George Harrison on the best and worst albums The Beatles ever made

I put forward an argument recently that I don’t think The Beatles would ever have reunited even if George Harrison and John Lennon had survived. Without going into too much detail, my argument was essentially that the four of them all had different ideas on what constituted good music towards the end of the band’s runtime, and that was only further emphasised when they embarked on their separate solo careers.

As such, the idea that they would ever be in a place where they agreed on what music they wanted to make is ambitious.

Unsurprisingly, when Harrison and Lennon were still alive, they were asked frequently about the possibility of Beatles reunions. They never went into too much detail about whether or not it would happen, but during one interview, George Harrison answered in a way which seemed to back up my theory, as he said he would be open to a reunion but they would need to have a mutual agreement on the kind of music they would be making.

“The four of us are so tied up with our own lives, and it’s been eight years since we split,” he said, “And time goes so fast. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, but we’d have to want to do it for the music’s sake first. We wouldn’t stick together because somebody had put an ad in the paper putting us on the spot.”

The main problem that The Beatles had was that no matter what personal issues they were having, they remained connected by the music that they made. They championed said music and were constantly looking for great songs that they could release. Eventually, they all got different ideas as to what good music actually was, and as a result, the band split.

If they were ever to get back together, their ideologies on music would have to align once more; however, as we can see from all of their subsequent solo careers, they went in completely different directions and continued to have varying perspectives on what constituted good music. As a result, for them to get to a place where, as Harrison put it, they were reuniting for the “music’s sake,” there would have to be some drastic changes in individuals’ mindsets.

This all begs the question: What does the best Beatles era look like for Harrison? When he was asked about his favourite records for the band, he said that he didn’t have any he felt strongly for or against, given he recalls the entire journey more than individual sections of it. That being said, there were two albums that stuck with him as positive, and one he remembers for poor reasons. So, what are they?

“I liked when we got into Rubber Soul, Revolver,” he admitted, “Each album had something good about it and progressed. There were albums which weren’t any good as far as I was concerned, like Yellow Submarine.”

If you were to ask each of the Beatles which albums they connected with the most and which they disliked, they would likely all have different answers to Harrison. A reunion probably couldn’t happen until all those answers were the same.