The Beatles have one of the greatest discographies of all time, sure, but also one of the weirdest.
It’s practically impossible to try and definitively track down the timeline of their releases, not just because the albums got fired out one after the other like a freight train, but because in between them, there’s a raft of iconic singles that stand completely independently, never attached to any other project.
It’s a totally unique approach to releasing music, certainly not one that any label executive would ever dream of even considering in this day and age, where you need to fight and therefore capitalise on any scrap of publicity you can possibly get. But quite simply, things were different in the 1960s. Attention spans were longer, competition perhaps not as fierce, and it allowed the Fabs to take a novel approach of releasing singles and albums as separate entities, with the two never crossing paths.
Stating the fact that it happened is all well and good, but it still begs the question of what exactly possessed The Beatles to go down this path in the first place, given that it was a method rarely shared by any other artist. Certainly, it did do them some favours in terms of marketing, as the near-constant onslaught of new music kept the money rolling in. But logically, wouldn’t it make sense to include a popular single on the subsequent album, making sure to sell more copies? That was true, but quite frankly, the band just didn’t need the extra acclaim.
Indeed, it was a principled decision from the Liverpudlian legends that they would never release the same song twice, hence why they never put out singles from their albums. But it just makes you think, is there a possibility that their back catalogue, as a collection of complete records, would have been made even more iconic if their most famous singles had been included in the fold? It’s almost too painful to bear.
Did The Beatles never feature singles on their albums?
I can practically hear your shouts through the screen: “But wait a second! I have some of The Beatles’ singles on copies of their albums that I own!” And yes, you would be correct. To this end, the practice of not releasing singles on their albums was only once enforced in the UK, with Capitol Records in the United States not following suit and putting the singles on the records, hence sometimes having different track listings across the pond.
There’s also the plethora of re-releases and Beatles anthologies that have been put out in more recent memory, naturally to create more cultural capital but also, frankly, to make it easier for the rest of us to wade through the discography without missing anything. Say what you like about the consumerist nature of the music industry and rehashing old material, but in the case of the Fab Four, it was well warranted.
As such, the fact that The Beatles chose not to include their singles as part of their albums is an issue that could split rooms. On the one hand, it could be seen as quite noble that they didn’t want fans to have to pay for the same song twice, but on the other, it just made the process of working through their back catalogue all the more difficult for anyone drawn to its greatness at a later date. It’s up to you to decide which camp you’re in.
