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Released at the end of 1964. Beatles early fun songs. Mostly originals, with a few good covers. Music holds up as well today as almost 50 years ago. Can't go wrong.
Have been a Beatles fan for 37 years (day 1). Can't feel anything but true awe for their music.
This album is often looked down upon somewhat by many Beatles fans because it contains (GASP). Pepper. some cover songs (run for the hills). Let me tell you something- John Lennon screaming out "Rock and Roll Music"- Well, it just doesn't get any better than that.I have little patience for fans that seem to think that each of the earlier Beatles albums were some sort of progression or prelude to Revolver and Sgt. Personally, I love all the Beatles albums including the earlier ones that included covers.Essential. You bet.
It has often been said that The Beatles on this album appear tired, and somewhat uninspirered. On the Beatles originals McCartney actually only has lead-vocals on "I'll Follow the Sun" and "What You're Doing".Ringo and George each sing a Carl Perkins number, a thing of which George clearly comes out best.For me, the album's highlights are many, but especially the two delicate acoustics "No Reply" and "Every Little Thing", are tracks you never grow tired of. "Eight Days Week" is a classic that could have been a chart topper, but which was hidden on the back of the stunning "Rock and Roll Music". However, I will choose to focus on the music which in no way seems tired to me.The group has in this album perfected their well-known expression, and their own songs are stronger than ever. Among the cover versions, besides "Rock and Roll Music," "Words of Love" comes out the best (it actually sounds like a Beatles' song). You could object and say that several of the six cover songs might not be among the most interesting Beatles recordings; and I would not completely disagree.Like on the later "Rubber Soul" several numbers are characterized by the acoustic guitar, which gives them a crisp but also a soft sound, on a few songs almost folkish.The great sound and production are also help to demonstrate the group's lush harmonies and their individual vocally strengths.John Lennon was at this point the group's undisputed vocal center - with Paul and George predominantly as harmonies.A quick review shows that Lennon's takes the lead vocals on "No Reply," "I'm a Loser," "Rock and Roll Music", "Mr Moonlight", "Eight Days a Week," "Every Little Thing" and "I Don't Want to spoil the Party ". If this was so it would not be unnatural, after within two years having recorded four albums and several singles, almost constant touring and with all the buzz around their enormous popularity.The album title and the bandmembers' own slightly weary attitudes seem to support this theory. McCartney's "I'll Follow the Sun" and "What You're Doing" are almost as good.
On the duets "Baby's in Black" and "Words of Love" it is Lennon you hear most clearly, and even on McCartney's "I'll Follow the Sun" he sings the first verse lines.There was certainly good reason to leave Lennon lead-vocals. His voice was incredibly powerful these years, and his interpretations of rock and roll songs like "Rock and Roll Music" is nothing less than overwhelming.McCartney sings "Kansas City", and actually does it almost equally well; that track as such does not work as well as the aforementioned is another matter. "I'm a Loser" can almost be regarded as a precursor to the "Help" and "Baby's Black" and "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" are just good numbers. "Mr Moonlight", "Kansas City", "Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" are solid recordings but numbers you could have done without if necessary.
It's up to the six cover versions to leaven the mix with some high spirits. Eight of the songs here turned up on the U.S. Call this a stepping stone to "Rubber Soul," which would follow a year later. Rushed out at the tail end of what had to have been a hellishly busy year for the band--becoming a worldwide phenomenon does leave you with little free time--"Beatles for Sale" has a whiff of a contractual obligation about it. Knowing now that the Beatles LPs of my youth were slice-and-dice compilations which the band had no say in, but were put together by opportunistic marketing geniuses who managed to squeeze 11 U.S. market.
As a kid in the mid-1960s, I would have known this as two separate albums--neither of which, of course, existed outside of the U.S.
Which they do.
I'm glad, then, to finally have this in one piece and hear it as it was originally put together.
But just a whiff: in the album's eight, mostly downbeat originals, you hear a group making their way toward the second phase of their evolution.
release "Beatles '65" (which also included the single "I Feel Fine" and its B-side "She's a Woman" along with filching "I'll Be Back" from the British version of the "Hard Day's Night" soundtrack) and the rest comprised six of the 11 tracks on "Beatles VI" (which nicked "Tell Me What You See," "You Like Me Too Much" and the cover of "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" from the "Help." soundtrack, and added the B-side "Yes It Is" and another cover, "Bad Boy").
And of course, even a transitional LP by this band is going to run circles around the best efforts by many another group.
Sonically, it benefits considerably from the 2009 remastering; those 45-year-old productions had more kick to them than you'd think.This is my first acquaintance with this album in its original British iteration, and so it's a little disorienting to someone with a stateside Beatles fan's frame of reference.
It's only now, 40 years after the group disbanded, that I'm experiencing their first few albums as they were conceived.
releases out of 7 LPs' worth of material, I've got no loyalty to the sequencing of "Beatles '65" or "Beatles VI" (or, for that matter, "Meet the Beatles," "Something New" or any of the other Capitol Records creations).
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