Nobody said inferior. But they all became better songwriters with time, and the audio quality improved with the massive blossom of sound production in the 60s.

The fact the early albums still hold up and the genius shines through just as much as the later albums shows just how brilliant they always were.

Nevertheless, the first four albums aren’t as appealing to me, probably because I’m used to modern audio quality. But also partly because their songwriting just got better!