Small sorta repetitive sample size today. Not sure why but The Beatles only released one single around the Help! album, and that single was the title track.
I've never really liked the song "Help!" but I don't have a good reason why. It probably has to do with "help" being one of those words that the more times you say it the weirder it sounds, almost to the point of it not feeling like a real word. It does to me anyway. It's B-side "I'm Down" is a boring hard rock tune with really poor sound quality.
So the album Help! starts out with the same song that was released on single just a week prior. Question for the people from this era when singles were released ahead of albums... Did it feel like a ripoff when the song you just bought later appears on an album you want to buy? I would feel ripped off. After Help! the album came out the only thing the "Help!" single is good for is the shitty B-side. And who buys a single just to get the shitty B-side? I'm sure things were even worse when both the A and B-sides appeared on the album you wind up buying.
I started this review project without intending to comment on the album covers but I've kinda gotten into a habbit of dumping all over them. Here I go once again... I have to comment on how much I hate the cover for Help! It would be one thing if the semaphore they were doing actually spelled out "H-E-L-P" but it doesn't. So the cover is just four guys in ponchos and ugly hats waving their arms randomly. Once the semaphore idea flopped they probably should have come up with something different.
George Harrison has a nice song on here called "I Need You", probably the best new-to-me Beatles song I've heard thus far. In the past I've tended to really like George Harrison's music so I'm not surprised.
Wait a minute... Why is "Ticket to Ride" on this album? It was released as a single 4 months before Help! came out. It's a good song, but I'm sure someone who already bought the single would be pissed off to see it as filler on Help!
Much of this album is pretty cynical. Songs like "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" and "You Like Me Too Much" just sound like The Beatles being mean. It stands in contrast to a lot of the band's previous more sugary output, which would be fine if the music was actually more enjoyable. The instrumentation and sound are both improved, but overall the music is a bit tamer.
One exception of course is "Yesterday". It's the best Beatles song yet released, and may be their best song of all time. Two problems with that statement (yes, I am about to criticize something I just wrote, but this is how my brain works): First, the song has been covered by EVERYONE EVER, which isn't really the song's fault, but is annoying. Second, only Paul McCartney appears on the track, none of the other Beatles, so is it really a Beatles song, or is it a Paul McCartney song? I don't know why I even bother asking.
"Yesterday" was the next to the last song on the album and I was ready to go out on a high note, but then they tacked on a lame cover of "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and I'm suddenly just as sour as ever. As a whole this is a pretty weak output. 2 stars.
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