Beatles Faux Sale!

My son John responds to the previous post:

The decision to release the American albums does not "make the most sense"; it distorts the Beatles' artistry. The fact that certain songs are on Revolver and certain songs are on Rubber Soul matters a lot; you can't just mix them around. For some reason, some executives decades ago decided that Rubber Soul would be better starting out with "It's Only Love" (John's least favorite song of his; intended to be on Help!, not Rubber Soul; and totally inappropriate as an opening track) and that Revolver would be better if it had more George songs (3) than John songs (2).



Some people, like you and me, understand this point, but a lot of people are going to be misled by these "albums." It's particularly bad because the original misleading was completely deliberate. It wasn't just saying, "Let's take out some filler to make the album shorter" (though that would have been bad enough). It was saying, "Rubber Soul starts with Drive My Car--that's bad, because we want the selling point to be that the Beatles are turning 'folk'--so start out with a slow acoustic song." Drive My Car sets the tone for the whole album. (It makes sense to have Drive My Car on the same album with Norwegian Wood, Michelle, and Girl; they're all joke songs.) If there are people who feel that it's "wrong" for the album to have Drive My Car, that's all the more reason to have it on there.



The only John songs on Revolver are the two side-closers, She Said She Said & Tomorrow Never Knows---creating the impression that Paul is the leader, the brains behind the Beatles, while John turns up every once in a while to do something heavy and far-out. Only the original album--with 3 extra John songs--gives a complete picture of the band. Again: This is not a problem for YOU, because you're aware of this. But if "Revolver" is being sold as a CD, teenagers are going to buy it mistakenly thinking, "I heard that this is the #1 album of all time."



(I know that those albums aren't being released yet, but presumably they'll be in "Volume 2" or something.)

UPDATE: Somebody emailed to tell me: "Your son sounds like a music snob." Somebody else emailed about this nice website dedicated to the Beatles' American albums.