The Beatles *sigh*

[LetHimRun]

Just as a small fact check -- I don't believe Paperback Writer/Rain was a double A side. One of the few from the period that wasn't.

You are right, my fault. Rain was the B side. I got a tad carried away.

[guitarfool2002]

It's hard to see and read some of the misunderstanding and misstatements of the factual history of the Beatles and their peers, especially within the timeline of when certain songs were released, etc.

If you don't particularly care for them or their music, or think another band was "better" or more important or cutting better records, that's fine. But to base certain perceptions on facts and timelines that simply aren't true and proceed to diminish the band's legacy from those incorrect timelines is an easy way out...please look a bit deeper at the history, look at the when, the how, the why etc. behind the Beatles rise in 1964.

If somebody wants to say the Beatles were "behind" any other groups at a particular time (let's pick 1963-64 since that's where the claim was made), I'll come right out and say that is simply based on a misunderstanding of the history and facts. The Beach Boys as of late 1963 were still firmly in a niche of their own making and their own label's marketing, and it paid off *extremely* well for the Boys to have the surf/sun/car/beach image on everything on display at the record stores. The fact that Brian was writing incredibly good songs - great songs that belie his age and transcended the genre they were in - was icing on the cake.

But no band - let me repeat in caps: NO OTHER BAND in 1963 or 1964 had anything close to the influence and inspiration on other musicians as the Beatles had.

Note how many musicians who worked from the 60's and who are now in their 60's will point to the Beatles on Ed Sullivan as their watershed moment in their life when they said "I want to start a band and do this....". The Beatles were an anomaly in February 1964 to be a four-piece self-contained band who wrote their own songs, played loud guitars and drums with a different beat than what was on American radio, and who did not look like cookie-cutter showbiz stars made to look cute and clean. They shattered all of that, blew up all of the images that populated "pop" music. Long hair? Check.

The Beatles broke down a lot of doors, one major one being tens of thousands of teenagers meeting their friends the week after Sullivan and saying "Hey, let's start a band, we can practice in the garage..." and that spirit was one of the few threadbare connections that many of the songs and bands featured on Lenny Kaye's "Nuggets" compilation shared. You have everyone from McGuinn to Crosby to Eliot Easton to Jackson Browne and beyond saying they watched that Sullivan show and it kicked them in the ass. The spirit of "We can do this too...drums, bass, two guitars, let's start a band!" Powerful stuff.

And The Beatles simply had the best unintentional timing of any popular act in history. Almost every step of their career coincided unintentionally with a major event of some kind, or at least a benchmark moment in time. In Feb 1964, they were the tonic that America needed. February 1964, a cold and grey winter, two months after the US was still reeling from the Kennedy murder and just not feeling all that positive on a large scale because something had changed drastically...

...Then you get four guys playing music that sounded new, looked different, talked different, and offered at that time the largest TV audience in history a diversion, and for the kids and teens something to feel excited about after watching the adults around them mourn and waiting for things to get back to normal not understanding why people couldn't move on.

The Beatles were their own, the parents didn't get it or laughed it off, but now we kids had something to get excited and scream about. And where the girls could crush on them and enjoy the music, the guys could be jealous but also, like Elvis and Sinatra, want to be like them to get those same girls, and also those musically inclined could buy a Silvertone guitar at Sears and get their own band going...hey, these four guys did it and look at the girls screaming, I'll do it too!

The Beach Boys were selling the California mythology of the beach, surfers, beautiful girls, hot cars, warm sunsets, etc...The Beatles were also selling a mythology but one not dependent on location or lifestyle. I think a lof of people watching them in early '64 got a sense of attainability, that sense that "this could be me doing the same thing...", and thus rock and pop music exploded in 1964-1967 driven mostly by musicians in their late teens and early 20's who were inspired by the Beatles and a handful of other influences...but the Beatles made it possible to become reality.

