Maps of Music

Yesterday and Today (1966)

Where the lyrics of Yesterday and Today take you, and where it was really made.

Capitol printed about 750,000 copies of this album with the 'butcher cover', then recalled them and pasted a new cover over the old art.

Key places

Abbey Road Studios: recording location (1966)

Recording site Abbey Road Studios — Listed as a recording location for this album in MusicBrainz. Studio 3 of the same building is merged into this point. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: Jubilee line to St John's Wood station, then about a 5-minute walk.

Album story

Overview

• Yesterday and Today: studio album by the English rock band the Beatles
• Released in the United States and Canada in June 1966 on Capitol Records
• Ninth album issued on Capitol and twelfth American release overall
• Eleven tracks, taken from the EMI albums Help! and Rubber Soul, from non-album singles, and from three 1966 recordings later on Revolver
• The title plays on the song "Yesterday"
• Remembered mainly for the controversy over its original cover image

Background

• Capitol selected songs from EMI albums and non-album singles, as it did with all the Beatles' North American LPs until 1967
• The US preference for shorter LPs supported this policy
• Help! and A Hard Day's Night were presented as soundtrack albums in the US, with orchestral film score selections replacing the non-film songs
• Yesterday and Today was the Beatles' tenth American Capitol album
• The mono mixes of the three Revolver songs differed from the August 1966 Revolver release
• Lennon later complained about the US practice of issuing shortened albums

Cover

• Robert Whitaker held a photo session with the Beatles on 25 March 1966 at his studio at 1 The Vale, off King's Road in Chelsea
• Whitaker planned a conceptual piece titled A Somnambulant Adventure
• The band chose the butcher photo for the cover, and McCartney called it a comment on the Vietnam war
• The cover was replaced by a photo of the band around a steamer trunk, taken by Whitaker at Epstein's NEMS offices
• Capitol launched Operation Retrieve on 10 June to recall copies, at a cost of $250,000
• The scheduled release date was 15 June 1966

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
• Grew out of Lennon's earlier band the Quarrymen
• Built its reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg
• Starr officially joined in 1962

Members

• John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr

Career

• Manager Brian Epstein shaped them into a professional act
• Producer George Martin developed their recordings after they signed with EMI
• First hit Love Me Do came in late 1962
• By early 1964 they were international stars
• Part of the British Invasion of the US pop market
• Retired from live performance in 1966
• Turned to more sophisticated studio albums: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album and Abbey Road
• Founded Apple Corps in 1968
• Broke up in 1970

Around this album

• Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded together
• On 20 September 1969, six days before release, Lennon told McCartney, Starr and manager Allen Klein that he wanted a divorce from the group
• No public announcement of the split came until McCartney announced he was leaving in April 1970

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Record World: included the LP among its "albums of the week"
• Billboard: described it as a "Hot album release" and said the five previously unissued songs had singles potential
• Cash Box: rated the new tracks "top notch"
• KRLA Beat: called the cover "the most nauseating album cover ever seen in the US" and said the image was designed for shock value
• Gene Lees in HiFi/Stereo Review: found the LP "dull through repetition" and a "grab-bag"

Reappraisal

• Tim Riley and Jim Beviglia classified it as a compilation album
• Joe Bosso of MusicRadar said it was one of the hit-filled compilation albums that Capitol sliced and diced from the Beatles' British albums
• Jon Savage in Mojo called it a "rag-bag of material"
• Savage criticised Capitol for leaving out "Paperback Writer" and "Rain"
• Candy Leonard wrote that the album was "beloved by fans at the time"

Records

• Topped the Billboard Top LPs chart on 30 July 1966 and stayed at number 1 for five weeks
• RIAA certified it gold on 8 July 1966 as a million seller
• Sold 967,410 copies in the US by 31 December 1966, according to David Kronemyer's 2009 figures
• RIAA certified it 2x Multi-Platinum as of 2014
• First CD release in 2014, individually and in The U.S. Albums box set

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Capitol recall was followed by the pasting of a trunk-photo cover over existing jackets, which later pushed collectors to peel the top layer off the original art.
• Mono copies outnumbered stereo copies by about ten to one, making the stereo copies far more rare and valuable to collectors.
• Capitol deleted the album from its catalogue in the early-to-mid-1990s before the 2014 CD reissue.
• Two sealed 'Livingston Butchers' were first offered for sale in 1987 at a Beatlefest convention near Los Angeles International Airport.
• A sealed first-state mono butcher cover sold for close to $39,000 at Heritage Auction Galleries in April 2006.
• The 2014 CD cover is the butcher cover, with a sticker bearing the trunk cover included.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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