The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour

This isn't so much a true album as an EP of songs from the movie combined with a few singles to fill out the track list. As such, it's a bit less cohesive than other works by The Beatles, but also features a higher than average amount of songs that I've actually heard before. It's mostly pretty catchy, and also has a bit of their creepier mood keeping it interesting. I haven't actually seen the Magical Mystery Tour film, and I think it would be interesting to see how all of the songs on the first half play into it. "Flying" is an instrumental, but the rest are otherwise pretty normal for The Beatles, mostly sung by Paul. Two standouts on that side are George's "Blue Jay Way" and John's "I Am the Walrus", which have a bit more of an edge to them.

The parade of radio hits on the second side is pretty impressive, with only one song ("Baby You're a Rich Man") that I wasn't familiar with. It's a pretty good one though, and along with the rest, especially "Hello Goodbye" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", it's a very fun, listenable set. I tend to prefer The Beatles songs that branch out a bit, but one of their strengths is definitely just well-constructed pop songs. It makes for a record that doesn't reach the brilliant heights of some of their other work, but is still perfectly fine for what it is.