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(New page: {{Infobox album | Name = Magical Mystery Tour | Type = studio | Artist = The Beatles | Cover = Magical_Mystery_Tour.jpg | Released = 27 November 1967 (US) |...)
 
 
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{{cquote|The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And what a fall it was ... The whole boring saga confirmed a long held suspicion of mine that The Beatles are four rather pleasant young men who have made so much money that they can apparently afford to be contemptuous of the public.|James Thomas, ''Daily Express''|1967}}
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{{cquote|We could easily have assembled a team of experts and asked them to come up with a first-class show for Christmas which would star The Beatles. But that would have been easy. We wanted to try and do it ourselves and we were expecting criticism but nothing as bad as we got. The mistake was that too many people were looking for a plot when there wasn't one. It was just a series of unconnected events, which we thought would be interesting or humorous or just pleasant to watch.|Paul McCartney|1968}}
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{{cquote|The thing is, there were a couple of main things that were really hashed up about the film. One was we made it in colour and it was put out, first of all, on BBC1, in black and white. There were whole big sequences that you just coudn't understand. I saw it on the telly and it just looked mad in black and white. [...] Everyone was expecting a sort of Christmas extravaganza and instead they got this mad film.|Paul McCartney|1968}}
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{{cquote|I loved it, because it was a trip, you know. Everyone was down on it, but it was all right. But there was too much 'nothing happening.' There was 'nothing happening at all.' There were nice moments, the dream sequence, the 'Your Mothern Should Know' sequence, you know, coming down with those silly suits on. But they [the critics] were gunning for us before that. What the BBC, stupid idiots, did was show it in black and white. Can you imagine? It doesn't look well in black and white. In colour you can just about manage it.|John Lennon|1968}}
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{{cquote|The anarchy that crept into the recording of 'Lovely Rita' was the beginning of the undisciplined, sometimes self-indulgent way of working that became a bit boring during ''Magical Mystery Tour''. Boring, that is, for those of us who were not Beatles! Letting your hair down now and again and having a good muck about is a nice idea; but 'freedom' does not automatically confer brilliance.|George Martin|1994}}
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{{cquote|This free form associative tinkering happened a lot after ''Sgt. Pepper'', on ''Magical Mystery Tour''. It was a side to The Beatles that I found rather tedious. I used to say to them, 'If you want to be random, let's be organised about it,' which was definitely not what they wanted to hear when they were in that mood. [...] When John brought along 'I Am The Walrus' later in 1967, I said, 'I see what you're trying to get out: it's very bizarre, but it's great. Let's organise it.' John went along with that.|George Martin|1994}}
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{{cquote|It was at around this time that the warning signs began to appear. The Beatles turned up at the studio unusually late one night &#151; near midnight &#151; and spent some seven hours in a stoned haze, jamming endlessly ... and pointlessly. Lennon had brought a big strobe light in, so at one point they turned out the lights and started running around as if they were in an old film. That lasted about five minutes, after which everyone started complaining of a headache. All four of them were completely out of it &#151; tripping on acid, probably &#151; and it was the first Beatles session I've ever attended where absolutely nothing was accomplished. Perhaps the first seeds of what was to become the instrumental track 'Flying' were planted that night, but for the most part it was just them being silly, much to the annoyance of George Martin, who was constantly bumming cigarettes off me, a sure sign of his frustration. He tried to point out to John, Paul, and George that their guitars weren't even in tune, but, giggling like children, they brushed him off, saying 'That's okay, we're just doing a demo.'|Geoff Emerick, EMI Recording Engineer, ''Here, There and Everywhere''|2006}}
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{{Infobox album
 
{{Infobox album
 
| Name        = Magical Mystery Tour
 
| Name        = Magical Mystery Tour
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| Cover      = Magical_Mystery_Tour.jpg
 
| Cover      = Magical_Mystery_Tour.jpg
 
| Released    = 27 November 1967 (US)
 
| Released    = 27 November 1967 (US)
−
| Recorded    = 24 November 1966&nbsp;&ndash; 7 November 1967, [[Abbey Road Studios]] and [[Olympic Studios]], [[London]]
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| Recorded    = 24 November 1966 &#150; 7 November 1967, [[Abbey Road Studios]] and [[Olympic Studios]], London
−
| Genre      = [[Rock music|Rock]], [[psychedelic rock]]
+
| Genre      = Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Pop
 
| Length      = 36:49
 
| Length      = 36:49
 
| Label      = [[Capitol Records|Capitol]]
 
| Label      = [[Capitol Records|Capitol]]
 
| Producer    = [[George Martin]]
 
| Producer    = [[George Martin]]
−
| Last album  = ''[[Revolver]]''<br />(1966)
+
| Last album  = ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (album)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]''<br />(1967)
−
| This album  = '''''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'''''<br />(1967)
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| This album  = '''''Magical Mystery Tour'''''<br />(1967)
−
| Next album  = ''[[Magical Mystery Tour (album)|Magical Mystery Tour]]''<br />(1967)
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| Next album  = ''[[The Beatles (album)|The Beatles]]''<br />(1968)
 
| Misc = {{Singles
 
| Misc = {{Singles
 
   | Name          = Magical Mystery Tour
 
   | Name          = Magical Mystery Tour
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   }}
 