I won't even mention my thoughts on "Needles And Pins". If you can't hear the energy and the drive that made She Loves You stand out, as well as the use of certain chords and chord changes which no other "guitar band" was using and which made it stand out from the pack and become the classic that it is today, I'd suggest listening closer to "She Loves You" and ignoring those faux-critics/experts on other boards who love to prop up a fucking one-hit-wonder band or single over the Beatles and try to suggest what is "better" than another.

IMO: Needles And Pins isn't even close to Sonny Bono's better songwriting...Listen to "I Got You Babe" where he wrote the build-up and the key change specifically for Cher's voice and to exploit an obscenely emotional break point in her voice that just shoots the song into the stratosphere where it doesn't come down even after the false ending. That song is Sonny's best, yes it did equal anything anyone was releasing at that time because he wrote a powerful, emotional song specifically showcasing Cher's somewhat limited (at that time) voice, to devastating effect (much like the Beatles used their limited means and exploited those limitations versus stumbling on them).

Please...don't let what other phonies have tried to rewrite in the history of 60's pop and rock music become fact, because it simply isn't true and it serves the person(s) doing the rewriting more than the history itself.

But I'm not all that worried that I'll wake up one day and find that bands like The Searchers and The Critters have become higher on the influential list than The Beatles.  

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Bravo!

[pixletwin]

Double bravo and a "PIP! PIP!" guitarfool.

[Gertie J.]

triple bravo and 'woot! woot!' GF.

[MBE]

It's hard to see and read some of the misunderstanding and misstatements of the factual history of the Beatles and their peers, especially within the timeline of when certain songs were released, etc.

If you don't particularly care for them or their music, or think another band was "better" or more important or cutting better records, that's fine. But to base certain perceptions on facts and timelines that simply aren't true and proceed to diminish the band's legacy from those incorrect timelines is an easy way out...please look a bit deeper at the history, look at the when, the how, the why etc. behind the Beatles rise in 1964.

If somebody wants to say the Beatles were "behind" any other groups at a particular time (let's pick 1963-64 since that's where the claim was made), I'll come right out and say that is simply based on a misunderstanding of the history and facts. The Beach Boys as of late 1963 were still firmly in a niche of their own making and their own label's marketing, and it paid off *extremely* well for the Boys to have the surf/sun/car/beach image on everything on display at the record stores. The fact that Brian was writing incredibly good songs - great songs that belie his age and transcended the genre they were in - was icing on the cake.

But no band - let me repeat in caps: NO OTHER BAND in 1963 or 1964 had anything close to the influence and inspiration on other musicians as the Beatles had.

Note how many musicians who worked from the 60's and who are now in their 60's will point to the Beatles on Ed Sullivan as their watershed moment in their life when they said "I want to start a band and do this....". The Beatles were an anomaly in February 1964 to be a four-piece self-contained band who wrote their own songs, played loud guitars and drums with a different beat than what was on American radio, and who did not look like cookie-cutter showbiz stars made to look cute and clean. They shattered all of that, blew up all of the images that populated "pop" music. Long hair? Check.

The Beatles broke down a lot of doors, one major one being tens of thousands of teenagers meeting their friends the week after Sullivan and saying "Hey, let's start a band, we can practice in the garage..." and that spirit was one of the few threadbare connections that many of the songs and bands featured on Lenny Kaye's "Nuggets" compilation shared. You have everyone from McGuinn to Crosby to Eliot Easton to Jackson Browne and beyond saying they watched that Sullivan show and it kicked them in the ass. The spirit of "We can do this too...drums, bass, two guitars, let's start a band!" Powerful stuff.

And The Beatles simply had the best unintentional timing of any popular act in history. Almost every step of their career coincided unintentionally with a major event of some kind, or at least a benchmark moment in time. In Feb 1964, they were the tonic that America needed. February 1964, a cold and grey winter, two months after the US was still reeling from the Kennedy murder and just not feeling all that positive on a large scale because something had changed drastically...

...Then you get four guys playing music that sounded new, looked different, talked different, and offered at that time the largest TV audience in history a diversion, and for the kids and teens something to feel excited about after watching the adults around them mourn and waiting for things to get back to normal not understanding why people couldn't move on.

