A Hard Day's Night
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Strummmmm! That dramatic guitar chord that kicks of A Hard Day's Night (album, song, movie) still jumps right out at you, slaps you in the face, and jump-starts your heart. And you know what? Both the music and the film are still as crisp and lively as they were in 1964. Of course, only the first seven songs are actually in the movie (and they are the strongest of the bunch, from the rousing rock & roll of title track and the hit single "Can't Buy Me Love", to the beautiful ballads "If I Fell" and "And I Love Her"). But nobody's going to complain about having songs like "I'll Cry Instead" and "Things We Said Today" in the second half of the record; they certainly don't feel like leftovers. Yet another high-point for John, Paul, George, and Ringo--four fab fellows who hit the highest heights imaginable. --Jim Emerson
Reviews
The peak of Beatlemania
Review date: 2010-05-05 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is, for my money, the first truly great Beatles album.
It's important to remember that in 1964, the Beatles as a phenomenon weren't much more than a year old. They had been functioning as a band for much longer, and Ringo had been firmly in place since 1962, but at this stage of the game they were more famous for being famous than for being the greatest band in the history of popular music. It was clear that Beatlemania was something new and unprecedented, but for all that it was still, as the name suggests, a '-mania' - a kind of madness. Nobody, not even the band themselves, could have known at this point that they were going to go on to produce stuff as classic as 'Yesterday', as inspired as 'Strawberry Fields Forever', as drop-dead awesome as the 'Revolver' and 'Sgt Pepper' albums and as wiggily brilliant and infuriating as the White Album, not to mention the generous nuggets of genius scattered throughout their extraordinarily diverse late output. Right now, they were just a pop group.
No, in 1964 The Beatles were not rock gods, because rock gods hadn't been invented yet. The fans loved them and the more hip observers recognised that they were something different, but many journalists preferred to attribute their success to the business wizardry of Brian Epstein (who actually wasn't the canniest businessman under the sun), or the musical direction of George Martin (who would have been the first person to admit that he didn't actually write the songs). By this point, the Beatles, Lennon & McCartney in particular, wanted to assert themselves. They did so in a coup that literally intimidated their peers: this is the only Beatles album on which Lennon and McCartney wrote all the songs. It was unheard-of for a British band of the period to generate so much of its own output.
And the output was pretty impressive. The opening chord of the title track of A Hard Day's Night has been analysed many times, and it still clangs hugely across the decades; no other band of the time could convey this sense of size and power. A Hard Day's Night is, generally speaking, a pretty raucous album. One reason for this is that Lennon was at the peak of his early power as a songwriter and he bestrides this album like a, well, a colossal Walrus. The Beatles' love of girl groups and Motown comes through in wall-of-sound wailers like 'Tell Me Why' and funky, cowbell-driven stomps like 'You Can't Do That' and 'When I Get Home'. Elsewhere, even the potboilers are classic: listen to other British beat groups of the Sixties, and you will soon realise how most of them would have killed to write a melody as catchy as 'I Should Have Known Better'. Lennon rightly observed years later that it's a song about almost nothing, but who cares when the sheer sound of it makes you feel happy? This is the sound of a band surfing the tsunami of its own fame and exulting in its own unfolding genius. It's also, arguably, the last and greatest document of classic Beatlemania. By the next album the band sounded tired, and after that they were starting to get bored of being fab. Their greatest work was still ahead of them, but by the time of Revolver they had become a quite different band. And after that...
As for the remastering, I have no complaints about being able to hear this album in stereo at last. I had a vinyl LP of it years ago which, looking back, was probably in stereo, and while I am a bit of a mono purist when it comes to the Beatles' music (because it's the way that they themselves preferred to listen to it), I have to admit that the widescreen stereo opens up this album in a very refreshing way for the first time in 23 years. I will still go back to the mono version whenever I want sheer impact, but it's good to have this version too. Points off EMI for not including the mono remaster as bonus tracks, but then Beatle fans have learned to expect to be ripped off by EMI.
And it's still the first great Beatles album, and if you haven't listened to it yet, this is the new definitive version. So I envy you the pleasure of hearing it for the first time.
Tell me that you want the kind of things, That money just can't buy
Review date: 2010-02-19 Rating: 8 out of 10
Most people under the age of 50, which, alas, I'm not, can't understand the fuss. You try and tell them, `But the Beatles were first!', and it doesn't compute - they're just a bunch of old, slightly tinny-sounding, songs. Of course if it hadn't been them it would have been someone else, but it was them.
This album was made at the height of Beatlemania, somehow in their song-writing it hadn't quite got through to them that their world (and ours) was changed forever.(Whether for good or bad depends on your point of view, I happen to think for good, probably). Most of the songs are still about getting/losing girls but there are hints in the title track and `Can't Buy Me Love' that they are starting to realise what they've gotten themselves into.
There are a couple of duds on here but for the most part these songs still sound what they were intended to be - damn good pop songs. There's nothing to match the paranoid, at times moving, genius of what was to come on `Help', `Rubber Soul' and `Revolver', but it's still pretty fine and, for those of you under 50, they were first!
2009 CD: Poor remastering.
Review date: 2009-12-17 Rating: 2 out of 10
2009 CD: Poor remastering.
The CD may reveal new details on portable devices or in a car; however, it is a rather frustrating experience on a decent kit. Dynamic range apparently is severely compressed; as a result the sound is subjectively unpleasant - loud and tedious.
This release does not do the justice to the album.
MARX BROTHERS WITH MUSIC!!!!!!
Review date: 2009-11-04 Rating: 10 out of 10
THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THR BEATLES IN THE MOVIES WORLD WAS A FUNNY COMEDY LIKE A MARX BROTHERS FILM, (JOHN WAS GROUCHO, PAUL ZEPPO, GEORGE CHICO AND RINGO HARPO),WITH A GOOD DIRECTOR, RICHARD LESTER, AND ALL THIS WITH A SPECIAL SOUNDTRACK WITH A GOOD SONGS OF THE BEATLES LIKE A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, AND I LOVE HER........ THIS FILM HAVE SOMETHING OF DOCUMMENTARY OF THE FANS PHENOMENON.
Product Details/Specifications
Artist(s):
The Beatles
Recording label: EMI
Manufacturer: EMI
EAN: 0094638241324
Binding: Audio CD
Format: Original recording remastered,
Release date: 2009-09-09
Universal product code (UPC): 094638241324
Number of discs: 1
Disc 1 Tracks:
1. Hard Day's Night, A
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can't Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I'll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can't Do That
13. I'll Be Back
14. Hard Day's Night Mini Documentary, A
Publishers: EMI
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