   }}
 
   {{Magical Mystery Tour tracks}}
 
   {{Magical Mystery Tour tracks}}
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  {{Extra album cover 2
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  | Upper caption  = Alternate cover
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  | Type          = studio
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  | Cover          = MMT-German-Stereo_front.jpg
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  | Lower caption  = 1971 German MMT LP with every track in true stereo
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  }}
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}}
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{{Infobox album
 +
| Name        = Magical Mystery Tour
 +
| Type        = ep
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| Longtype    = ([[Double album|Double]] [[Extended play|EP]])
 +
| Artist      = [[The Beatles]]
 +
| Cover      = MagicalMysteryTourDoubleEPcover.jpg
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| Released    = 8 December 1967 (UK)
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| Recorded    = 25 April &#150; 7 November 1967, Abbey Road Studios and [[Olympic Studios]], London
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| Length      = 19:08
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| Label      = [[Parlophone]]
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| Producer    = [[George Martin]]
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| Reviews    =
 
}}
 
}}
  
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{{cquote|''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' was a musical fragmentation grenade, exploding with a force that is still being felt. It grabbed the world of pop music by the scruff of the neck, shook it hard, and left it to wander off, dizzy but wagging its tail. As well as changing the way pop music was viewed, it changed the entire nature of the recording game &#151; for keeps. Nothing even remotely like ''Pepper'' had been heard before. It came at a time when people were thirsty for something new, but still its newness caught them by surprise. It certainly caught me on the hop! [...] With ''Sgt. Pepper'' The Beatles held up a mirror to the world. And in this looking glass the world saw a brilliant reflection of its kaleidoscopic 1967 self. It saw not the shambolic and often absurd cavortings of the hippie movement, but its perfect image &#151; an elegant ideal; not the sordid gutterland of drug addiction, but the intriguing possibility of creative substance abuse.|quotewidth=500px|George Martin|2006}}
 
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{{cquote|''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is one of the most important steps in this group's career. It had to be just right. We tried and I think succeeded in achieving what we set out to do. If we hadn't, then it wouldn't be out now.|quotewidth=500px|John Lennon|1967}}
 
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{{cquote|You just have to keep striving for perfection. This LP, I think, is the best we've done, but only the best we could do at that time. The next one ought to be better. That's always got to be the goal. We were born as musicians. That's our gig in life. Whatever your gig is in life, you have to keep trying to improve, and you should improve if you're just soaking up life, and everything that's going on.|quotewidth=500px|George Harrison|1967}}
 
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{{cquote|'Sgt. Pepper' is Paul after a trip to America and the whole West Coast long-named group thing was coming in. You know, when people were no longer the Beatles or the Crickets-- they were suddenly Fred And His Incredible Shrinking Grateful Airplanes, right? So I think he got influenced by that and came up with this idea for the Beatles.|quotewidth=500px|John Lennon|1980}}
 
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{{cquote|It was an idea I had, I think, when I was flying from L.A. to somewhere. I thought it would be nice to lose our identities, to submerge ourselves in the persona of a fake group. We would make up all the culture around it and collect all our heroes in one place. So I thought, A typical stupid-sounding name for a Dr. Hook's Medicine Show and Traveling Circus kind of thing would be 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' Just a word game, really."|quotewidth=500px|Paul McCartney|1984}}
 
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{{cquote|We were fed up with being Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top boys approach. We were not boys, we were men. It was all gone, all that boy shit, all that screaming, we didn't want anymore, plus, we'd now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers... then suddenly on the plane I got this idea. I thought, 'Let's not be ourselves. Let's develop alter egos so we're not having to project an image which we know. It would be much more free.'|quotewidth=500px|Paul McCartney|1994}}
 
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{{cquote|''Sgt Pepper'', for me, wasn't our best album. That was the peak for everyone else and, for The Beatles, that was where they were really at their best. But, for me, it was a bit like being a session musician because we were trying to get a concept thing. ''Sgt Pepper'' was like a show; it wasn't just an album. It was like a stage show. [...] We were gonna do it like in a theatre. We'd do it in the studio and simulate it, but we didn't in the end. We did it for the first couple of tracks and then it faded into an album. [...] It was as if we did a few tracks and suddenly there was a fire and everybody ran out of the building, but we carried on playing. We played the greates, but everyone missed it!|quotewidth=500px|Ringo Starr|1967}}
 
