I don't know Please Please Me any better than I do this album so I can't perform a comparison. Indeed, it's my reaction to With The Beatles on its own merit that I should be cataloguing as I should with all 1001.
It begins well. I was expecting a tedious a 50s-reminiscent twangathon. Nice harmonies, boys, but it gets old fast. The opening track It Won't Be Long surprised me though and with the significant mood change of All I Gotta Do I was settling into the idea that I may have misjudged the mopheaded gods. All My Loving then swooped in to cement my new found faith and I was starting to feel a slight rush of Beatlemania 50 years after the fact.
The album was apparently recorded in 6 days, a hasty follow up to fan what was already a wildfire of hype. I don't mean to single George Harrison out for criticism but it's Don't Bother Me that prompts the first indignant jolt of disappointment. Little Child manages to get it back but from then on it all goes a bit flabby and seems like they're playing for time. Perfectly decent songs in their own right though they may be and popular covers to play live I'm sure they were, should Roll Over Beethoven and Please Mr Postman really be included here? Another couple of weeks in the studio wouldn't have killed them and in hindsight, songwriters that prolific would surely have come up with the goods.
Thanks to I Wanna Be Your Man and Money, all is not lost as the album limps towards its short even for the period, 33 minutes total elapsed time. But I can't bring myself to give it even 3 stars. It was the first record to sell a million copies, but I wouldn't have bought one. Shame - they're worth a pretty penny these days.
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