Please Please Me by The Beatles (1963)
Please Please Me is not the first ever vinyl record. It’s not the first ever rock and roll record. It isn’t even the first English rock and roll record. But it is the first Beatles record, and there’s probably enough historical significance in that alone to merit some examination.
Of course, this is a musical record, not a copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” oration; you are not meant to appreciate it for its historical significance, but for how enjoyable it is. So the question becomes, as it inevitably does, is this album enjoyable?
The first thing to remember is that this isn’t the Beatles of the late 60s, with all the drugs and psychedelia and hair. This is the four minstrels gathered together for the first time, mainly singing other people’s songs, and all sporting gimmick hairdos (although it’s a pretty groovy gimmick). Even then, half of the drumming is done by a studio man; Ringo had only just been added to the crew.
What this means is if you want something high brow, you should look somewhere else; this is as commercial as it gets. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with being commercial. After all, they made more than a dozen commercial albums after this. Maybe it’s more commercial than those others, but that isn’t important.
What is important is how the music sounds. To this you can say without compromise, that it’s utterly derivative, since half the songs are covers, and the other half are rip offs of other bands from that time. But the fact remains that The Beatles did these songs better than those other bands. And that’s what’s really important.
As a result, however, this leaves the record sounding more than a bit dated. Any rockologist who can’t recognise instantly that this music is from 1963 shouldn’t be called a rockologist. Which means that if you aren’t into the British Invasion, you probably won’t get into Please Please Me. And if you aren’t into pop music at all you certainly won’t get into it. Makes you wonder why it sold so well.
Well, it’s because most people are into pop, and most people in the early 1960s were into the British Invasion of course. Therefore, it stands to reason that most people today would be into it. After all, if you took the average pop song today and got rid of all that production, and added in some real guitars (and harmonicas!) this is basically what you’d get.
I wouldn’t say this is the best Beatles album by any means. I wouldn’t even say it’s the best early Beatles album. For that reason I wouldn’t say its an essential listen, except for historical or completionist purposes. But it is certainly a good listen, at the very least.
First post! I am a rockologist. I took photos of rocks.
Well I do spoofs and I love spoofing that time Of music, like http://www.realcrash.com/when-i-saw-them-standing-there-beatles/, I saw her standing there, get it?
Valid point. I do have an interesting fact to add tho.
It was recorded in 9 hours. (The rutles however win in that department, their first album was recorded in 20 minutes, the second, even longer)
cars: I think the word you’re looking for is “Rock Pornographist”.
Howard: First up, the link doesn’t work. Second, the syllables don’t quite match up. But it was still pretty funny. I don’t really know what’s going on in Yankyland, but we (Australians) no longer have a right wing leader. We just have a very centrally aligned left wing leader.
Chris: In those days, 9 hours wasn’t particularly short. The record companies didn’t want to wait for anything. And of course, the Rutles are unbeatable; The Beatles stole just about everything from them.