I think Bobber's hit the nail on the head there. When I listen to music from 65 onwards I have lots of points of reference to what people were listening to in those days. But for 1963 I have really nothing. I can't think of any other rock/pop album from that year that I've sat through, and precious little is played on the radio. When people tell me Please Please Me was a breath of fresh air I just have to take their word for it. Has anyone sat through A Cliff, or Gerry Marsden album from '63?
In my humble opinion, a classic song is a song that has stand up against the time. If I take a look at the covers on With The Beatles... There's Money, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Please Mr Postman, Till There Was You, Roll Over Beethoven and Devil In Her Heart. I think that these songs, with the exception of Devil In Her Heart, are classics in the way The Beatles played them. Comparing to Beatles For Sale (for that's how the album's called): Rock And Roll Music, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey, Mr Moonlight, Honey Don't, Words Of Love and Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby. From this album there's only two songs that can be called classic: Rock And Roll Music and Kansas City. The other covers are not as strong as the ones on With The Beatles. The End spoke about the time in which With The Beatles appeared. I heard Cliff Richard's Bachelor Boy on the radio today. It's from 1963 as well. Compare that to what The Beatles did the same year... If I were Cliff, I had ended my carreer immediately.
Money, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Please Mr Postman, Till There Was You, Roll Over Beethoven and Devil In Her Heart ... ... I can only consider Money, You Really Got A Hold On Me and Roll Over Beethovenreal classics (Till There Was You was a fetish) ... but they played more times the three classics from Guys For Sale I said above than Roll Over Beethoven or Money (the others from With The Guys were seldom played on stage) so I think that they (and the audiences) loved them more too ...
... their singles were their point in 1963 ... much better than their contemporaries, of course, but I'm not comparing the covers they made with the ones others made 'cos I think there were a lot of people mainly covering and their choices should have been good too ... that was their job ... covering Motown you've got half of the thing done ... it was not too difficult ... but of course there were some excceptions ...
... I'm talking about their catologue (is that talking about time too?) and for me the whole album is week-er than Please Please Me and Guys For Sale (the others with 6 covers) ... 'cos of the originals ... the covers were always half classics and half their own favourite obscure B-sides singles ...
Broadly speaking, The Beatles mainly played their hit singles - remember they only played for 30 minutes and people expected to hear their hits.
Remember I said "broadly speaking" - I am aware of Yesterday, All My Loving, Things We Said Today, Nowhere Man, etc, but mainly they concentrated on their hits.
... and some originals: Baby's In Black, I'm A Loser, I Wanna Be Your Man, You Can't Do That, ...
... and lots of covers: Long Tall Sally, Twist And Shout, Rock And Roll Music, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, Kansas City, Money, Roll Over Beethoven, ... even You Really Got A Hold On Me, Boys ...
They used to play 11-12 songs and about 3-4 were covers and they used to play another 1-2 songs that were not on singles or hits ... so near half of the stuff was not exactly hits ... so I can see they"broadly speaking" mainly played their hits ... there were some hits in the list but it's obvious 'cos they've got a lot!
R-ax-o, Honey Don't and Words Of Love were never played live on stage in the days of Beatlemania. The fact that certain songs were played on stage more than others, might have nothing to do with loving these songs or not. The audience didn't care what they were playing for a start, and The Beatles themselves might have chosen the ones they knew best. But after all, noboby really cared what they were playing, including The Beatles, for nobody couldn't hear a thing. I'm not too sure if their originals are worse or better than Please Please Me or Beatles For Sale (I think you mean that one). Love Me Do, PS I Love You, Do You Want To Know A Secret, Misery... not particularly great songs in my opinion. Please Please Me, There's A Place, Ask Me Why, I Saw Her Standing There are fine. It Won't Be Long, All I've Got To Do, All My Loving, Not A Second Time, Hold Me Tight and you even pick Don't Bother Me as your favourite: I think the combination of songs on With The Beatles is stronger than that on Please Please Me. The originals on Beatles For Sale are class... But we've discussed Beatles For Sale before...
R-ax-o, Honey Don't and Words Of Love were never played live on stage in the days of Beatlemania. The fact that certain songs were played on stage more than others, might have nothing to do with loving these songs or not. The audience didn't care what they were playing for a start, and The Beatles themselves might have chosen the ones they knew best. But after all, noboby really cared what they were playing, including The Beatles, for nobody couldn't hear a thing. I'm not too sure if their originals are worse or better than Please Please Me or Beatles For Sale (I think you mean that one). Love Me Do, PS I Love You, Do You Want To Know A Secret, Misery... not particularly great songs in my opinion. Please Please Me, There's A Place, Ask Me Why, I Saw Her Standing There are fine. It Won't Be Long, All I've Got To Do, All My Loving, Not A Second Time, Hold Me Tight and you even pick Don't Bother Me as your favourite: I think the combination of songs on With The Beatles is stronger than that on Please Please Me. The originals on Beatles For Sale are class... But we've discussed Beatles For Sale before...
I've never said Honey Don't and Words Of Love were ever played on stage during the Guymania ... Mr. Moonlight either ... I was refering to the trio: R'N'R, Kansas, Everybody's ... all of them played in countless cases and surely among The Guys' all-time favourites ...
If The Guys didn't care the songs they were playing on stage why did they change them on tours and gigs? ... and why didn't they play more originals if they were trying to do albums with only originals? ...