The Beatles were their own, the parents didn't get it or laughed it off, but now we kids had something to get excited and scream about. And where the girls could crush on them and enjoy the music, the guys could be jealous but also, like Elvis and Sinatra, want to be like them to get those same girls, and also those musically inclined could buy a Silvertone guitar at Sears and get their own band going...hey, these four guys did it and look at the girls screaming, I'll do it too!

The Beach Boys were selling the California mythology of the beach, surfers, beautiful girls, hot cars, warm sunsets, etc...The Beatles were also selling a mythology but one not dependent on location or lifestyle. I think a lof of people watching them in early '64 got a sense of attainability, that sense that "this could be me doing the same thing...", and thus rock and pop music exploded in 1964-1967 driven mostly by musicians in their late teens and early 20's who were inspired by the Beatles and a handful of other influences...but the Beatles made it possible to become reality.

I won't even mention my thoughts on "Needles And Pins". If you can't hear the energy and the drive that made She Loves You stand out, as well as the use of certain chords and chord changes which no other "guitar band" was using and which made it stand out from the pack and become the classic that it is today, I'd suggest listening closer to "She Loves You" and ignoring those faux-critics/experts on other boards who love to prop up a fucking one-hit-wonder band or single over the Beatles and try to suggest what is "better" than another.

IMO: Needles And Pins isn't even close to Sonny Bono's better songwriting...Listen to "I Got You Babe" where he wrote the build-up and the key change specifically for Cher's voice and to exploit an obscenely emotional break point in her voice that just shoots the song into the stratosphere where it doesn't come down even after the false ending. That song is Sonny's best, yes it did equal anything anyone was releasing at that time because he wrote a powerful, emotional song specifically showcasing Cher's somewhat limited (at that time) voice, to devastating effect (much like the Beatles used their limited means and exploited those limitations versus stumbling on them).

Please...don't let what other phonies have tried to rewrite in the history of 60's pop and rock music become fact, because it simply isn't true and it serves the person(s) doing the rewriting more than the history itself.

But I'm not all that worried that I'll wake up one day and find that bands like The Searchers and The Critters have become higher on the influential list than The Beatles.  

Pretty good thoughts. I like the Beatles a lot. I would never try to take away from their musical or sociological impact. Sometimes the fandom is annoying, but fringe fans who see certain groups as flawless hero's exist for all bands. It's just bigger here.  The Beatles have always remained in the very top ten to fifteen artists I like the most, just not my top five.

[MBE]

It's no secret that I've stated on many times that I find the Beatles to be incredibly overrated and that I 'hate' them. Need to clarify that last statement...I don't hate their music. It's more of 'I hate how they're viewed as the best of all time to the point of ignoring every other band'...that type deal. I hate going into a book-store and seeing 50 different Beatles books but no Beach Boys books on the shelf (usually when a new BB book is released I end up having to buy it online). I also don't like a lot of the earlier Beatles songs (especially Mr Moonlight, which just might be my least favorite song by a major artist). That said...I actually really like a lot of the post-Pepper material I've heard. To be perfectly honest, I've never heard one of their albums in their entirety. I...just couldn't do it. Some of it is due to over-familiarity, from being a kid and hearing my dad have it on the oldies station. I really don't care for songs like 'Love Me Do', and (to a lesser extent) 'She Loves You', for instance. Whenever I'd hear a song from Rubber Soul onwards, it was pretty cool, but I'd cringe when I'd hear much of the earlier stuff. I'll tell you another thing that annoyed me (and it was the same thing that turned me off the to Beach Boys for years before finally giving them a real  chance in 1995 when I was 17); I hated when in school in history class we'd be shown a VHS tape and when it got to the 1960s, it'd show the Beatles performing and it'd show all the kids screaming...I'm sorry, but I found that annoying. When the studio audience is mic'd louder than the band, I'm not a happy panda. If I wanted to hear people scream hysterically, I'd watch Saw . If I wanted to see a moptop, I'd go clean the kitchen. I think striped shirts looked cooler than matching suits. But maybe that's just me.


