Talk:The Beatles discography

Gaining consensus

I have not heard any reasons so far as to what qualifies the American releases as studio albums (Wikipedia guidelines consider compilations to consist of released songs, meaning songs released anywhere in the world, not just in the country of the released album), so if anyone wants to offer a reason to include as non-compilations that is not original research, I'm open. In the meantime we can have a vote to see where things stand. My vote is clear, it's support. Editing this post because ironically it was unclear - my vote is to support the removing of these records from the main section "studio albums". SweetTaylorJames (talk) 06:27, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The US releases are studio albums in the same way the UK ones are, it's only in retrospect that a "canon" has been established to make things easier for the CD- and now streaming-age. Here in the post-Pepper era, it can be hard to wrap your head around the idea of a record label altering an album's track listing against the artist's wishes, but the fact that this practice has fallen out of favor is very much a product of the Beatles as artists. I'd quote Schaffner, but I see JG already did that above. To call Y&T similar to ACoBO is to entirely misunderstand what a compilation album is. Tkbrett (✉) 00:18, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not pushing for consensus anymore, it's not happening this time around and I accept it. But I certainly wouldn't say Y&T is similar to ACoBO, the latter is a very specific kind of compilation, the greatest hits variation if I'm not mistaken, sorry if it ever came across like I was saying that was the dominant kind of comp. But Wikipedia is a community project, so if we want the projects/alternates/remixes in the same category, I have no problem, it was always just a suggestion. There may even be a few records missing, if I'm not mistaken. SweetTaylorJames (talk) 01:47, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Per Tkbrett, "the fact that this practice has fallen out of favor is very much a product of the Beatles as artists" – that's bang on. And it's what contributed to the attention Rubber Soul received in the US, for instance, because Americans were in the unfamiliar position of having a new album by a major pop act without any hit singles on it at all. Whereas, in the UK, it was almost expected. That's an example of how the Beatles and other so-called British Invasion acts changed the US music industry and elevated albums as "works". The whole idea of us using the term "studio albums", as opposed to just albums or new albums, is reflective of that also. In the case of this discography page, the problem is it seems to be expected that we should squeeze a very well covered artists' catalogue, and one that's entirely logical as long as you accept US industry practice of the time, into a model that's applicable to a present-day, Wikipedia way of thinking – ie, the idea of studio albums.

I think we should be faithful to this artists' discography as it came about during their years of operation, rather than letting the retrospectively applied canon dictate. So, we list in the first section the albums as the Beatles created and issued them. (How we title the section, I'm not sure. I'm always reluctant to refer to their "UK albums" because, as I understand it, the whole world for the most part released the Parlophone configurations except the North American record companies – Vee-Jay, Tollie, United Artists and, finally when they woke up to the band's commercial value, Capitol.) Besides, this approach is in keeping with the way countless authoritative sources handle the Beatles' discography: Schaffner's The Beatles Forever, Castleman & Podrazik's All Together Now: The First Complete Beatles Discography, Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, Steve Turner's In Their Own Write, the Kenneth Womack-edited Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, etc. It's how Mark Lewisohn lays it out at the end of his Complete Recording Sessions book in 1988, even as he's listing the international standardisation that had just been established with the first CD releases.

This means listing all the canonical LPs except for Magical Mystery Tour, because it was created as a double EP (and appears under the section covering EPs). The next section then lists all the North American "new" albums, meaning the likes of A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver appear there also. The lead can refer to the post-1987, 13-album canon, but the latter needn't dictate how we present the discography for releases that took place in 1962–1970. JG66 (talk) 04:30, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with JG66 here. In my opinion, the lead section (which is entirely unsourced btw), should not mention anything their song list page mentions, meaning total songs, half of the entire third paragraph, literally all of the fourth paragraph, among others. It would be helpful to list the industry practice of no singles on UK albums vs the opposite on US albums at the time as that would help clear a few things up (I mentioned that on the song page but that very much applies here). In reality, it's a complicated situation because unlike the Stones', whose US albums are all still relevant, all Beatles US albums except MMT are irrelevant (although one could make a case for Meet the Beatles!, which Rolling Stone included on the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. The point is we can't act like they didn't exist because they did, and it seems like we're on the right track with how to handle them. – zmbro _(talk) 18:18, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