... at least the audience knew their covers so if a mistake appeared it would be more embarrasing than with originals ... I'm sure that the people near stage could hear them (badly, but enough) ... there were concerts and concerts ... some of them with such a huge mass of people that made it all impossible but there were some occasions were they were recorded with enogh sound quality ...
... I admit that they included more standards covers on With The Guys than on Please Please Me (let's forget Guys For Sale, if you wanted) but I can see more possible hits among Love Me Do, I Saw Her Standing There, Ask Me Why, There's A Place and Misery than among All My Loving, It Won't Be Long, I Wanna Be Your Man, Little Child, Hold Me Tight ... but that's a different story, I guess ...
Ok, so maybe "weak" is too strong a term. Maybe "The Beatles' weakest" is a more proper term.
Yes, because I believe ALL other albums the Beatles released are better than this one. Looking at the others and then hearing this, it just sounds mediocre. Not one of their best efforts.
But what is more surprising about the Beatles is that since they never sounded bad, even their worst album is great. Indeed, With The Beatles is great, but as a Beatles fan, I've learned to appreciate more exquisite music.
At the time, it was probably was the best album ever. But that was at the time. Right now, I myself do not appreciate it as much as any of their other albums.
I admit: It is a great album. All songs actually sound pretty good. It was probably amongst the best, or maybe even THE best album when it was released.
I believe: It is their worst album. Altogether, it doesn't sound as good as any of their other songs.
Here's how I would rank their studio albums:
1. The Beatles ("The White Album") 2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 3. Revolver 4. Magical Mystery Tour 5. Abbey Road 6. Rubber Soul 7. Let It Be 8. Beatles For Sale 9. Help! 10. A Hard Day's Night 11. Please Please Me 12. With The Beatles
Was that Times music critic from 1963 and for With The Guys or for Meet The Guys -the last one was much butter-? ... after all, by that time, critics had not got much stuff to compare with and their standards were ...
I know I go on about this, but MMT is not a "proper" studio album. It's not fair to rank With The Beatles against an album containing #1 singles, b-sides and EP tracks compliled by some AR man in Capitol records.
... and if we're ranking that double EP (that's why MMT it's so down in my ranking ) as if we're doing with the A-side from Yellow Submarine ... (tho I'm considering the whole Yellow Sumarine) ...
... and if we're ranking that double EP (that's why MMT it's so down in my ranking ) as if we're doing with the A-side from Yellow Submarine ... (tho I'm considering the whole Yellow Sumarine) ...
Point. But if we're including EP's as albums, then shouldn't we being including Long Tall Sally (for instance?). Yellow Sub - I can't make my mind up. If MMT is an EP that should have been an album, then YS is an album that should have been an EP. I don't believe The Beatles recorded those songs with the intention of YS being considered an "album" as such. So I wouldn't include it in my rankings.
I've included the songs of Magical Mystery Tour as they are: material by them that is not on singles ... we usually think in albums and singles terms so where should MMT be included? ...
... about Yellow Submarine, I think that they were deciding about what was going to be released under their names ('67 on-wars US-er market example) so I think they considered it as a soundtrack ... the thing they mightn't control-lead is the date ... being released The Guys so soon! ...
... but some months later they released Get Back and The Ballad Of John And Yoko singles very close, so things -again- were not so strict ... (after all they began a new album six weeks later, in January: the Get Back project)
P.S. Long Tall Sally was an EP with three covers and one original ... I consider it nearer to a single ... (I think that Long Tall Sally covers were among the ones meant to be on A Hard Day's Night LP ... but they cheated by including all the 4 songs of its singles in the album -a thing they didn't with I Feel Fine and Guys For Sale that same year- ... so they released the first EP with new material in their carreer ... it seems that they needed to do that: to released covers!!! ) ... they continued recording covers that summer: Leave My Kitten Alone ... they seems to be addicts!!! LOL!
But as I said so many times before: things were not so strict: they released many (famo-us) singles included on albums:
Love Me Do and Please Please Me Can't Buy Me Love and A Hard Day's Night Help! and Ticket To Ride (A-sides) Yellow Submarine I Am The Walrus (as a B-side) the re-make of Revolution Come Together/Something Let It Be (A-side) and (in US The Long And Winding Road, tho I doubt they want it that way 'cos in that market Eight Days A Week and some others were released too)
... if they used to release one album in summer and another one in autumn: were they releasing albums at the (same) time? ... if so why to think they were hurrying up recording one album for Xmas (Guys For Sale on mind) if it was usual for them to do such a thing? ... there could be a contradiction ...
... there's a time from March 22nd 1963 till November 22nd 1963 (8 months, half a lifetime for The Guys: three years later they were recording Strawberry Fields Forever) ... certainly more than their usual time during the Guymania:
A Hard Day's Night - Guys For Sale (5 months) Help! - Rubber Soul (only 4 months!!! ... but we can see some differences between, can't we? ... even Wait was good enough 4 months later! ... that's what I could call "searching for any new material in the vaults for an album" ... )
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) as if we're doing with the A-side from Yellow Submarine ... (tho I'm considering the whole Yellow Sumarine) ... 
... but we can see some differences between, can't we? ... even Wait was good enough 4 months later! 
... that's what I could call "searching for