The Beatles - With The Beatles

After Please Please Me and a handful of singles turned out to be really, truly, incredibly popular The Beatles returned to the studio in late 1963 to record their second LP. By all means this is following the successful formula of the first album, the openers are pretty similar, Money is kind of like Twist and Shout, but obviously nowhere near as good. This was still in the days of pop where the prime material was released on singles and everything else went on the LP, so it comes as kind of a surprise that the material here is actually really good. To be honest I’ve never really been huge on the early Beatles singles from memory. Something like From Me To You is a fine song, but a lot of the stuff here just makes for a more compelling listen.

This album also seems to rock a wee bit harder than the last album does overall, although the clunkers on this one seem to be way less memorable. For one of those really rare occasions it’s the Ringo track, I Wanna Be Your Man, which really stands out. In fact it would have done really well as a single had they not given it to the Stones before this album was finished. Other than that it’s probably the most John dominated album in the catalogue. Paul’s best track is All My Loving followed at a distant second by Till There Was You. Why is the word ‘until’ abbreviated to ‘till’ in the first place, that second ‘l’ really works against it.

Get the mono 2009 mastering. The album was recorded to two-track still so you could drive a truck through the separation.

It Won’t Be Long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmXXFbhokc
I Wanna Be Your Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CjxASY3to