FEATURE:
Second Spin
The Beatles - Beatles for Sale
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THE fourth album from The Beatles…
Beatles for Sale was released on 4th December, 1964. It was a bit of a departure from the more upbeat tone that had characterised their previous work. At this point, The Beatles were exhausted because of touring schedules and constant work. I think a lot of people overlook this as a classic or do not rank it highly. Whilst I normally highlight underrated albums here that are not seen as universally great but have strengths, it seems a bit ridiculous to suggest that Beatles for Sale has weaknesses and needs my backing! In terms of the band, I do not hear that many people discuss Beatles for Sale. It contains one of The Beatles’ most popular songs in the form of Eight Days a Week. 1965’s Help! saw another shift, as the album contains mostly original compositions by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Beatles for Sale features a balance of great cover versions and some originals. Although some of the covers (such as Carl Perkins’ Honey Don’t) are not that great and one or two originals are promising but not at the band’s peak (What You’re Doing springs to mind), Beatles for Sale is a wonderful album that does not show fatigue or any of the tiredness the band were facing when recording through 1964. I love the powerful and spine-tingling vocals from Lennon on I’m a Loser and Mr. Moonlight. McCartney’s I’ll Follow the Sun is a beautiful short number, whilst songs like No Reply and I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party are great cuts that you do not hear of much.
Although there is a little more anger in The Beatles’ songs here (especially from Lennon) than previous albums, their innate and unmatched compositional and songwriting abilities makes Beatles for Sale a triumph. It is filled with electricity, variety and quality. I want to bring together a couple of reviews. The first, from Pitchfork, hints at a slightly messy album. They were still impressed by what they heard:
“The Beatles themselves were changing how the business worked, but Beatles For Sale, of all the British records, bears the stamp of these business realities. It's a mess.
But it's a really good mess. Taylor's sleevenotes are also interesting because they go out of the way to reassure listeners that everything they're hearing can be reproduced live. Studio experimentation was becoming more important to the band and producer George Martin, but clearly someone viewed it with a little nervousness. You can understand why: The Lennon-McCartney originals on Beatles For Sale are often full of curious arrangements, drones, jagged transitions, and lashings of aggression. Blame pot, or the inspiration of Bob Dylan, or just the pressure-cooker environment the group was in, but the record hits a seam of angry creativity.
This is particularly true of Lennon's amazing first three songs. "No Reply" shatters itself with waves of jealous rage, taking the menace that had flecked Beatles music and bringing it up in the mix: his dangerously quiet "that's a lie" is the most chilling moment in their catalogue. "I'm a Loser" turns that anger inward with just as much brutality. And "Baby's in Black" curdles a nursery rhyme, transforms the group's crisp pop sound into an off-kilter clang, and uses John and Paul McCartney's double vocal to thicken the soupy sound even further. This run of tracks marries the direct attack of their earliest material and the boundary-pushing of their later albums, and stands with the best of both.
Even so it's a relief when "Rock and Roll Music" breaks the tension, especially when you notice that the band are playing their best rock'n'roll since "Twist and Shout". Perhaps the workrate had pushed them back into the Hamburg hot zone, but the uptempo covers on Beatles For Sale are fiercely good-- as ragged, loud and immediate as the songs needed to be. Even "Mr. Moonlight" fits the aggressive mood, the ugliness of its organ solo surely deliberate
McCartney's songs on Beatles For Sale are more thoughtful than moody, though on his splendid "Every Little Thing"-- given melodramatic thrust by Shangri-Las-style piano and bass drum-- he's distinctly melancholy, his "yes, I know I'm a lucky guy" sounding like an attempt to convince himself of that. But Lennon's anger and the band's rediscovery of rock'n'roll mean For Sale's reputation as the group's meanest album is deserved, even if it has "Eight Days a Week" as its breezy centerpiece. The lumpiest and least welcoming of their early records, it's also one of the most rewarding”.
I am going to finish with a review from AllMusic. Awarding it five stars, they made some interesting points about Beatles for Sale. I definitely think it is an underrated album in their cannon that more people should give a listen to:
“It was inevitable that the constant grind of touring, writing, promoting, and recording would grate on the Beatles, but the weariness of Beatles for Sale comes as something of a shock. Only five months before, the group released the joyous A Hard Day's Night. Now, they sound beaten, worn, and, in Lennon's case, bitter and self-loathing. His opening trilogy ("No Reply," "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black") is the darkest sequence on any Beatles record, setting the tone for the album. Moments of joy pop up now and again, mainly in the forms of covers and the dynamic "Eight Days a Week," but the very presence of six covers after the triumphant all-original A Hard Day's Night feels like an admission of defeat or at least a regression. (It doesn't help that Lennon's cover of his beloved obscurity "Mr. Moonlight" winds up as arguably the worst thing the group ever recorded.) Beneath those surface suspicions, however, there are some important changes on Beatles for Sale, most notably Lennon's discovery of Bob Dylan and folk-rock. The opening three songs, along with "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," are implicitly confessional and all quite bleak, which is a new development. This spirit winds up overshadowing McCartney's cheery "I'll Follow the Sun" or the thundering covers of "Rock & Roll Music," "Honey Don't," and "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!," and the weariness creeps up in unexpected places -- "Every Little Thing," "What You're Doing," even George's cover of Carl Perkins' "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" -- leaving the impression that Beatlemania may have been fun but now the group is exhausted. That exhaustion results in the group's most uneven album, but its best moments find them moving from Merseybeat to the sophisticated pop/rock they developed in mid-career”.
Even though there are a couple of tracks on Beatles for Sale that are not as strong as they could have been, The Beatles are not uninspiring or lacking energy. The cover (shot by Robert Freeman) depicts the band slightly bedraggled and drained. If you listen to Beatles for Sale, there is a great mix of cynicism, downbeat, Rock and Roll explosion and amazingly inspired originals. Although Eight Days a Week is the best-known song on Beatles for Sale, there is more than enough away from that song that is up there with their best stuff. Not talked about as much as Beatles albums such as Revolver (1966) and Abbey Road (1969), the superb Beatles for Sale…
IS an incredible listen.