With all that said...I'm finally going to listen with an open ear. What would any of you recommend for those just getting into them?

13 main albums, Past Masters has all the rest.

Knowing your tastes avoid the first three. I Please, Please, Me, With The Beatles, and A Hard Days Night, are good early sixties rock and roll, but I've gathered that isn't your bag.

Beatles For Sale and Help show growth. Still basic rock and roll, but with a lot more thought or insecurity in the lyrics. The music has more to it as well. You may like these, but probably won't be your favorites.

Rubber Soul and Revolver are the highlights. Still some good basic rock and roll, but taken further to it's most creative arena. New subjects, sounds, ideas, just great work.

Pepper is were it becomes more self consciously "rock" or "serious" but it is still a great album. Oddly I find it to be a bit more uneven than the previous albums. It all fits together as a whole, but things like When I'm 64 are not to my taste.

Magical Mystery WILL be your favorite. It's very trippy, but in a less stiff way. Just kind of bizarre wonderful songs that are great to listen to at 4:20. Maybe I like it so much because it hasn't been praised to the balls.

White Album has some of their best and worst side by side. My wife really likes it, and a more "modern" classic rock sound is now present. Hard to describe this music, a little of everything. They were given free reign by this point, with some real creativity being aired, but indulgence too. Still some great things.

Yellow Sub is OK but kind of just needed for fans. Four new songs, George's two are nice and freaky, Paul's cheesy, and John's great hard rock. However if the weirder side of Magical Mystery does pan out for you, look it up.

Abbey Road-Some great music throughout, but kind of loses the fun of the early work. A bit slick, but most people love this album. I only "like" it. John's stuff is real good, George's is famous but not as to my taste as his more quirky Let It Be stuff, Paul's a mixed bag.

Let It Be-Frankly I like it a lot because again these songs haven't been praised or played to death. Even with Spector, the LP kept a looser feel than some of their more produced albums.

Past Masters has some hits, and quirky stuff. More for a fan, it does serve as a quick overview of 1962-66- and 68-70 that may inform where you may want to travel from there.

[Mike's Beard]

I loved The Beatles in my teens then I started digging into other stuff that was being made at the time and realised that there were other groups I much prefered. The only two albums of theirs I really listen to now are The White Album and Magical Mystery Tour.

[hypehat]

Billy, I'd say it really gets going around Hard Days Night - all killer, no covers of questionable worth (With The Beatles is particularly awful in this regard), also got the best Beatles ballad (If I Fell) - but drops off again at Beatles For Sale. I can imagine it being tricky to divorce the pop culture phenomena 'The Beatles' from The Beatles, though, sometimes I don't think I've managed it myself. They've been with me ever since I can remember, Pet Sounds & Sgt. Pepper provided my musical awakening one day in my 14th year, etc.

What's annoying with The Beatles discography in a modern context is the singles issue - they're often the greatest advert for the band, up to about Strawb Fields/Penny Lane, but your understandable impulse to listen to the albums to get your critical reevaluation excludes them. So listen to the singles! They're the best.

Out of interest, are you listening in stereo or mono?

[EgoHanger1966]

...covers of questionable worth (With The Beatles is particularly awful in this regard).

I'd say WTB has their BEST cover choices. First of all, I know I'm totally alone on this, but Please Mr. Postman is my favorite Beatles song, and maybe my favorite song by anyone, (only the Beatles version). They transform a sloppy, bratty girl group thing into something that totally defines the sound of merseybeat.

You Really Got A Hold On Me? Great. Devil In Her Heart? Charming. Til There Was You? Great spotlight for Paul.

As for the other two, Beethoven is a little played out for me, and never did much care for Money. But, still. Very, very solid.

[hypehat]

You Really Got A Hold On Me is possibly the only one I can dig - the harmonies get some real good play there. I love me some bratty Motown girl group stuff, so Postman seems too brash and leaden? Lennon does a good lead, but they just blast through it and it's a bit unsatisfying.

