FEATURE:
Second Spin
The Beatles – Please Please Me
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EVEN though…
I have played The Beatles’ 1963 debut album, Please Please Me, in Vinyl Corner, I think that it is an album that does not get played and discussed as much as it deserves. Maybe people think that the cover versions are not as strong as the original material, or that it is a promising debut but albums like Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966) and Abbey Road (1969) are better. I do not hear many tracks from the album played on the radio. Not many Beatles fans list it among the finest from the group. I am a big fan of Please Please Me. I feel it is one of the most important albums ever. I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You are absolute classics! Although the reviews for the album are fantastic, how many people talk about Please Please Me as one of the best albums ever? It is amazing to consider the speed in which the album was recorded! The official site of The Beatles provides more insight:
“The Beatles' Please Please Me album was rush-released by Parlophone on 22nd March, 1963 to capitalise on the enormous success of the title track which had been the group's second single and their first no. 1 in the majority of UK charts.
Ten of the album's fourteen tracks were recorded in just one day - 11th February, 1963. These included a mixture of stage favourites and "Lennon-McCartney originals". The four remaining songs had been committed to tape in 1962 having formed the B-side of their debut release and both sides of their second single. A slightly later recording of 'Love Me Do' to that previously released, was selected for the album. This version would also appear on a subsequent EP and later still on an American # 1 single in 1964.
The iconic front cover shot was taken at the then headquarters of EMI Limited at 20 Manchester Square in London's West End in early 1963 by Angus McBean. EMI remained in the building until 1995 before moving to West London taking the famous balcony railing with them.
Given that the UK album chart in those days tended to be dominated by more 'adult' tastes such as film soundtracks and easy listening vocalists, it was a surprise when Please Please Me hit the top of the chart in May 1963 and remained there for thirty weeks before being replaced by With The Beatles.
Please Please Me didn't receive an official US release until 1987 but "Introducing The Beatles" issued early in 1964 on the Vee-Jay label and "The Early Beatles" released by Capitol Records the following year later did contain many of the songs from the British release”.
Amazing to think that the boys (John Lennon, Paul McCartney. George Harrison and Ringo Starr) put down these tracks so quickly! Of course, the band would evolve and strength with every album. By the time Revolver arrived, The Beatles had entered a more experimental and psychedelic realm. I love the raw simplicity and urgency of Please Please Me. I wonder whether, as there has been with albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, there will be a reissue of Please Please Me - where we get outtakes, demos and extras. Maybe there wasn’t a lot left in the vaults, as producer George Martin wanted to get the album down as quickly as possible. It would be interesting to see if there is anything the world has not heard.
There is this divide between how Please Please Me has been reviewed and the sort of acclaim it gets now. I would put it in the top-five albums from The Beatles. There are one or two cover versions that are not overly-great. One can forgive that, as the rest of the material is so good. The band are on top form! The album has a live feel, yet they are such tight and professional performances. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:
“Once "Please Please Me" rocketed to number one, the Beatles rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day. Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins. As the songs rush past, it's easy to get wrapped up in the sound of the record itself without realizing how the album effectively summarizes the band's eclectic influences. Naturally, the influences shine through their covers, all of which are unconventional and illustrate the group's superior taste. There's a love of girl groups, vocal harmonies, sophisticated popcraft, schmaltz, R&B;, and hard-driving rock & roll, which is enough to make Please Please Me impressive, but what makes it astonishing is how these elements converge in the originals. "I Saw Here Standing There" is one of their best rockers, yet it has surprising harmonies and melodic progressions. "Misery" and "There's a Place" grow out of the girl group tradition without being tied to it. A few of their originals, such as "Do You Want to Know a Secret" and the pleasantly light "P.S. I Love You," have dated slightly, but endearingly so, since they're infused with cheerful innocence and enthusiasm. And there is an innocence to Please Please Me. The Beatles may have played notoriously rough dives in Hamburg, but the only way you could tell that on their first album was how the constant gigging turned the group into a tight, professional band that could run through their set list at the drop of a hat with boundless energy. It's no surprise that Lennon had shouted himself hoarse by the end of the session, barely getting through "Twist and Shout," the most famous single take in rock history. He simply got caught up in the music, just like generations of listeners did”.
Before wrapping up, I want to quote from Pitchfork’s assessment of Please Please Me. Anyone can listen to the record fresh and be blown away by the sheer joy and energy. It is such a varied and interesting album that deserves more focus today. This is what Pitchfork say:
“The Beatles' life as a rock'n'roll band-- their fabled first acts in Hamburg clubs and Liverpool's Cavern-- is mostly lost to us. The party line on Please Please Me is that it's a raw, high-energy run-through of their live set, but to me this seems just a little disingenuous. It's not even that the album, by necessity, can't reflect the group's two-hour shows and the frenzy-baiting lengths they'd push setpiece songs to. It's that the disc was recorded on the back of a #1 single, and there was a big new audience to consider when selecting material. There's rawness here-- rawness they never quite captured again-- but a lot of sweetness too, particularly in Lennon-McCartney originals "P.S. I Love You" and "Do You Want to Know a Secret".
Rather than an accurate document of an evening with the pre-fame Beatles, Please Please Me works more like a DJ mix album-- a truncated, idealized teaser for their early live shows. More than any other of their records, Please Please Me is a dance music album. Almost everything on the record, even ballads like "Anna", has a swing and a kick born from the hard experience of making a small club move. And it starts and ends with "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout", the most kinetic, danceable tracks they ever made.
The "evening with the band" feel makes Please Please Me a more coherent experience than other cover-heavy Beatles albums: Here other peoples' songs work not just as filler, but as markers for styles and effects the band admired and might return to as songwriters. McCartney, for instance, would go on to write songs whose drama and emotional nuance would embarrass "A Taste of Honey", but for now he puts his all into its cornball melodrama, and the song fits.
Please Please Me also works as a unit because the group's vocals are so great. At least some of this is due to the remastering, which makes the Beatles' singing thrillingly up-close and immediate. I'd never really paid much attention to "Chains" and the Ringo-led "Boys", but the clearer vocals on each-- "Chains"' sarcastic snarls and the harmonies helping Ringo out-- make them far more compelling.
And as you'd imagine, making the voices more vivid means Lennon's kamikaze take on "Twist and Shout" sounds even more ferocious. Done in one cut at the session's end, it could have been an unusable wreck. Instead, it's one of the group's most famous triumphs. This sums up the Beatles for me. Rather than a band whose path to the top was ordained by their genius, they were a group with the luck to meet opportunities, the wit to recognize them, the drive to seize them, and the talent to fulfil them. Please Please Me is the sound of them doing all four”.
One can say that there are very few Beatles albums that are underrated. I would say their debut, Please Please Me, is one. Such a brilliant introduction from a band who would take over and change the world very soon! If this is a Beatles album that you have not heard in a while, then set aside some time and…
GIVE it a spin.