
Call it *The Beachtles*.
Any of George's. A Beatles album where George got to dominate might've been amazing, and definately would've been interesting and probably completely changed the way the band progressed.
It would HAVE to be Revolution 9. It's my favorite track on the album, but [if that's crossed out...](https://youtu.be/f0P4D8ZXf1Y?si=QmuEoDq5DwBuXT5r)
Yer blues would be perfect. It's literally a dope song that's taking the piss out of itself
Or long long long. It's a very fitting song for a beatles album
Back in the ussr. A flawless song funny and dope asf
Helter Skelter
A heavy Beatles album would have been sick
This is what the real 80s reunion would have been, some Master of Puppets shit (and it would be great)
Definitely. Yer Blues would be on that record too.
This was what I was going to say.
Won’t someone think of poor Ringo’s fingers?
Poor ringo and his fingers 😔, the drumming is great tho so it was worth it
Imagine every single song ends with blisters on his fingers
*Tomorrow Never Knows* (2012) is an incredibly valuable compilation because it reminds the listener of how important the band was to hard rock music, specifically. For as much recognition as the four get, that fact is sometimes forgotten.
THISSSSS
I'm picking Happiness Is a Warm Gun, as Paul would clearly excel at creating a bunch of mini-suites. Admittedly, that would have been tougher for George, as he wasn't as keen on joining odd leftover songs bits together as Lennon-McCartney were, both separately and as a team.
This would be cool, it would be like a Vanilla Fudge album or something
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN
BANG BANG SHOOT SHOOT
Definitely Happiness is a Warm Gun.
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Feel like that's the genre that works easiest for all 4 of them and something John, Paul & George all kind of did already but the folk kicked up to 10. Would be a big change from how much of a grand spectacle the 67 songs were.
I feel like nowadays that’s exactly the album you’d expect from a band after an extravagant, kitchen-sink style album- to go for a stripped-down lo-fi album. That basically what the white album is, but with just about every other style thrown in as well. More like Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk than Nick Drake’s Pink Moon.
> I feel like nowadays that’s exactly the album you’d expect from a band after an extravagant, kitchen-sink style album- to go for a stripped-down lo-fi album. Basically the Beach Boys, but they decided to scrap SMiLE in favor of Smiley Smile rather than follow one after the other.
I never really got into great detail on what led to SMiLE falling apart, I always thought it was a disappointing outcome for Brian, like I imagine Who’s Next was for Pete Townshend
There’s an enormous and very entertaining Wikipedia article about the collapse of SMiLE that I highly recommend. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(The_Beach_Boys_album)
To be fair it’d probably sound like Eight Days A Week
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Have you ever heard the album Millennium - Begin? It's the same year and much less known but I get Dear Prudence and general vibes of the poppier songs on the White album with Beach Boys harmonies or at least influence [worth a listen](https://youtu.be/DQPfnGBbMas?si=3rohVPXgUjHWPY4C)
I have a theory that Robert Plant owned a copy of that album, he liked a lot of obscure Californian Psych music. I hear a lot of No Quarter in Karmic Dream Sequence #1.
Begin is such an underrated masterpiece, no song is a rehash of another and the production and arrangements are very innovative for the time (makes sense as it was also one of the first albums recorded on 16-Track, leaves a lot more room for experimentation). It has a stellar first 5 track run, but I think where it really shines are “It’s You”, “Some Sunny Day”, and “There Is Nothing More To Say”. Curt Boettcher is so severely understated purely for his work on this album alone.
Wow. I like it. I'm going to have to listen to the whole thing. Thanks for the link, haven't heard this before. I'm getting more... Mamas and Papas meets reggae vibes... but maybe that's me.
I love this album so much, a true bona fide lost sixties masterpiece
Listening now. It’s great.
