Songs By The Beatles

The Beatles Album Covers

Below you are going to find some really cool history about The Beatles album covers. Did you know that you get copies of the artwork from the Beatles album covers in the Beatles Box Set? I you are a huge beatles fan like I am, take a minute to check out my Beatles Box Set Review. The songs by the Beatles have never sound as good as they do in this box set. The best place to get them right now is Amazon, in my opinion. They have both new and used depending on how much you want to spend.

Like most things they did, The Beatles album covers were not only very innovative, but changed the way bands designed their album sleeves. After Sgt Pepper, designing album covers was never quite the same. Also, who of us hasn’t tried to imitate the Abbey Road cover in one form or another.

A brief history of The Beatles Album covers:

Please Please Me – The Beatles first album cover was a shot of the boys looking down from a stairwell at the EMI headquarters in London. Famed Welsh photographer Angus McBean took the shot. It is rumored the album was originally to be called ‘Off The Beatles Path’ with a cover designed by Paul. Though a reason why that was scrapped is not really known, one can speculate it was to capitalize on the brand recognition of The Beatles hit single at the time, ‘Please Please Me’.

With The Beatles – The second album cover is a black and white shot of the boys heads, half-light, and wearing turtlenecks. It was taken by Robert Freeman and is often used imagine of The Beatles when referring to this time period.

A Hard Days Night – On the second of five straight covers shot by Robert Freeman, this one has each Beatles in their own photo strip, an obvious reference to the film. Five images of each band member are lined up across the cover, again in the half-light style. The American soundtrack version of the album, show one shot of each of The Beatles from only their eyes up.

Beatles For Sale – The next Robert Freeman cover was shot of four unsmiling Beatles at Hyde Park in London. The ‘not so thrilled’ looks on their faces could be attributed to three full years of non-stop working they had been enduring. It was the first Beatles album to include a gate-fold (opens like a book). Inside is a photo of The Beatles standing in front of a bunch of film stills, including shots of Jayne Mansfield and Albert Finney to name a few.

Help! – This Robert Freeman-shot cover features the group in their ski-sequence outfits from the film of the same name. The idea was to have their arms positioned to spell a word using semaphore flag signaling. Spelling ‘H-E-L-P’ did look good though, so their arms were positioned to just be aesthetically pleasing. What they are ultimately spelling is ‘NUJV’. The American release spells ‘NVUJ’.

Rubber Soul – The Beatles album cover for Rubber Soulwas shot in John’s garden in Weybridge, Surry. It would be the final of five covers shot by Robert Freeman. Paul’s story of the cover, as told in the Anthology film, is that when Freeman was showing the guys the photos, he was projecting them on to cardboard. The cardboard slipped slightly during the process, giving one photo a slight elongated, stretched-out effect. They loved it and had the covers print that way.

Revolver – The Beatles asked their old buddy from Hamburg (and Manfred Mann bassist), Klaus Voormann, to design this album sleeve. The cover is a combination of photos by Robert Whitaker and line drawings by Voormann. His efforts earned him a Grammy Award in America for Best Album Cover for 1966.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The second Grammy Award winning album cover and probably the most famous album cover in music history. The original idea for the cover was Paul McCartney’s. He brought in famed London art director Robert Fraser to over see the project. Peter Blake designed the collage of life-size cardboard celebrities ‘hanging out’ behind The Beatles, although all four Beatles decided on who would or wouldn’t make the cut. The set was assembled in a studio in Chelsea, London where photographer Michael Cooper did the honors. Sgt. Pepper was also the first album to come with a set of printed lyrics and a sheet of cardboard with cut-outs, kind of a precursor to the merchandising that we see with today’s album and movie releases. Definetley the most famous of the Beatles album covers.

The Beatles – Yup, this is the official name of ‘the white album’ (for those of you that did not know) and it was designed by artist Richard Hamilton. This was The Beatles only double album. It did come with some color photos by John Kelley, the song lyrics, and a poster. It is the only Beatles studio album that does not have a photo of the Fabs on the cover.

Yellow Submarine – Officially, it was The Beatles 10th album, but it really only had two songs written for it. It was the soundtrack to the film that had come out earlier. The cover is the cartoon version of The Beatles and they had no artist contribution to it.

Abbey Road – Probably the most parodied of the Beatles album covers. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, the album was to be called Everest. When time came to actually head to the Himalayas for the photo, the group just really didn’t want to be bothered with it. The name Abbey Road was agreed on and it was shot in front of EMI’s Abbey Road studio on August 8, 1969 by Ian MacMillian. A few photos were taken of The Beatles walking back and forth on the crosswalk. All four lads agreed the cover had to show them walking away from the studio. Subconscious or on purpose, the choice is perfect for the album that contains the last songs they recorded as a group.

Let It Be – The final original album released by The Beatles. It features a close shot of each Beatles on the cover, taken by Ethan Russell during the filming of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. The album was to originally be called Get Back, referring to getting back to their roots and how they used to record. It was to come out before Abbey Road, but the sessions where not working out and the album, with its songs, was shelved. An album cover for Get Back was actually shot though. It was shot at EMI headquarters in the same stairwell, same pose, same camera angle as Please Please Me, showing the bearded Beatles 5 years later. The photo was instead used for the compilation Blue Album released in April of 1973.

Don't forget to check out my Beatles Box Set Review.......The Beatles Songs have never sound this good! And remeber, you get the artwork for the Beatles album covers too!!