Devil In Her Heart is dull, Til There Was You is soppy. Money is kind of fun, but they still can't top the original.
The originals are worth it on that record (Hold Me Tight! It Won't Be Long! to name two), but I wish they put the singles on there - I Want To Hold Your Hand would make ANY record a transcendent masterpiece.

[drbeachboy]

...covers of questionable worth (With The Beatles is particularly awful in this regard).

I'd say WTB has their BEST cover choices. First of all, I know I'm totally alone on this, but Please Mr. Postman is my favorite Beatles song, and maybe my favorite song by anyone, (only the Beatles version). They transform a sloppy, bratty girl group thing into something that totally defines the sound of merseybeat.

You Really Got A Hold On Me? Great. Devil In Her Heart? Charming. Til There Was You? Great spotlight for Paul.

As for the other two, Beethoven is a little played out for me, and never did much care for Money. But, still. Very, very solid.

Indeed! Love their version of ...Postman and ...Devil...  I love the way John pronounces "devil" in the chorus.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Here we go...

Please Please Me-

1) I Saw Her Standing There- I've actually already really enjoyed this song previously, except for the vocals on 'held her hand in mine' when it goes high; I find that a bit annoying. To be honest, I prefer the song instrumentally to vocally. Fun fact: I  produced a cover of this song in college in a reggae style.

2) Misery-  On first couple of listens I didn't care for it, but it grew on me. The intro is not my favorite. Again, I prefer the song instrumentally to vocally. The piano part is pretty cool.

3) Anna- Another song I was previously familiar with (from the episode of Married with Children, where Al Bundy was obsessed with this song). Not really feeling the backup vocals. I do like Lennon's lead though.

4). Chains- No complaints. Not really my style, but pretty good for what it is. Haven't heard the original version; I don't think I'd be too keen with it. Good lead, and again I really like the instrumentation.

5). Boys- Is this Ringo singing lead? I...like the backups better than the rather average lead.  Not bad, just okay, I guess. And, once again, the instrumentation is better than the vocal parts. Really like the solo, actually.

6) Ask Me Why- Just okay, although I like Lennon's lead, and the backup vocals are pretty ace. The song itself doesn't do much for me.

7) Please Please Me- Pretty good vocals, nice instrumentation, but...the song itself is rather slight IMHO. This was a #3 hit?!

Love Me Do- Love the harmonica, the bass, and the drums.  I don't think it's a great song in and of itself, though; I think I'd like it better as an instrumental. It has a nice Jimmy Reed vibe, but the vocal lines are just kind of there, to me.

9)PS I Love You- P.P.S. I don't care too much for this.

10) Baby It's You- Good Lord, I don't like this a bit.

11). Do You Want to Know a Secret- My favorite song on the album. Didn't know it dated from this early. Actually, I really like this song a lot; one of my favorite songs of the early 60s that wasn't a Beach Boys song.

12) Taste of Honey- Meh

13) There's a Place- I guess it's okay. Not my least favorite song, but it's kind of slight as well.

14) Twist and Shout- Much more like it.  

Overall...I don't get why this album was loved as much as it was. Most of the songs to me were kind of weak, and I wasn't too crazy about many of the vocals.  There were only three songs I can genuinely say I enjoyed; what was surprising to me was the fact I disliked several songs (especially 'Baby It's You').  I honestly don't see the hype for this one.

[EgoHanger1966]

Well, it was pretty much recorded in one day (sans the four singles tracks), and Lennon had a cold. I don't actually see a lot of praise for this album at all, compared to most of their other ones. It's a solid representation of where they were at during that time period. They were heavily influenced by melodic R&B, and they had a way of presenting their favorite songs in their own way - they weren't just straight covers. There's something unique about the Beatles sound, I think even you have to agree to that.

Love "Baby It's You"!

[hypehat]

You mean you didn't pick up on the fact that Please Please Me is about oral sex? 

