The Beatles YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Yesterday...and Today was the last Beatles album to be created exclusively for the American market without the group's direct consent, and its tumultuous history seemed to bring the issue of those albums to a head, both for the group and Capitol Records. Owing to business and market differences between England and America, the label had reconfigured every one of the group's long-players in America up to that point, and also generated a few LPs out of singles, B-sides, and EP tracks that had no U.K. equivalent on 12" vinyl -- the Beatles had tolerated it all quietly in the early days, content to go along amid the whirlwind of success they were riding, even in the face of such abominations as the original U.S. Help! album. By 1966, however, they were on a firmer footing, and well past being wide-eyed teenagers from the north of England; they'd also begun to express themselves creatively in media beyond music, and take themselves a bit more seriously, and having a bit more fun as well --