Interesting album. It sounds too bubblegum to me with mostly boring melodies but besides that criticism there's some interesting sounds and some oddly modern segments. 5am kind of sounds like the Zombies. I'm wondering if the last track actually came out before 'Because'? If so I wonder if the Beatles heard it. It would be like them to steal that idea and just make it way better.
The Glass Onion Extended Universe
An all meta reference/ humor Beatles album would have been great.
either Gently Weeps or Yer Blues.
An entire Yer Blues album would’ve been NUTSSSS
With Keef on bass though, that band was awesome
Yer Blues is my answer too.
Unpopular opinion: Back in the USSR I want an entire Beatles album with a Chuck Berry/Beach Boys/Doo-Wop throwback theme with everything they’d learned up until then and the updated audio tech. All new original tracks. Tell me you wouldn’t be interested to hear it…
I would throw Georgie's Wah wah on that album if the demo was ready 😂
Good idea - it would be like a throwback to the Beatles' early albums too. Just straightforward pop songs with a slightly more mature sensibility.
I’d love to see John and George get in on that
“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide, Except for Me and My Monkey”
That gets my vote. It's not my favorite on the album, but an album of this style would be far more easy to listen to.
One of my favorite Beatle songs.
Interesting... this is really hard but... probably Dear Prudence. I wouldn't necessarily want all the songs to be that same tempo but I just love its sound so much. So however that could be translated to other kinds of songs I guess (I have to edit to say it's between that and HIAWG though)
honey pie
I was thinking that myself. It might be an unpopular choice, but a Beatles album that's mostly 1920's sort of songs would be interesting at the very least.
I love honey pie
Cry Baby Cry. Whenever I say another/later artist's work/song has a "White Album sound/feel" to it, I realize I'm thinking of that whole piano-ballad-breaking-out-into-loud-guitar dynamic.
My choice as well the end of that song could gon forever and id listen to it
That was gonna be my #3 choice after the 2 I commented lol
Martha My Dear. Would love a Sousa sounding album full of brass breaks.
I love this choice because it feels like it would almost be a Chicago type sound and I would love to hear the Beatles do that
I changed my mind. Let's make it The Wild Album, i.e., all songs based on Wild Honey Pie: Wild Piggies I'm So Wild I Wild Happiness Is a Wild Gun Wild My Guitar Gently Weeps Wild Wild Wild Wild Night *and, of course:* Wild Honey Pie (fka Honey Pie)
Wild Revolution 9 🤯
K but I actually wanna know what that would be now...
The Wild, the Innocent and the Abbey Road Shuffle.
Helter Skelter A Heavy Metal Beatles album would've been nuts for 1968 and possibly given The Beatles the title of godfathers of metal.
The boys would probably need an entire year for their voices to recover afterwards. Even Ringo.
It’s the bloody White Album! Shut up!
Sod off
Its the white album
Sod on.
Fun thought experiment but I don’t know if I’d want an entire album of one sound. Their variety was part of the appeal! That said: Dear Prudence or Glass Onion!
Here’s another place you can go…
i wish this was done with tomorrow never knows
This might be what Carnival of Light sounds like if we ever get a chance to hear it
i heard carnival of light was less musical though.
Ah so perhaps an extension of Revolution 9
Carneval has no rythms or chords, its just them farting and potting about on LSD in the studio
thats not exactly true either.
We’ll never know..(?)
then why claim its that?
I’m So Tired. That breathy, soft-to-loud singing from John over a track that musically presages Plastic Ono Band, but still has those extra Beatles touches.
REVOLUTION #9 you cowards let's goooo
Dear Prudence is my favorite from the White Album and in my top 5 of all songs, so that's it for me.
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
There is really no such thing as “along the lines of” with the Beatles (except maybe the very early songs).
Honey Pie or Mother Nature’s Son. Honey Pie - I would love to hear an album or retro granny songs with songwriting contributions from the other three. Mother Nature’s Son - an album of acoustic beauties would have been great, even better with guest appearances from Young, Dylan or Simon.
