[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

A toss between Revolver and Rubber Soul. Diluted psychedelia.

Rubber Soul would have been my number two after Revolver actually.

Not saying there's nothing psychedelic about Sgt. Peppers and the White Album. However, by the point of the later stuff the group had taken on a direction that was rooted in their awareness of their importance and all of the critical comparisons of them to 20th Century composers. Whether one likes the music or not (I overall like it) they were certainly approaching their existence as significantly more than a psych-rock act at that stage and the records show this. Particularly the White Album, which is many different things all over the place. George Harrison was quoted at the time as saying he didn't actually like the album because it had too many different directions at once.

[Disgruntled Youth]

Magical is awesome but I would have to say White is def in every direction & Sgt. Pepper is up there as well.

[atari 2600]

This thread is extraneous to a large degree.

Magical Mystery Tour is widely regarded as the most "psychedelic" of all The Beatles albums, although a strong case is often made for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from earlier the same year (June 1967).

That's not to state that Magical Mystery Tour is the best one, but is the most "psychedelic."
The White Album is highly "psychedelic" too due to the lyrics and variety of songs; and it also, of course, features "Revolution #9." All in all, there's simply way too much going on with The White Album to classify it as, in this case, merely "psychedelic," because The Beatles (1968) is a work of fine musical modern art. Remember, modern art is more concerned with process than craft.

[RdTv]

I agree on the extraneousness of what has become of the thread. I by no means am stating that Magical Mystery Tour was the best album, merely the one with the most signs of psychedelia. Funny thing is I'm no huge Beatles fan, but I do like good 60's psyche music and have come to the conjecture that songs like Flying, Blue Jay Way, I Am The Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever (all on MMT) are some of the more ''psyche'' songs that they had at their disposal.

Granted the word ''psychedelic'' means different things to different people, as has been previously stated.

[atari 2600]

Well, for the Beatles, "psychedelic" meant a few things. It meant that their sound had gotten more sophisticated through studio experimentation led by John and the exemplary production expertise of George Martin. And it meant that they specifically were setting out, as they had in the past here and there, to not only reflect the culture but to impact it as well. So they borrowed concepts from the cultural zeitgeist and lexicon...."I love to turn you on," and so on. They had already seen how Pepper became more than just a good Beatles record, and eclipsed their expectations to become a pop phenomenon for the ages in the "Summer of Love." So they set out to once again attempt to one-up themselves with other songs they had been working on. Specifically, they went wild with "I Am The Walrus" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" and also devoted one song to the peace message, (as a message song) with "All You Need Is Love."
And since psychedelia is tied-up with the visual aspect as well, they made a really bad one-off "surrealist" art film (John really wanted to be an actor too) to go along with the MMT album.

Their spiritual quest led them to India where instead of finding enlightenment, they discovered deep disillusionment. Their manager Brian had died, Yoko had come on the scene, and there were other internal problems and squabbles that came along with setting up Apple Records; they were on the verge of self-destruction and splitting up. Apple had been a dream, a vision of truly sponsoring the arts and emerging artists, but the financial aspect of it all took its toll, and their disillusionment grew greater. But somehow, they managed to make their best album amid all this tumult in The White Album. Their lives had become miserable, (although they didn't quite hate each other just yet---Ringo's quitting briefly helped the situation) and work on The White Album from the songs they had composed in India was the only thing at that time that kept them going. Because they are artists, they lost their worries in the art. In their mutual world-weariness, as a group they honestly got to a point that they no longer cared what people would think about their music anymore. And there you have the source of the intense beauty in that particularly fine work.

[Kallisti23chaos]

i'll go with sgt.peppers if described as "the most psychedelic" but i think the white album is the very best.
also i heard lennon asked about the significance of LSD and lucy in the sky and he came with some excuse about sean , anyways, i heard him say the song that was about LSD was glass onion.

[flophousefloozie]

Yeah, it was apparently based on a drawing Sean made of a women named Lucy, flying in the sky with diamonds surrounding her.

[atari 2600]

 

[flophousefloozie]

Wow. I've never actually seen it. Thanks.