Fans have their own opinion about what work from a band is “the worst.” But, the artists themselves are bound to pick favorites now and then. Even with a beloved discography, there are high points and low ones. It’s an indisputable fact that even the Beatles couldn’t escape. Below, find each member of the Fab Four’s least favorite Beatles album.
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The Beatles’ Least Favorite Beatles Album
Ringo Starr
It has been well documented that Ringo Starr was finding it hard to cope with the omnipresent force of Paul McCartney and John Lennon toward the end of the band’s career. The drummer was growing bored of feeling like excess weight in the band while the two “Frontmen” of the Beatles got to stretch their wings creatively. As such, Starr’s least favorite Beatles album is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He found the album to be a bit swayed toward McCartney and Lennon.
“Sgt Pepper is my least favorite,” Starr once said. “Though it has some amazing stuff on it. It was [mainly] great for John and Paul to create all those sounds and get the violins in and instruments like that because they were their songs.”
Paul McCartney
For McCartney, it was a series of production changes that inspired his distaste for Let It Be. The changes, made by Phil Spector, were done so behind his back. It’s a well-known fact that McCartney had a distinctive vision for the Beatles. When his vision was changed without his go-ahead, he was reasonably upset.
“The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks,” McCartney once said. “No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn’t believe it.”
George Harrison
George Harrison was also finding it hard to cope with the unwavering creative vision of McCartney and Lennon during the making of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The guitarist was beginning to find his footing in music and spirituality, which made it hard to play second fiddle to that songwriting partnership. For the same reasons as Starr, Harrison once dubbed this Beatles album his least favorite.
“I was losing interest in being ‘fab’ at that point,” Harrison once said.
John Lennon
Lennon’s least favorite album is also Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While Starr and Harrison might have seen both McCartney and Lennon as a problem, Lennon thought the problem lied entirely with his songwriting partner. He found McCartney’s narrative style of writing “boring” and targeted toward an older crowd.
“These stories about boring people doing boring things,” Lennon once said. “Being postmen and secretaries and writing home. I’m not interested in writing third-party songs. I like to write about me because I know me.”
(Photo by John Pratt/Keystone/Getty Images)
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