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

See, that's the thing...on most of the album, I didn't hear anything unique. Nothing different from what I were to hear at Fuddruckers over the loudspeakers. Then again, had I heard it when it was new, I likely would have felt differently.

[guitarfool2002]

Steely Dan weren't the only songwriters who had a knack for masking references to sex and drugs in radio-friendly tunes.  

Interesting thoughts so far: Next up is With The Beatles. I'd say this is one case where the US version "Meet The Beatles", which of course borrowed the Robert Freeman cover photo, may actually flow better than the original UK sequencing. The addition of the hit I Want To Hold Your Hand and the flip I Saw Her Standing There, replacing also a few of the covers, made for a much more powerful album all around. Or maybe I'm just used to the flow of Meet The Beatles since I wore that vinyl out before getting the UK version...

Some thoughts on the thoughts about Please Please Me so far.

If you look inside the songs themselves and consider the covers, you'll hear quite a bit of John (more) and Paul (a bit less) exploring their influences as songwriters, a craft each of them would soon develop at an incredible pace. Remember this was the first album, and they were still somewhat young and somewhat inexperienced writers, although they were prolific...but prolific and skilled are two different things. Some of the pre-EMI originals that we have heard are just...well...not quite that powerful to be kind. And very basic or simplistic, considering what was to follow. Remember the scene in Spinal Tap when they're in the diner and get asked to sing the first song they wrote? After which they launch into some ersatz skiffle train-beat kind of song about going to see a girl on a train? Same thing here.  

Listen to songs like Anna (love the Al Bundy reference, that was my favorite episode 'mmm-mmm HIM!'), You Really Got A Hold On Me, Please Mr. Postman...the "shout bridge" where Smokey and the rest would just explode with intense vocals as the song got to the bridge is exactly the same thing Lennon would nick for "Yes It Is", "This Boy", and a few more, though those were the obvious nicks from the guys like Smokey down to the chord progressions and harmony vocal stylings.

Lennon did possess one of the best shout voices in all of rock, it is kind of cool to hear those covers where he honed that style and then took it to use for his own songs.

Please Please Me, Lennon has said, was his attempt to do a Roy Orbison song. And if you listen with that in mind, it sure as hell does sound like it has the sonic trademarks of some of Roy's early 60's singles. From the harmonies, to the melodies, to the way John hits a falsetto of sorts in the chorus hook (please pleeeaaassse meeee)...also with the little reverb-laden guitar break that sets up the chorus (pure Orbison style) and especially the call and response between John (Roy) and Paul-George (those other guys Roy had singing...) Come on...(come on), Come on...(come on)...building to the falsetto hook.

It could have been a classic Roy Orbison single, with the same musical and structural elements, yet filtered through what they'd start calling the Merseybeat vibe. It has a certain uniqueness which American records like Roy's, which the Beatles were in effect aping, did not have. The nascent beginnings of the Beatlemania Merseybeat sound were first heard ducking in the shadows of a Roy Orbison pseudo-soundalike. About sex.  

Love Me Do - The country beat is there, but I'm actually hearing more of a Buddy Holly vibe, strange as that may sound. John and Paul loved that Buddy's songs often had three chords, three open chords, and in two minutes Buddy could talk about getting laid or not getting laid or whatever other topic about girls John and Paul could relate to. So those early John/Paul originals were most often Buddy Holly, open chord tunes with Buddy's rockabilly, not-quite-country groove filtered through two young Liverpool guys.

So Please Please Me does in fact show two relatively inexperienced songwriters borrowing what they had learned from Buddy and Roy and Smokey to write basic tunes while padding the rest of the album with covers, some of which inspired their writing directly.

