The Beatles possessed a knack for changing the big picture while keeping their focus relatively small. They concentrated on writing and recording music with as much diligence and care as possible. In so doing, they caused a ripple effect beyond their original intent.
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For example, the group never consciously set out to change the balance of power in the music world between singles and albums. They ended up doing it anyway.
The Way It Was
It’s hard to imagine it now. But there was once a time in the world of pop music when the album was an afterthought. Kids were the target audience of early rock and roll. And kids played 45s. Their parents played albums. Thus, artists and labels made singles the focus.
Albums came as a secondary concern. If an artist had a hit single or two, they might go on to record an LP to try and milk that success. But minimal thought or preparation went into making these albums. Haste outweighed any concerns of start-to-finish quality.
Most early rock albums contained the hit single(s), which often factored into the title LP so that fans couldn’t miss them. They’d then quickly throw together some lesser originals and perfunctory covers. That’s where the term “filler” derives. Those extra songs served little purpose other than to fill up the running time.
Potent ‘Please’
When you look closely at The Beatles’ 1963 debut album (Please Please Me), it follows a lot of those unwritten rules about albums. The hits (“Please Please Me” and “Love Me Do”) are there. And then the Fab Four delivered their own version of filler. The fact that the album was recorded in a single night tells you that there wasn’t a lot of forethought put into it.
But The Beatles had reached an impressive level of proficiency in such a short time. As a result, they managed to transcend the limitations of the LP. Non-single originals like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “There’s A Place” came out sounding more accomplished than the hits delivered by other bands.
Meanwhile, they had honed cover songs like “Twist And Shout” and “Anna (Go To Him)” over so many years of playing them in concert that they made them sound fresh again. Please Please Me contains no filler, even though The Beatles had recorded it in such a way that there should have been uninspired material all over it.
No Filler Allowed
It’s fair to say that The Beatles still focused on singles for at least the first few years of their recording careers. Yet their albums never sounded rushed or phoned in. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting team proved so prolific that the LPs were stocked with top-grade material well beyond the big hits.
Only when The Beatles reached the album Rubber Soul did they truly start imagining the album as an artistic statement all on its own. Note that the title is completely separate from any of the songs on the record. That’s a dead giveaway that the band was starting to think of the LP as its own entity.
In 1967, The Beatles ensured that the album would be front and center going forward with the release of the seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But they started that process much earlier, without ever intending to do so, with their very first LP.
Photo by Alisdair MacDonald/Syndication /Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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