Magical Mystery Tour Album

Magical Mystery was so crazy. Although we have only seen small clips of the movie, the overall madness and drug-fueled music videos are pretty evident from the start. I really like the second half of the album with songs like Hello Goodbye, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and I Am the Walrus. I Am Walrus had the weirdest music video I think that I have ever seen in my life. But the overall songs in the album are very good, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the album.

Sergeant Peppers Album

I liked the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a lot. The beginning was very good, the middle of the album was decent, and the end song was very good. Although I think that Pet Sounds was a better album, I liked the good individual songs off of Sergeant Peppers better than the good individual songs off of Pet Sounds. A Day in the Life, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and With A Little Help From My Friends are some of the best songs ever. Though Sergeant Peppers isn't necessarily consistent in quality throughout the entire album it is still very good, and I believe it to be the best Beatles album we have listened to so far.

Instruments in Pet Sounds

I found the instruments in Pet Sounds to be very interesting. The use of the string instruments and the various animal and bell sounds were really weird but cool at the same time. Another really important aspect of these sounds is how much they were copied in the future. In All You Need is Love there is a large orchestral component that I'm sure was copied from this album, and there are many other important songs that were based off of the sounds in this album. The revolutionary sounds found in this album ,aptly named Pet Sounds, are very groundbreaking and as said in class these tracks will always sound cool and hip because of this.

Pet Sounds

I thought that Pet Sounds was a very good album. It had a very unique sound to it. Integrating new instruments and straying away from their usual surfy sound, must have been very hard for the Beach Boys to do. But the album sounded great and was very easy to listen to. I think that my favorite two songs were "Wouldn't it be Nice" and "Sloop John B." although the latter one did not fit into the general vibe of the album at all. I think that Pet Sounds altogether topped Revolver by a lot, and was a little bit better than Rubber Soul, but I don't think that it will be able to compare to the greatness of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Beatles Revolver Album

I thought that Revolver was a pretty decent album. It had a distinctly modernistic sound to it, and at some points I liked it, but at other points I didn't. I really liked the quirkiness of "Yellow Submarine" and the violins in " Eleanor Rigby". However, there were some times where the weird modern approach didn't sound very good, such as in the last song of the album, " Tomorrow Never Knows". I think that the gentle transition in Rubber Soul was better than in Revolver, but Revolver was definitely a very good composition. The one thing I can't wait for now is to listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Beatles Rubber Soul Album

I think that Rubber Soul was a very good album. There was an interesting transition between Help! and Rubber Soul, and I liked the new sound of the Beatles. They seemed a little bit more versatile, especially when they integrated the sitar in "Norwegian Wood" and the piano snippet from "In My Life". Earlier in their career they were still extremely good musicians but in my opinion about 50% of their songs sounded the same. In listening to Rubber Soul this was definitely disproved. The songs all sound unique and this makes it all the more better.  As said in class today, the twist seems to happen within the first two songs of the albums,  "Drive My Car" and "Norwegian Wood". "Drive My Car" is kind of bouncy and fun, whereas "Norwegian Wood" is mellow and a little bit more serious, and also has a sitar playing during the song. I really liked Rubber Soul, and in my opinion it was definitely the best album we have listened to so far this school year.

Thriller

That music video for Thriller was awesome! I thought it was really amazing, well directed, incorporated the song well, and had a really surprise ending. It must have been a huge shock when it came out because of all the "satanic" undertones, even though now a video like that would make a very small splash in the news today. However, the shock element must have contributed greatly to its record sales, and I like the controversial music video.

Help

The movie Help was decent, but had a very confusing plot, and was hard to understand with all the accents and the different characters. But, it was a fairly enjoyable watching experience, and it was interesting. I find it cool that the Beatles actually released movies unlike most any other band I have ever heard of. I think that Hard Day's Night was better, but Help was still alright. The soundtrack for Help, however was better.