Fifty years ago this month, The Beatles made a splash with their self-titled album, which came to be known as the White Album due to its minimalist cover.

On Friday, the band released a deluxe version of the groundbreaking double album, filled with outtakes, demos and remastered versions of the songs.

The White Album anniversary is also an opportunity to deliver a definitive ranking of the iconic band’s albums. Last year, we took on the task of ranking every songs The Beatles wrote, and although listing 13 albums is easier than putting 188 tunes in order, it’s still a much-debated topic among critics, experts and fans that I’m going to take a shot at.

Why me? Although I was born long after the Beatles left their mark and despite the fact that I’m not a music critic, I’m a die-hard fan who’s listened to their albums countless times and read dozens of volumes about the band.

The rules: We’ll rank the British releases only (some American records had different song lineups). No greatest hits albums, no Past Masters with their singles releases, none of the Anthology collections.

13. Yellow Submarine (1969)

It feels like a cop-out listing the film soundtrack last because it’s short and has two songs previously released by the band — Yellow Submarine and All You Need is Love. But other than the underrated Hey Bulldog, what else is there? Not much, although I re-discovered It’s All Too Much recently and realized it’s better than I previously thought.

12. Let It Be (1970)

The Beatles were on their way to breaking up, with members of the band fighting with each other as they recorded the album that was meant to get them to work together again. It’s a disjointed mess with a few good songs, so everyone’s glad the group got together to record one more time before disbanding for good (Abbey Road was recorded after Let it Be but released before the latter). I’ll always believe Phil Spector’s heavy-handed producing with his “wall of sound” ruined it, making The Long and Winding Road corny and I Me Mine sound like a different band. The title track still stands the test of time, as does Across the Universe.

11. Beatles For Sale (1964)

Who could blame the Beatles for putting out a mediocre offering in the middle of the insanity that was Beatlemania, when the young group was under the white-hot spotlight of fame seemingly 24/7?

This was an album that gathered dust for me growing up. Maybe it was all the country music influences or the darker tone on certain songs. But when I came back to it later as an adult, I realized the opening trio — No Reply, I’m a Loser, Baby’s in Black — was so much deeper than I had realized. I’ll Follow the Sun is beautiful and the cover of Rock and Roll Music does Chuck Berry justice.

However, it’s a transitional album for the band, and there are a few of those albums peppered throughout the Beatles’ career — ones where they’re still figuring new things out just after releasing a seminal album (in this case, it’s the follow-up to A Hard Day’s Night) before they really get it together (Help! was up next). Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not the Beatles at their best.

10. With The Beatles (1963)

Speaking of which: The band’s follow-up to Please Please Me still feels like they’re figuring things out. The cover versions of Please Mister Postman, Roll Over Beethoven, and You Really Got a Hold on Me are solid, and All My Loving is a near-perfect pop creation.

But that’s about it. The other Lennon-McCartney originals prove they were still evolving as songwriters (they would absolutely flourish on the next album). Plus, we get our first George Harrison-penned original, Don’t Bother Me and it’s one of the better tracks.

9. Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

It’s inventive, yes, but a bit all over the place and includes some singles, a few of which were previously released. There are some hits — Magical Mystery Tour, Fool on the Hill, I Am the Walrus — and some misses like Flying, Blue Jay Way and Baby, You’re a Rich Man. As far as album experiences go (and that’s something I weighed a lot while compiling this list), the Beatles were tighter elsewhere.

8. Please Please Me (1963)

I’m willing to bet this is a hot take for many Beatlemaniacs, but give me a chance to convince you why this is a better album than you think. The idea of the Beatles’ first recording was to capture the raw energy and sound of their live shows. And it absolutely does that!

Whoever decided to kick off I Saw Her Standing There with Paul McCartney’s emphatic four-count is brilliant — it immediately takes you to the stage, with no frills. Ringo Starr’s singing on Boys is pure jubilation and Please Please Me was their first of countless earworm hits. And of course, it ends with the grand finale: John Lennon, giving what was left of his vocal cords to cover Twist and Shout.

There are some clunky moments — Misery and Ask Me Why are meh and I’ve never been a fan of P.S. I Love You — but if you couldn’t go to the Cavern Club and experience the band live before they hit it big, this is a pretty great replacement.

7. Help! (1965)

By this point, the band had settled into a groove: McCartney could write a catchy love song with ease, while Lennon’s Bob Dylan phase (You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away) was in full swing, along with him beginning to work some of his demons out in the studio (he really was pleading for help at a low time in his life).

