Ringo Starr’s All-Time Favorite Beatles Album—and the One Album He “Never Really Liked”

Of all the members of the Fab Four, drummer Ringo Starr seemed to be the most easygoing of the bunch. But Starr had an interesting vantage point from his place behind the kit. Indeed, just because he was the least forward-facing Beatle doesn’t mean he didn’t have strong opinions, including which Beatles album was his favorite.

In a 1977 appearance on the Inner-view radio show, Starr revealed what he believed to be the best Beatles album of all-time—and the album he never really cared for.

Ringo Starr’s All-Time Favorite Beatles Album

During Ringo Starr’s appearance on the Inner-view radio show, the Beatle and show host Elliot Mintz discussed which Fab Four album had sold the most copies at the time of their August 1977 interview at Starr’s Hollywood Hills home. “Well, if there’s any sense in the world, it’d be Abbey Road,” Starr mused. (By the time he and Mintz sat down to chat, the Beatles had sold over five million copies of the iconic record.)

“It should be [the best-selling album],” Starr continued. “The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite. I love it. “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” and all those bits that weren’t songs. I mean, they were just all the bits that John and Paul had around that we roped together.”

“I never really liked Sgt. Pepper,” the then-ex-Beatle admitted, “I mean, I think it’s a fine album. All the work we do is fine. But I think I felt like a session man on it. We put so much on it—strings and brass—and you’d sit ‘round the studio for days, you know, while they’re overdubbing other things. It is a fine album, but just for me, emotionally, I prefer Abbey Road.”

A New Drum Kit Helped Seal The Deal

In December 2019, Ringo Starr visited Today Show Australia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his former band’s historic record, Abbey Road. All those decades later, Starr said his strongest memories of that album was playing with his bandmates…and a particularly cool drum kit.

“One of the self-centered memories,” Star added, “[was] I had this new kit. The maple kit, it was called, because it was maple. It had calf heads. Never had calf heads before. In all those years, it was always plastic. The depth of them blew me away. So, if you listen to that album, every track has tom tom boogie,” Star explained, mimicking the booming sounds of his calf-head tom drums.

Starr cited “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” as one of the finest examples of his drum tone. But we’d argue that “Something” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” are also worthy examples. Either way, with over 12,000,000 sales in the U.S. alone, we’d say Ringo Starr is in good company thinking that Abbey Road is his favorite Beatles album of all time.

Photo by Michael Hurcomb/Corbis via Getty Images