The first rock album as an artistic statement
Released March 1963
Way back in 1963 when the whole idea of rock albums as artistic statements was still in its infancy, the formula for the Beatles first album was simple: Just collect the best fourteen songs they had recorded to date. Among these were two hit singles, "Love Me Do / PS I Love You" and "Please Please Me / Ask Me Why".
This allowed the Beatles first album to be presented on as high a note as possible. The British predilection for avoiding putting singles on albums was ignored, so there they are in all their glory, along with ten other songs.
There is something uniquely special about the fresh innocence of this album, the start of something that became as great as the Beatles. So why would anyone second guess it? Certainly not the American branch of The Beatles' EMI record label, Capitol Records. They stupidly rejected the entire album outright, so the temptation to tamper with this nascent greatness in the U.S. fell to the second-string VeeJay Label. What VeeJay did was simply discard two of the songs because Americans weren't used to getting 14 songs on an album. But why settle for 12 when you can have 14? Eventually, Capitol released all the songs in one form or another, mostly on a bastard compilation called "Early Beatles", but by then, the context of the specialness of the 1963 premiere was gone. Only the greatness of the songs themselves remained.
But knowing this album was recorded as long ago as 1962 and early 1963 makes it even greater - before the British Invasion, when Elvis had gone from the Army to Hollywood, Buddy Holly had recently died in a plane crash, schlock-pop was king, and rock music was still considered a fad that was already fading out.
So this album is essentially the beginning of the great rock era which lasted until the end of the 1970s. Given all that, the unaltered 1963 UK album release of "Please Please Me" is the only version to have.
1 - I Saw Her Standing There
2 - Misery
3 - Anna (Go to Him) (Arthur Alexander)
4 - Chains (Carole King / Gerry Goffin)
5 - Boys (Luther Dixon / Wes Farrell)
6 - Ask Me Why
7 - Please Please Me
8 - Love Me Do
9 - PS I Love You
10 - Baby It's You (Burt Bacharach et al)
11 - Do You Want to Know a Secret
12 - A Taste of Honey (Bobby Scott / Ric Marlow)
13 - There's a Place
14 - Twist and Shout (Phil Medley / Bert Russell)
(all songs Lennon / McCartney except as indicated)
No comments:
Post a Comment