On With The Beatles/Meet The Beatles, you'll start to hear what an incredible progression and development these two had in less than a year spent on the road writing tunes in vans and hotels. The more they wrote, the better they got...and more sophisticated, musically efficient, and concise at the same time. "All I've Got To Do", "All My Loving", and "It Won't Be Long" are, I think, simply stunning songs from a writer's perspective and far beyond the scope of what you'd expect after Please Please Me, and especially the first single Love Me Do. These two writers grew as writers so fast, and those three songs out of the bunch almost foreshadow what would soon make "A Hard Day's Night" such a milestone of an album for them as songwriters. They're bundling all of their influences, adding more sophisticated chords and harmonies as well as more complete storytelling in the lyrics, and the product that came out on Hard Days Night was devastatingly good.

Add into the mix the non-album single "She Loves You", which as I wrote earlier is perhaps the best example of a  studio recording that captured the kind of energy and uniqueness they had on stage as a live band in the earlier days of 62-63-64, even more energetic and unique than I Want To Hold Your Hand. Just pure manic drive throughout each section of the song and each musical element, like Spector's Be My Baby or any of the other classics which have so much energy they feel as if they could burst open at any point into chaos but the performers somehow ride the wave instead of getting consumed by it.

After Please Please Me, this band honed their skills as writers and studio performers. They're still sanding down some of the rough edges and filling in the gaps on With The Beatles, but the product just kept improving.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Interesting....I'll keep all of that in mind for my next go-round. Helps to have some context while listening. I went in 'blind' for the debut. I've heard the pre-debut work and honestly to me it was pretty bad.IMHO Pete Best was a shitty drummer. One thing about the album that did impress me was the instrumentation though

[guitarfool2002]

Yes, very cool! The context might add something to hearing With The Beatles, which does has some weaker moments but it is an album where you can hear them really start honing the craft of songwriting. If they had tagged She Loves You or even done what Capitol did and put I Want To Hold Your Hand on there, the album overall would probably have been improved by those singles' energy.

The fact that they were able to basically play through an everyday gig in the studio in order to record the rest of Please Please Me's album cuts in one session is a testament to how good they were as a self-contained live band. They had spent the past 3-4 years up to that point gigging constantly and were busy on the road as they recorded that debut, so just like The Who coming onto Rock And Roll Circus red-hot after a tour and basically blowing everyone else out of the water, they were so fine-tuned it wasn't as much of an effort as it was a culmination of them playing together so much they were perfectly in synch.

One more thing...a tune like "Ask Me Why" is the Beatles doing a Bacharach impression as they covered his "Baby It's You" on the same record, and grabbing some jazzier chords from a song like "Til There Was You" which was a live staple and which would appear on With The Beatles (and Ed Sullivan). So it's kind of neat to hear a cover of a song which inspired an original song on the same album. They were basically going for a vibe that Bacharach/David could pull out of their pockets on demand.

[Jay]

If you think about it, they were actually behind what some other groups were doing. Let's put it like this: The Beatles were doing She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand, but The Beach Boys were doing In My Room, Warmth Of The Sun, Please Let Me Wonder, etc.

She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand both came out before Warmth of The Sun and about a year and a half before Please Let Me Wonder (which in 60s years was like eight years  )

I kind of knew that would come back to bite me on the butt. Alright, you called me out on that.  I was basically just trying to point out something BIlly suggested, that a lot of people regard The Beatles as almost rock royalty, when other groups were coming up with vastly superior material.

[Jay]

See, I always thought that their cover of Baby It's You was one of the early examples of this John Lennon character being more than just an every day lightweight pop singer.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Comparing PPM to Surfin Safari, the latter is more to my liking. Although the instrumentation is much better on the former! Hell, I prefer the stuff on the BB Lost and Found! I was amazed at how I got bored during several tracks. I know better stuff is horizon though.

[Jay]

Billy, have you heard the alternate take of Mr Moonlight that has a slide guitar solo in place of the organ solo? I'm curios about your take on it, versus the officially released version. 

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Kind of afraid to as I hated the released version when I used to hear it on the oldies station. Kind of scared to hear it again. Hoping my opinion has changed though.

[MBE]

Yeah the Pete Best stuff isn't worth hearing for a non fan. I like PPM for it being raw and enthusiastic, but like I mention in my post above I knew it wouldn't be your cup of tea.