The Beatles Album Covers – Yellow Submarine

In 1966, seven months prior to the release of this album, Yellow Submarine, the film debuted. The album was based more or less on the film. The title track Yellow Submarine had been a single on the Revolver album, and the submarine appears in the story of Sgt.Pepper’s LonelyHearts Club Band.  

The cover artwork is very typical of the psychedelic era, a collage-like display of abstract images and colours with plenty of soft edges and swirls. The four band members are decked out in their finery poised atop a surreal surface above the submarine. The submarine is their mode of transportation while adventuring under the sea to save Pepperland and defeat the “Blue Meanies” (symbolic of the police, or bad politicians). Surrounding them are other images from the Sgt. Pepper’s story.   

There has been a great deal of interpretation of the artwork used for this cover. Some believe the submarine is like a capsule, a pill to oblivion and invites listeners to partake, others say is more a symbol of an arc, where we can gather our friends and come aboard.   

The Beatles Albums – With The Beatles

With Please Please Me still making waves, the follow-up album With the Beatles was recorded only four months later. Stylistically the sound was close to the bone of their first studio album. The musical development of the band was yet to really take hold as it did in later albums. With the Beatles seemed to be a simple continuation of the Lennon McCartney songwriting practice. This was also the period when they were branching out to write for other artists; most notably The Rolling Stones, Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas.  

The fab 4 were still reeling from the shock of overnight success, I guess it was a dangerous time in their early career to be taking chances and as Please Please Me had in fact pleased the world over – it seemed less risky to stick to a winning formula.