Then, of course, there’s Yesterday, a hint of the future as the band started expanding beyond the boundaries of what was possible in a recording studio.

It captures the Beatles completely conquering their genre before they would completely obliterate and redefine it on subsequent albums. In the context of the rest of this list, it’s pretty incredible that Help! is this low.

6. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

The band’s first all-originals album brims with confidence. They’re so cohesive and tight on every single tune and showed versatility. From that blast of an opening strum that wakes you up to the minor chords of I’ll Be Back, they zip through different styles, even if the songs are almost all still about youthful romance.

Can’t Buy Me Love is bluesy, And I Love Her has a Latin feel, and I’ll Cry Instead is influenced by country sounds. Listen to the album all the way through and you’ll hear there are practically no weak spots in it (When I Get Home is just okay, but at least it falls in line with the rest of the lineup).

5. Rubber Soul (1965)

This is where the list gets tougher to finish. How do you rank another album without any holes in it this low? But that’s why they’re The Beatles.

There’s inventive instrumentation — a fuzz bass here, a sitar there, all of which must have been jarring to hear from a band that had just finished a pretty straightforward rock album in Help! The songwriting went into some deep, complex places (Norwegian Wood, Nowhere Man, I’m Looking Through You). It feels like The Beatles had grown up about 10 years in the span of months, and by the time you get to In My Life, you realize these aren’t the same mop-tops anymore. This is a band that was ready to push some boundaries. It’s also the start of one of the greatest three-album runs in music history.

4. The Beatles, AKA “The White Album” (1968)

You know it. I know it. I bet they knew it: There are too many songs that could have been cut to make it a much tighter album.

But let’s go back to what I said earlier. Think about the experience you had listening to this. It’s a roller coaster ride! One second you’re with Desmond and Molly, the next you’re whisked on a children’s story of Bungalow Bill before you’re on the porch listening to McCartney play an acoustic guitar and tap his boots to Blackbird. There’s raw emotion on Yer Blues, political commentary on Piggies, and the sound collage of Revolution 9, which would be everyone’s choice to cut from the double album, but really — isn’t it weirdly fascinating to listen to all the way through a few times?

There’s a lullaby, the possible invention of heavy metal, a jazz tune, a clear send-up of the Beach Boys … it’s exhausting. And while it probably needed pruning, you realize it’s amazing just the way it is by the time you’re done with it. What a trip.

3. Abbey Road (1969)

How do you end a decade and a group considered the greatest rock band of all time? This seems right. The lads from Liverpool put their differences aside and made the perfect farewell.

The much-written-about second half medley that ends with, well, The End, is divine, the little Her Majesty encore is a fun little wink, and George Harrison’s two contributions — Something and Here Comes the Sun — are a pair of the best tracks the band ever put together. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Octopus’s Garden? Not as great. But that hardly matters.

2. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

How dare I not put that at No. 1? I hear you.

What more can I say that hasn’t already been written? The band shut the door on the first half of its career with Revolver, finished touring, and put together a stunning, innovative collection of sounds, words and images. The idea that The Beatles were putting together an album made by a different band only comes in three times on the entire 13-song masterpiece, but it works — you’re transported away from Beatlemania and arrive somewhere else with these mustachioed gents in their bright uniforms.

Why isn’t it No. 1, you ask? It’s by a nose, a photo finish, whatever cliche you want to use. Maybe this is 1B to my 1A below, a continuation of the experimentation that began on Rubber Soul combined with psychedelic imagery. Whatever it is, Sgt. Pepper deserves all the respect for breaking down the wall and showing what rock and popular music could be.

1. Revolver (1966)

The Sgt. Pepper before Sgt. Pepper that blows your mind in a million different ways. The picture painted by the symphony that was Eleanor Rigby, the haze around I’m Only Sleeping with its backwards guitar track, McCartney’s heartbreak waltz (For No One) and the sheer audacity of Tomorrow Never Knows, a song that I swear could be released now and would sound modern. Let’s all remember they did all that without the technology that makes all of those sounds and effects possible with a mouse and a laptop.

Let’s put it another way: The leap from Rubber Soul to Revolver is a larger one than the one from this album to Sgt. Pepper. And perhaps that’s just what pushes it over the edge as the band’s greatest-ever recording.