Beatles' Covert Art Awards

From: nealk@aol.com (NealK)
Date: 9 Jan 1996

I haven't seen this discussed here before, so I'll ask: Which Beatles album do you think has the best art on the album cover?

for its photography: With The Beatles
for its promotional bang-for-the-buck: Capitol's The Beatles' Second Album

for its high anticipation: Capitol's Something New
for its whimsy: Capitol's Beatles '65
for its promotional understatement: Capitol's Beatles VI
for its best recreation of the spirit of a movie: Capitol's Help!
for its philosophic undertones: Rubber Soul
for its sheer creative genius: Sgt. Pepper
for its metaphysical undertones: Revolver
for its truth in advertising: Capitol's The Early Beatles
for its lack of truth-in-advertising: Capitol's "butcher cover'" Yesterday... And Today
for its "on second thought..." approach: Capitol's Yesterday... And Today
for its take-off on film sprockets: A Hard Day's Night
for its trojan-horse innocence: Please Please Me
for its something-to-look-at-with-every-turn: Beatles For Sale

for its utter misdirection: Rock 'n' Roll Music
for its guaranteeing "Paul is dead" clues for the next 500 years: Abbey Road
for its going 360 degrees in the other direction: The Beatles (White Album)
for its "they have blue, so we'll have red" approach: UA's A Hard Day's Night
for its ignorance on semaphore signals: Help!
for its "well, it's sort of psychedelic, isn't it?" approach: Magical Mystery Tour
for its bold attempt to be artistic in America: Vee-Jay's Introducing The Beatles
for its lack of creativity: Parlophone's Rarities
for its "hey, at least it's better than Parlophone's" approach: Capitol's Rarities
for it's best use of a horrible photograph: Love Songs
for it's nice use of type: 20 Greatest Hits
for it's "what do you mean they don't look like the Beatles" approach: Reel Music
for its censorship: Capitol's Yellow Submarine
for its "we desparately need a long vacation" approach: Let It Be
for its high reminiscence and "Pete who?" approach: Anthology

for its perfect mod look: Parlophone's A Collection of Oldies... But Goldies
for its period recreation look: Live At The BBC!
for its best use of an idea that didn't happen: The Beatles 1962-1966, 1967-1970

All in good fun. Sort of. :-) Neal

And obviously another Tell Your List in comments here...