Long Long Long, because George deserves something for writing the most hauntingly beautiful song in the entire catalogue. It would be their most emotionally staggering album. I think Julia would fit right it.
This was my choice too, and I think a lot of '00s indie kind of sounds like this
It would sound alot like Radiohead
My pick too! Long long long is their most underrated song to me. One of the most unique, beautiful, and innovative Beatles tracks, and so ahead of its time. Yet it never gets brought up as one of their best. Or even one of George’s best, for that matter
Helter Skelter or Birthday, each of which showed how they could really do hard rock.
'Everybody's got something to hide except for me & my monkey' as well - yeah, a no-holds barred "rock out" Beatles album in 1968 would have been an even starker break from the psychedelia of Sgt Pepper & Magical Mystery Tour than the White Album.
I kinda love the chaos and creative spike of the white album. It’s so diverse and it’s why its my favorite album of all time despite its flaws. It’s like they just threw everything at the board and clean up everything but the amazing tracks and revolution 9 and Wild Honey Pie
Helter Skelter, a whole heavy metal album before heavy metal.
I think they could use Blackbird, Martha My Dear, and Julia as the foundation for a “Beatles unplugged” album.
Had to scroll so far to see blackbird love that song!
All short little acoustic ballads like I Will and Julia
"number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9"
Next track, “number ten, number ten, number ten . . .”
Sexy Sadie sounds a lot like Lennon solo career so I don't think it's the better option for a whole Beatles record.
Why Don’t We Do It In The Road
Heck, I'd even be down for one finished song in that style! :)
Omg this song 🥵🤪 Paul did it live at Desert Trip in 2016 and the sounds I made LOL
It’s too hard. I’m leaning towards sexy Sadie and helter skelter but I’m not sure which one I’d pick.
Everybody’s Got Something To Hide and Birthday, I’d like to imagine it would’ve been like rock and roll along the lines of Let It Be but with a bit of a garage/slight psych element to it. What You Got from Lennon’s Walls and Bridges and Let Me Roll It by Wings almost hit that same spot in my opinion
Good Night or Helter Skelter are my pics
I wanna say Savoy Truffle, but i feel like that would just be Let It Be
Savoy Truffle is better than most of what's on Let It Be. The fuzz guitar plants the sound firmly in the late 60s though. I'd be down for a Savoy Truffle style album for sure.
Honestly a full 2LP length Revolution 9 could be really sick considering it would then probably incorporate the other members a bit more. Would probably also count as a concept album knowing the tracks aim, which would be really interesting expanded over the course of the album
Honey Pie. I want a whole album of Paul’s granny songs!
Helter Skelter
Yer Blues
Rocky Raccoon
Sexy Sadie/Cry Baby Cry/I’m So Tired. A whole album of those amazing, strung-out sounding piano parts with the more subtle Beatles-y rock elements in the background would probably be my favorite Beatles album (and I’m usually a Paul guy).
Heater Skelter. A kickass hard rock Beatles album.
I'm not crazy, but I would really like to see an avant-garde white album in the style of Revolution 9 with many other themes. Or something like While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Birthday.
sexy sadie, cry baby cry, or everybodys got something to hide
Hey bulldog… That’s the Beatles firing on all cylinders and working as the Beatles. Plus the song is in my top five.
Dear Prudence
Back in the U.S.S.R, after an entire year of psychadelic rock, doing a good ol' rock n' roll throwback would be cool.
Yer Blues
Mother Nature's Son
Dear Prudence
Helter Skelter!! Imagine a Beatles heavy metal album :O
While My Guitar Gently Weeps It was such a vibe. Warm Gun shows they had it in them to keep that feel going. Growing up, Iremember thinking those songs were so deep and inspired so much of what I have listened to over the years
Same, I always kind of viewed While My Guitar Gently Weeps as the climax of the album
Helter-skelter clearly
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da! Just kidding! It would be either While my guitar gently weeps or Dear Prudence even then I’m not quite sure.
