I’ve always been a casual “fan”, appreciating how influential they were and enjoying some of their songs, but I would never go out of my way to listen to their stuff. But I relistened to “I Am the Walrus” today and I’m actually blown away, it’s strays so far away from their usual pop stuff that I’m really interested now. So, give me a starting place (preferably an album) that showcases their best and most creative stuff. I say “psychedelic” because while the pop stuff is nice it’s not as engaging to me.

Your options are Magical Mystery Tour LP or Revolver. Unfortunately, their psychedelic stuff is spread over several releases – there’s also stuff on Pepper, Yellow Submarine, and Anthology 2.

MMT has I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields, Baby You’re A Rich Man, Blue Jay Way, Flying, and probably something else that I can’t think of this late at night. Those first two are two of their masterpieces. However, it’s not a “real” album – initially it was supposed to be a double EP but Capitol threw some spare songs on to make it up to LP length. There’s no cohesion or anything but the second half is hit after hit. Whew.

Revolver is their best album. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the real masterpiece on here, but there’s loads of psychedelic stuff, as well as great pop songs. Even something like “Here There And Everywhere” is quite trippy, but there are a few McCartney numbers that you might not be keen on.

I’d go with Revolver.

(fwiw, after Rubber Soul (arguably the best pop album ever thanks to songs like “In My Life”) the pop is outnumbered. The Beatles is a great album with loads of creative stuff, but nothing that could really be called psychedelic with a straight face.. Abbey Road will blow your mind, but is a bit piano heavy so if you’re not into that… and Pepper is iconic but divisive, for me it’s their weakest proper album in that run from RS to AR).

@Vesuvius When you say “piano heavy”, do you mean like Elton John/Billy Joel piano heavy? Because I love that kind of stuff.

The tricky thing about Beatles albums and psychedelia is that Paul Mccartney never really went that direction. While John and George were tripping out and philosophising, Paul was writing Tin-pan Alley songs about his dog. Because of this, none of the Beatles albums was fully psychedelic. Magical Mystery Tour is probably the place you will find the highest volume of psychedelia, because even Paul’s contributions to this album had a more trippy feel.

@DukeAM In that vein I guess, although McCartney isn’t as good on the piano as either of them and it’s pretty high-concept, for the time.

Well, The Beatles have some amazing stuff but as has been said, you are making a mistaken connection between their music that isn’t pop and psychedelic music. They only ever really showed glimpses of psychedelia, if you are looking for their simply their best work then I would say listen to Abbey Road and Revolver first. For me, they are their best albums. It’s hard to choose though.

love the white album and some tracks could be psychedelic in perspective.

Yup what everyone else says, Magical Mystery Tour, although The White Album was incredibly experimental