I missed my deadline yesterday, I know. I took the day off from work. I usually do this stuff on my lunch break, so that's why there was no update. Not that I actually have any readers...
I both love and hate the cover of the "Can't Buy Me Love" single. On the one hand it's just an uninspired collage of The Beatles' heads and upper torsos, where it looks like none of them really want their picture taken. On the other hand, it's pretty clear that John, Paul, and George were in the same photo session, then someone realized, "Shit! We forgot to invite Ringo!" and slapped whatever picture they had of him on the cover. It would explain why the other Beatles are all shot from the left while Ringo is looking right at the camera and only has a neck.
"Can't Buy Me Love" is a really good song, but I'm once again astonished how the sound quality of the instruments really sucks. I don't know how whoever produced/mixed this crummy sound justified it. I know it was a different era, but I also know there are recordings from the same period and much earlier which sound sublime. I recently reviewed Ellington At Newport, which sounded awesome. The first album I reviewed, In The Wee Small Hours, was recorded 9 years earlier than the "Can't Buy Me Love" single and was beautiful. Why were The Beatles not given the same treatment?
Long Tall Sally was an extended play released between The Beatles second and third UK albums. It was their fifth EP, but the first to include songs not already on a previous album or single, which is why I'm reviewing this and not the others. Once again Ringo is the only one who is acting polite for the cover photo while the others are shooting daggers out of their eyes at their manager. I'll call this the "George Harrison's jacket is chafing" cover. The title track is a pretty standard 12-bar-blues number but quite well done. "I Call Your Name" is a smooth rocker with an interesting progression. The other two songs are ordinary blues/rock covers. One thing that's missing from this EP is The Beatles' unique brand of harmonizing. In fact it seems like the further along I'm going the less I hear. I kinda miss it.
Interesting thing about "A Hard Day's Night" is the opening chord. Apparently Beatles fans around the world have been analyzing that noise for decades trying to figure out how it was made, breaking it down piece by piece, figuring which Beatle played what, adding it up and concluding... it's impossible. There's no way four guys playing instruments made that chord. So how did it happen? No one knows, and it continues to drive people nuts to this day.
Except for the people who figured it out. Apparently producer George Martin was in the studio with them and played piano on that chord or something. I don't really know all the details, but it's interesting first that Beatles fans go nuts analyzing something like that, and second that when they couldn't figure it out they don't think it could have been someone else in the studio.
As for the album, a marked improvement over With The Beatles. There's more dynamic harmonizing and the songs go back and forth between energetic and slow ballads. It feels more cohesive than the first two albums, which mostly just sounded like a bunch of songs thrown together to fill up an LP. This is also the first Beatles album to be entirely written by the band... well, by Lennon and McCartney anyway. In any case the sound quality is still poor but a bit better than With The Beatles.
On the strength of A Hard Day's Night I'll give this collection 3 stars.
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