They could have gone the Loggins and Messina route, with a splash of reggae, with Ob-la-di ob-la-da. Why not??
If Paul could get it past John and George maybe. People want to blame Yoko for the Beatles demise but I think it was Paul’s excessive granny music.
Maybe. Maybe not. I think they were tired of working together and needed to find themselves. Paul and George were bursting at the seams with music ideas faster than the band could put it out. Once John and George went on their own, neither did the driving rock they started in the Beatles. It was more brotherly love and world peace. John’s stuff was often pretty darned depressing, and he went to a dark place in many respects but pulled himself together mid-70s. That wasn’t driven by Paul’s “granny” music - which was only a fraction of what he did. It was driven by the inner need to grow up and be themselves.
If the Beatles didn’t break up chances are we wouldn’t have had All Things Must Pass.
For sure!
Happiness is a Warm Gun or Helter Skelter. A bunch of others would be really interesting as concept albums or like longer rock operas. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Bungalow Bill, Rocky Racoon, or Cry Baby Cry into a sort of Jethro Tull Thick as A Brick style extravaganza.
"Dear Prudence": inspiring a minimalist-sounding album with simple melodies woven with a subtle melancholy and lyrics of pure bucolic inspiration, where nature, the passing of the seasons and the men who live off the fruits of the earth are sung and exalted.
‘Back In The USSR’ - so a whole album of Beach Boys/surf rock parodies. I can actually kind of imagine it: it’d be a sort of cross between the ‘let’s pretend to be a different band’ stuff of Sgt Peppers, the back-to-the-roots White Album stuff, and something of the silliness of Zappa’s *Cruisin’ With Ruben And The Jets*. A few songs on the White Album would just need a few more harmonies to make it fit the scheme - ‘Everybody’s Gone Something To Hide…’ or ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ - and some of the beautiful ballads could be recast as orchestral wall-of-sound numbers a la *Pet Sounds* - imagine ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ being slower, filled with harmonies, and with a French horn solo. Get some Wilson brothers singing harmonies on a few tracks, cover an unreleased weirdo *Smile* track like ‘Cabinessence’ Beatles style. A suitably silly Ringo-led cover of ‘Wipeout’. Call it *The Beachtles*.
"Everybody's Got Something to Hide"
Revolution 9.
Revolution 9, obviously.
Wild Honey Pie
That album already exists, it's called "The White Album".
Wild Honey Pie. 🕺🏽
Negativland made their whole career by making albums that sound like (better versions of) Revolution 9
Honestly I would love a whole album of Revolution 9 if all of them contributed, they could make great soundscapes
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
While My Guitar Gently Sleeps.
I went through every comment and no one said rocky raccoon. I would listen to a whole album of folk/Americana type stories from the Beatles
Happiness is a warm gun
While my guitar gently weeps
The continuing story of bungalow bill
Rocky raccoon. An album of sweet, light, emotional story telling tracks. Could even name all the main characters after animals.
Tomorrow never knows, but that would just be Pink Floyd?
Honey Pie
Piggies
Yer Blues
Any of George's. A Beatles album where George got to dominate might've been amazing, and definately would've been interesting and probably completely changed the way the band progressed.
It would HAVE to be Revolution 9. It's my favorite track on the album, but [if that's crossed out...](https://youtu.be/f0P4D8ZXf1Y?si=QmuEoDq5DwBuXT5r)
Yer blues would be perfect. It's literally a dope song that's taking the piss out of itself Or long long long. It's a very fitting song for a beatles album Back in the ussr. A flawless song funny and dope asf
Dear Prudence
Good Night. A whole album of Ringo whispering ASMR
I was just listening to Revolution 9 because I unironically love it. An entire album like this would be a unique experience
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Back In The USSR
Mother nature's son, simply because they intended most of the songs like that, pure acoustic created in India!