Magical Mystery Tour (album)
| Magical Mystery Tour | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| EP (Double) by The Beatles | ||||
| Released | 27 November 1967 (US LP) 8 December 1967 (UK EP) |
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| Recorded | 25 April – 7 November 1967 | |||
| Studio | EMI and Olympic Studios, London | |||
| Length | 19:08 (EP), 36:35 (LP) | |||
| Label | Parlophone, Capitol | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| The Beatles chronology | ||||
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| US version | ||||
LP – US release cover
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Retrospective reviews | |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  |
| The A.V. Club | A |
| Consequence of Sound | A+ |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  |
| MusicHound | 3/5 |
| Paste | 94/100 |
| Pitchfork Media | 10/10 |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  |
| Sputnik Music | 4.5/5 |
Magical Mystery Tour is an album by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double EP in the United Kingdom and an LP in the United States. Produced by George Martin, both versions include the six-song soundtrack to the 1967 film of the same name. The EP was issued in the UK on 8 December 1967 on the Parlophone label, while the Capitol Records LP release in the US occurred on 27 November and featured eleven tracks through the addition of songs from the band's 1967 singles. The EP was also released in Germany, France, Spain, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Australia and Japan. The first official release as an eleven-track LP in the UK did not occur until 1976.
Despite widespread media criticism of the Magical Mystery Tour film, the soundtrack was a critical and commercial success and a number one Grammy-nominated album in the US. When EMI issued the Beatles' catalogue on compact disc in 1987, the track listing of the 1967 US LP was adopted rather than the six-song UK release.
After the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney wanted to create a film based upon the group and their music. The film was to be unscripted: various "ordinary" people were to travel on a coach and have unspecified "magical" adventures. The resulting Magical Mystery Tour film was made and included six new Beatles songs. The film originally screened on BBC-TV over the 1967 Christmas holidays but was savaged by critics.
The number of songs used in the film posed a challenge for the Beatles and their UK record company, EMI, as there were too few for an LP album but too many for an EP. One idea considered was to issue an EP which played at 33⅓ rpm but this would have caused a loss of audio fidelity that was deemed unacceptable. The solution chosen was to issue an innovative format of two EPs packaged in a gatefold sleeve with a 28-page booklet containing the lyrics, colour photos from film production, and colour story illustrations by Beatles Book cartoonist Bob Gibson. Of the package, Bob Neaverson wrote: "While it certainly solved the song quota problem, one suspects that it was also partly born of the Beatles' pioneering desire to experiment with conventional formats and packaging". The package was released in the UK on 8 December, in time for the Christmas market, at the sub-£1 price of 19s 6d (equivalent to £16 today).
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