This debate is laughable. The US albums are compilations - compiled in America by an American label for the American market. Compiled from the British discography - so compilations by definition. I have no doubt at all that everyone arguing for the US albums being called studio albums is an American. No-one else would cling to such a silly idea. You just have to face facts - the Beatles were a British band recording in a British studio with British producer. They recorded albums in sets of sessions, so you have the Rubber Soul sessions, the Revolver sessions and so on. What some businessmen in some other country decided to do to package product for their domestic market is utterly meaningless. The UK albums are the studio albums, everything else just commerical marketing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7E:3923:C700:39B6:1B19:A0F2:F059 (talk) 17:28, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

And, conversely, is everyone arguing that the American versions ARE compilations British? Do you reflexively assume the British perspective superior just because you happen to be British? If so, you are grotesquely deceiving yourself. In any case, the Beatles were British only in the sense that the individual members were British; by far their largest market was the American market. Yes, the Anerican record company packaged the recordings as it saw fit, but then so did the British record company. The Beatles recorded "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields" for Sgt. Pepper, for example, yet these songs did not appear on the British (or any) Sgt. Pepper. Except for the first album, British and American versions were released at approximately the same time. Neither were compilations except in the sense that all albums at the time tended to be compilations (as has been pointed out at length above--do you read only your own posts and no one else's?). You may be too young to have any memory of this (and dismissive of anything you do not yourself personally remember) or you may simply be too myopic to see beyond your blindingly manifest British chauvinism. TheScotch (talk) 03:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

One thing I want to add to this discussion is that there were two albums released exclusively in Canada: Twist and Shout and The Beatles' Long Tall Sally. I would argue that the American and Canadian albums are of equal relevance, so if we're going to include the US releases, we ought to include the Canadian ones too. I propose that all the albums containing newly-released music for any market, international or North American, be considered equally and presented in one table with each album's market and label clearly denoted. We can use asterisks to indicate core catalogue releases (which would also include Past Masters). How to handle albums with different track listings but the same name (i.e. A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver) is still up for debate. RubeusIgnis (talk) 09:42, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

early Beatles #1's

I was an avid top 40 radio listener in the early 60's and am certain that I remember hearing The Beatle's for the first time AFTER the JFK assassination in November 1963. Wikipedia's discography has them scoring a US #1 with Love Me Do a year before that in 1962. I don't know how I could have missed that! The discography chart also indicates that I Want to Hold Your Hand was not a #1 song. I remember it as their very first one in the US. Unless my memory is totally warped, please correct this discography chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8081:4E01:B00:E4CC:BC17:E23D:A003 (talk) 17:57, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

"Love Me Do" was released in the UK in 1962, but in the US, it was released in 1964 (and reached No. 1 there in 1964). So you are correct, but the single chart table is also correct, it simply did not clarify that UK and US had different chart date. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" did reach No. 1, but the US release is given a separate entry in the table (it's given lower down), which may have confused you. I don't know if the way the singles are listed is the best way of doing it here, but others may have other suggestions on how to do it. Hzh (talk) 22:01, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I was momentarily confused in the same way--but only momentarily. There may be a better way to list these, but whether there is or not, historical circumstances make the matter inherently complicated. TheScotch (talk) 03:13, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Why is this erroneous discography here?

The years prior to 1964 show multiple singles reaching number 1 on US chart. Needs major fix. Looks like a Millennial posted something she heard from a seventeen-year-old. Nooksz (talk) 05:23, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not wrong, the reason is already given right above you. Hzh (talk) 12:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Another album

The Savage Young Beatles with Tony Sheridan 1961 108.7.53.192 (talk) 21:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Ownership history of the Beatles catalog

The ownership history of the Beatles catalog – both the songwriting and the recordings – is a long and complicated story.

There's a section of The Beatles about the song catalog that discusses that history. Should this article link back to that section? — Steve98052 (talk) 16:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)