Order the Album

The Beatles' Tracklists From Please Please Me to Let It Be

Published by Shaaroo Games

The Beatles released their first album in 1963 and their last in 1970, and in those seven years the idea of what an album was changed completely. You can see the transformation without hearing a note, just by reading the tracklists in order. Track counts shift, closing songs change character, and the record itself goes from a collection of songs to a designed object.

This guide walks through the 13 Beatles albums in Order the Album, from Please Please Me to Let It Be, and looks at what the tracklists reveal. It also explains a common source of confusion: why the order you learned may not match the one in the game.

1963 to 1965: the 14-song album

The early albums follow a template that was standard in British pop at the time: around 14 songs, split across two sides, a mix of originals and covers.

Please Please Me was made fast. Most of the album was recorded in a single marathon session on 11 February 1963, and the four songs that came from earlier singles ("Love Me Do," "P.S. I Love You," "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why") were added to it. The session ended with the album's last track, "Twist and Shout," which was recorded at the end of the day when John Lennon's voice was already strained. That kind of loud, rough finish was the point.

The covers were a large part of the early records. With the Beatles has several, and Beatles for Sale leans on them heavily, with songs by artists such as Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins. That changes with the next album.

A Hard Day's Night and the all-original album

A Hard Day's Night (1964) is a milestone because it was the first Beatles album made up entirely of their own songs, written by Lennon and McCartney. It has 13 tracks and opens with its title song, which begins with one of the best-known opening chords in pop. It's also tied to the group's first film.

The tracklist shows a new confidence: no cover songs are needed to fill the album. From here, the band is a songwriting group first.

The closers change

A good way to see the band's progression is to look only at the final track of each album.

Four of the six albums before Revolver end on high-energy rock-and-roll covers. The exceptions are A Hard Day's Night, which is all originals, and Rubber Soul, which closes with an original too. By Revolver the habit is gone, and the album closes with one of the most experimental recordings the band ever made, built from tape loops and effects. Without reading a single review, you can tell the group is no longer trying to sound like a live band.

1966 to 1967: the album as a designed work

Revolver (1966) keeps the standard 14 tracks, but what's in them is far more varied: a string-quartet song ("Eleanor Rigby"), an Indian-influenced track ("Love You To"), a children's song ("Yellow Submarine") and the tape-loop finale. The mix of styles is the opposite of the earlier, more uniform albums.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) is the point where the whole album becomes the unit. It has 13 tracks, opens with its title song, includes a "(Reprise)" of that song as track 12, and ends with "A Day in the Life." The structure is deliberate in a way the early albums never were.

Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine: the odd ones out

Two entries in the catalog don't fit the pattern, and it's worth understanding why.

Magical Mystery Tour (1967) has 11 tracks in the game, including "I Am the Walrus," "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane." It started in the UK as a double EP of six songs to accompany a television film, while the 11-track LP was assembled for the US market by adding recent singles. It later became the standard version, which is why it looks so different from the 13 and 14-track albums around it.

Yellow Submarine (1969) has 13 tracks, but only a few are new Beatles songs. Most of the rest is orchestral film music written and arranged by their producer George Martin ("Pepperland," "Sea of Time" and so on). It's a soundtrack, not a regular album, and its tracklist shows it.

1968 to 1970: the White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be

The Beatles, usually called the White Album (1968), has 30 tracks, a double album with a blank white sleeve. It's the opposite of the tight 14-song template. It ranges from the heavy "Helter Skelter" to the quiet "Blackbird" to the sound collage "Revolution 9," and it ends with a lullaby, "Good Night."

Abbey Road (1969) brings the band back to a more disciplined shape, with 17 tracks, but arranged around the famous medley on side two. For many listeners, it's the best demonstration of how sequencing can turn short pieces into something larger.

Let It Be (1970) has 12 tracks, opens with "Two of Us" and ends with "Get Back." There's a twist in its timeline: it was released after Abbey Road, but most of it was recorded earlier, during sessions in January 1969. So although it appears last in the catalog, Abbey Road was actually the final album the band recorded together. That makes it a good question for a trivia night.

Why your version might not match

A lot of arguments about Beatles tracklists come down to the fact that the same album could exist in more than one version.

Order the Album uses a single standard tracklist for each album. If you're sure your order is right but the game disagrees, check which edition you grew up with.

Try it

A good way to feel the evolution is to play the albums in chronological order. Start with Please Please Me, notice how the closer works, and then jump to Revolver and Abbey Road. The change in how each record is built is clear even when you only look at the order of the songs.

You can see every Beatles album and its full tracklist on the Beatles page.

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