42. The Beatles — A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Published in
2 min readApr 23, 2020
- This is more like it. A Beatles album written fully by Lennon & McCartney, all originals, the true launching point for their sound. With The Beatles was culturally relevant; this album’s musically relevant. And what a way to reintroduce themselves with the smashing intro chord for the title track.
- I think, in fact, this is the first vocal album on the list thus far that features entirely original songs written by the performing group (Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue was all original, but it’s of a different ilk). The album feels cohesive as a result; there’s more of a vision here of the pop-centric sound the Beatles were aiming for than With The Beatles’s blend of pop, motown, and R&B.
- Cohesivity doesn’t mean the whole thing works. There are some undeniable bangers here — “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “And I Love Her,” “Cant Buy Me Love,” and “You Can’t Do That” are gems. Still, there’s a bunch of filler here, fluffy tunes that feel like filler included to churn something out as quickly as possible rather than wait for greatness. We’re left with a very good album that has some truly great songs.
- Once again, America got screwed by its corporate overlords; the North American release featured inexplicably instrumental version of “I Should Have Known Better” and “And I Love Her,” while omitting “You Can’t Do That” entirely. That’s three of the five best songs on the album, ruined! It’s amazing these dudes caught on at all Stateside.
- Cowbell. So much cowbell. Did the Beatles invent the cowbell? It seems like it. Much credit to the Beatles for inventing the cowbell, which is now canon.
One Essential Song:
Listen on Spotify:
