The Beatles Worst Three Studio Albums

I'm a huge Beatles fan and I've written many articles about how great The Beatles are. I've written articles about their greatest albums (The White Album, Revolver, Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper, etc) but today I've decided to do something a little bit different. What about The Beatles worst albums! I've decided to only consider their official UK studio albums to make it more tough (otherwise I might choose some awful compilation made by the record company at some point or another.)

#1 Yellow Submarine

The Yellow Submarine album only included six actual Beatles songs (the rest was rather boring instrumentals created by their producer George Martin.) And two of those songs ("Yellow Submarine" and "All You Need Is Love") had already been released. That means there were only four new songs on the album.

Two of those songs were by George Harrison ("It's All Too Much" and "Only A Northern Song.") One was by Paul McCartney ("All Together Now") and one by John Lennon ("Hey Bulldog.") I actually think "Hey Bulldog" and "It's All Too Much" rescue the album from being a total waste of time. These are two of the coolest of the lesser known Beatles songs. "All Together Now" and "Only A Northern Song" are a bit subpar by Beatles standards I suppose but I like them well enough.

Mostly I rank this album so lowly because it has so little new material on it, not that the new material isn't good (although it's not quite as great as it normally was.) The cool thing is that even with The Beatles worst album there were some gems that make it worth listening to (at least before it gets to those instrumentals which are a bit of a snooze fest.)

#2 With The Beatles

The Beatles second album lacked the energy and the punch of their first album, Please Please Me. It's way too heavy on the covers (and for the most part the covers aren't done particularly well) and the new songs aren't particularly fantastic (except for "All My Loving" of course.) That being said, I still enjoy the album well enough. I like their cover of "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" by Smokey Robinson. This album is actually ranked at #420 on Rolling Stone magazine's ranking of the top 500 albums of all time which is either proof of how great The Beatles were even when they weren't that great or proof that perhaps sometimes they are a little overrated.

#3 Please Please Me

The Beatles debut album was also among their worst in my opinion. Historically obviously it's of great importance and I do enjoy listening to it for those reasons. It also includes a few great early songs like "Please Please Me" and "I Saw Her Standing There" along with one of their greatest covers "Twist & Shout."

But Rolling Stone magazine ranks this album as the 39th best of all time and as huge of a Beatles fan as I am, I must say that that is ridiculous. They actually rank it above A Hard Day's Night? They rank it above Let It Be? They rank it above Magical Mystery Tour? And Help!? I definitely disagree in a serious way. I'd much rather listen to any of those albums than Please Please Me. Yes it was their first album and yes it has a certain "energy" to it as 10 of the 14 songs were recorded in a single day (the other 4 had been previously released on singles) but it's just not that good.

Dishonorable Mention: Beatles For Sale. You were probably expecting to see Beatles For Sale on this list as it's probably the most maligned Beatles album this side of Yellow Submarine and if I had a 4th slot I would have included it there. But I do find it more enjoyable to listen to than any of these three albums. Songs like "I'll Follow The Sun," "I"m A Loser," & "Every Little Thing" definitely do it for me and make up for the covers (I don't care for about 75% of the Beatles early cover songs.)