  
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{{cquote|All we're trying to do is something different, you know. We spent a bit more time of the LP, just to try and generally make it better. When we make a record, we might be genuinely knocked out by it, but then, when we listen to it a few times, we realise that it's not as good as we think it is. That's what happened with ''Revolver''. When we first did it we were really knocked out by most of the tracks, but by the time the record was issued we were a bit fed up with it and looking towards the new one.|quotewidth=500px|George Harrison|1967}}
 
  
 
[[Category:Beatles Albums]]
 
[[Category:Beatles Albums]]

Latest revision as of 17:11, 7 December 2013

“ The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And what a fall it was ... The whole boring saga confirmed a long held suspicion of mine that The Beatles are four rather pleasant young men who have made so much money that they can apparently afford to be contemptuous of the public. „

—James Thomas, Daily Express, 1967
“ We could easily have assembled a team of experts and asked them to come up with a first-class show for Christmas which would star The Beatles. But that would have been easy. We wanted to try and do it ourselves and we were expecting criticism but nothing as bad as we got. The mistake was that too many people were looking for a plot when there wasn't one. It was just a series of unconnected events, which we thought would be interesting or humorous or just pleasant to watch. „

—Paul McCartney, 1968
“ The thing is, there were a couple of main things that were really hashed up about the film. One was we made it in colour and it was put out, first of all, on BBC1, in black and white. There were whole big sequences that you just coudn't understand. I saw it on the telly and it just looked mad in black and white. [...] Everyone was expecting a sort of Christmas extravaganza and instead they got this mad film. „

—Paul McCartney, 1968
“ I loved it, because it was a trip, you know. Everyone was down on it, but it was all right. But there was too much 'nothing happening.' There was 'nothing happening at all.' There were nice moments, the dream sequence, the 'Your Mothern Should Know' sequence, you know, coming down with those silly suits on. But they [the critics] were gunning for us before that. What the BBC, stupid idiots, did was show it in black and white. Can you imagine? It doesn't look well in black and white. In colour you can just about manage it. „

—John Lennon, 1968
“ The anarchy that crept into the recording of 'Lovely Rita' was the beginning of the undisciplined, sometimes self-indulgent way of working that became a bit boring during Magical Mystery Tour. Boring, that is, for those of us who were not Beatles! Letting your hair down now and again and having a good muck about is a nice idea; but 'freedom' does not automatically confer brilliance. „

—George Martin, 1994
“ This free form associative tinkering happened a lot after Sgt. Pepper, on Magical Mystery Tour. It was a side to The Beatles that I found rather tedious. I used to say to them, 'If you want to be random, let's be organised about it,' which was definitely not what they wanted to hear when they were in that mood. [...] When John brought along 'I Am The Walrus' later in 1967, I said, 'I see what you're trying to get out: it's very bizarre, but it's great. Let's organise it.' John went along with that. „

—George Martin, 1994
“ It was at around this time that the warning signs began to appear. The Beatles turned up at the studio unusually late one night — near midnight — and spent some seven hours in a stoned haze, jamming endlessly ... and pointlessly. Lennon had brought a big strobe light in, so at one point they turned out the lights and started running around as if they were in an old film. That lasted about five minutes, after which everyone started complaining of a headache. All four of them were completely out of it — tripping on acid, probably — and it was the first Beatles session I've ever attended where absolutely nothing was accomplished. Perhaps the first seeds of what was to become the instrumental track 'Flying' were planted that night, but for the most part it was just them being silly, much to the annoyance of George Martin, who was constantly bumming cigarettes off me, a sure sign of his frustration. He tried to point out to John, Paul, and George that their guitars weren't even in tune, but, giggling like children, they brushed him off, saying 'That's okay, we're just doing a demo.' „

—Geoff Emerick, EMI Recording Engineer, Here, There and Everywhere, 2006
Magical Mystery Tour
Studio album by The Beatles
Released 27 November 1967 (US)
Recorded 24 November 1966 – 7 November 1967, Abbey Road Studios and Olympic Studios, London
Genre Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Pop
Length 36:49
Label Capitol
Producer George Martin
The Beatles chronology
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(1967)		 Magical Mystery Tour
(1967)		 The Beatles
(1968)
Singles from Magical Mystery Tour
  1. "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever"
    Released: 13 February 1967 (US)
  2. "All You Need Is Love"/"Baby, You're a Rich Man"
    Released: 17 July 1967 (US)
  3. "Hello, Goodbye"/"I Am the Walrus"
    Released: 24 November 1967 (US)
Alternate cover
1971 German MMT LP with every track in true stereo
Magical Mystery Tour
EP (Double EP) by The Beatles
Released 8 December 1967 (UK)
Recorded 25 April – 7 November 1967, Abbey Road Studios and Olympic Studios, London
Length 19:08
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin
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