Please Please Me (1963)

I may have said this before, but I am and always have been a singles guy. In that I don't really listen to albums, nor never really did.

Very few albums are perfect all the way through, I can think of just a handful.

About a decade ago, Danny Baker did a series of shows where he and a few of his friends selected three albums each to be the best in each genre. Over the course of the three or four shows, I had heard maybe one or two.

Even worse than that, I can say I have never heard a Beatles, Bob Dylan, most Rolling Stones, no Creedence Clearwater Revival, Beach Boys, and so on, albums at all.

I planned a decade ago, to listen to a load of classic albums, and then write about them.

And so here we are.

The Beatles literally changed popular music.

That's not a matter up for debate.

Over the course of eight years they released 12 (twelve) albums, each one a step up in ambition and sophistication.

I believe.

They were given to George Martin to produce, and in him they had someone who knew how to use a studio. Had they been produced by anyone else, the results and history, could've been very different.

On the fourteen tracks on Please Please Me, six were cover versions, and two of the Lennon/McCartney originals were singles. In order to assess this record, we have to put ourselves back in 1963 and the music scene therein. And that's an impossible task, only people who lived through it can tell us what a change The Beatles and their records were, so anything I say now, some sixty three years later is pretty meaningless.

1. "I Saw Her Standing There"
2. "Misery"
3. "Anna (Go to Him)"
4. "Chains"
5. "Boys"
6. "Ask Me Why"
7. "Please Please Me"

Side 2

1. "Love Me Do"
2. "P.S. I Love You"
3. "Baby It's You"
4. "Do You Want to Know a Secret"
5. "A Taste of Honey"
6. "There's a Place"
7. "Twist and Shout"

back in the 1960s, rock or music journalism, was very much in its infancy, bands were beat combos and tunes were described as mid-tempo foot-tappers, or something like that, and so after the exciting opening florish of "I Saw Her Standing There", the mid-tempo foot-tappers take over. Misery is, in my opinion, pretty poor, especially after that opening blast. But maybe its taking things down a notch, as per in "High Fidelity" and the art of the mix tape.

"Anna (Go to Him)" is pretty much of the same ilk as "Misery", but things perk up with Goffin and Kings "Chains", which rattles along.

I didn't know Ringo Starr sang on anything from Please lease Me, so it was a real surprise to hear him lead on "Boys". Which I really like, especially the imploring to George to take it away on the guitar break.

Two originals end side 1, "Ask me Why" and the title track. The former is ok, but we all know Please Please me, and so closes the side in triumph.

"Love me Do", their first single from the previous year kicks off side 2. I always thought it a dirge, doubly so when re-released in 1982 to mart it's 20th anniversary. Here, it sits well, and opens the side well, though is lacking a little get up and go, but the harmonica sounds good, as the instrument did on other tracks.

In "P.S. I Love You" and "Babt It's You", we return to the mid-tempo stuff again, and maybe it was because I was expecting something with a bit more oomph. When I was listening to "Misery" earlier, I thought how it wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine Cliff Richard or one of the Larry Parnes stable singing it. Same with most of these.

So it takes "Do You Want to Know a Secret" to lift the tempo again. This was one of the tracks on the Beatles on 45 records of the early 80s, so is familiar to me from that. It starts slow, then crashes into the title and the song flies.

Then it is back to the foot-tappers for "There's a Place" and "There's a Place", wit the latter being better, and its another Lennon/McCartney original.

The album ends with probably the best British rock and roll song of all time, a cover of "Twist and Shout", with Lennnon on lead vocals, his voice straining, and the rest doing the same. Without doubt, also, the best versio of "Twist and Shout".

In order to assess this, as I said, we would have to look back at what other albums were released in 1963, or those that topped the charts. Shall we look?

"Rock 'N' Roll No. 2" by Elvis Presley
"Summer Holiday" by Cliff Richard and The Shadows
"Girls! Girls! Girls!" by Elvis Presely
"A Bobby Vee Recording Session" by Bobby Vee
"Sinatra–Basie: An Historic Musical First" by Frank Sinatra and Count Basie
All Star Festival: The Unique Record in Aid of the World's Refugees by Various
"Richard Chamberlain Sings" by Richard Chamberlain

Then came The Beatles, and it stayed at number one for 30 weeks.

Up to The Beatles, pop music was seen as a way into popular entertainment, variety and a TV show, as per Cliff Richard, Lulu, Cilla Black and others who followed. The Beatles themselves never saw it as something that, at best would last a year or two, and Ring said he just wanted to make enough money to open a hairdressing salon.

Going forward, The Beatles would redefine what an album was, pushing the boundaries of popular music and technology until they realised what they created in the studio could not be played live, so they gave up playing concerts. But the music kept coming and growing.

In short, listening to this, is it possible to see that the band would come to be the biggest force in popular music? Maybe, maybe not. Looking back, and without living through the years before and the music released, its impossible to say what a difference this record and the band made. They were still playing on variety bills on tour, with other bands, a comic and sometimes other variety acts too, so obly got to play fifteen minutes or so, twice a night. But the band had hones their craft in Hamburg and playing for the BBC, and that tightness would only get better.