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Before The Beatles recorded with Parlophone Records (which was directed by George Martin), this label, which belongs to EMI Records, was mostly known as a little label which released Comedy albums by Peter Sellers and others. With the success of The Beatles` "Please Please Me" album, EMI gave more budget and more studio time for the recording of this, The Beatles`second album. Maybe, without being The Beatles in Parlophone, this label could have disappeared, but The Beatles, IMO, helped "survive" this little label, which became an "historical" label being part of the history of The Beatles as a band.

Their second album is better in songs and it is more "poilished" as they had more days to record it. Some of the lyrics are very good (particularly in "All I`ve Got to Do" and "Not a Second Time"). "All My Loving" is one of the best songs of the album, with a very good bass part by played by McCartney. "Don`t Bother Me" is a very good song composed by Harrison, apparently the first song that he wrote and the first of his songs to appear on record."Little Child", another good song, with harmonica and good vocal arrangements."Hold Me Tight", one of the weak songs, which it is good, but sounds more as a filler."I Want to Be Your Man", composed by Lennon/McCartney and given to Ringo Starr to sing, is a good Rocker. My favourite song in this album is "Not a Second Time", with a piano solo played by George Martin, and very good double-tracked lead vocals by Lennon.

There are also some covers ("Till There Was You", with a very good acoustic guitar solo by Harrison;"Please Mr. Postman", composed by Carole King;"Roll Over Beethoven", a very good Rocker composed by Chuck Berry and sung by Harrison; "You Really Got a Hold on Me",a very good song composed by Smokey Robinson;"Devil in Her Heart", with a good guitar and lead vocals by Harrison; and "Money", a Rocker with good lyrics and sung by Lennon).

This is a more enjoyable album than their first, IMO.

No, it's not prog in any way, shape or form. But it's here because the Beatles belong here so it deserves a review by someone who was there when it happened. Please, Please me might be their first album but this is the one that introduced the USA to what England already knew. I can only hope that someday another generation will have their own Fab Four that revolutionizes music as we know it. Even the picture on the cover indicated that these guys were a quartet of individuals that weren't fooling around. They were out to change everything we thought we knew about popular music and they did just that. While the songs included here are basically a further extension of their performance repertoire, they did include 8 original compositions that were better than anything else on the charts at the time. We all got caught up in the initial media-fed excitement but none of us could possibly envision where they were eventually going to take us. Try to listen with virgin ears and perhaps you will understand why this music was so radical to an audience that was fed up and bored of tired Elvis tunes and songs about hot rod cars.

Now, here we are on to something. This album was where the Beatles' signature sound was defined. They don't sound remotely like anyone else on any of the tracks. There are still several covers, but they have been given the complete Beatle treatment. There is an energy, and excitement that carries through to the present. The guys were playing with more confidence, and the songwriting is better. They were also getting more creative in their instrumentation, and harmonies. It always amazes me to think about how quickly they grew as musicians, and a band.

Even at this early stage, they weren't comfortable to sit still. Staring out with a the rocker "It Won't Be Long," and going right into the melancholy love song "All I've Got to Do." They tackle Motown with "Devil in Her Heart," and Broadway with a great rendition of "Till There Was You," from "The Music Man." Then it wraps up with the down and dirty "Money." Once again, the Beatles proved to be innovators. The world was heating up, as Beatlemania was about to explode.

Needless to say, I love this album. On any other site, I would give it five stars. It gets three here, due to it's lack of proggitude. However, as I said in my review of "Please Please Me," there is historical value here (along with the great music of course). These four upstarts were pushing the boundaries of popular music. It's fun to observe the "progression."

H.T. Riekels

The Beatles second album, titled With the Beatles, was released shortly after the release of Please Please Me. This time they had a little success riding on their backs so they were able to do some more extravagent things for this record. Unfortunately, though, this record just doesn't really have that kick and that spark that the first album had. There are some very good pop tracks and some budding creativity to go along with it, but for the most part, this album isn't very memorable and it doesn't really hold up against their early albums like Help!, Please Please Me, and A Hard Day's Night. This album would also mark the album debut of George Harrison's first solo penned track in Don't Bother Me. Although the song itself isn't terribly great, it marks the beginning of a great songwriting career for Harrison. Once again like the first album, With the Beatles is about half and half with original compositions and covers.

Anyway, like I did with my review for Please Please Me, I'll review the tracks that really stand out from the bunch. All My Loving has some great chord work from Lennon and Harrison and some heartfelt vocals from McCartney during the chorus. Roll Over Beethoven is a rollicking cover of the Chuck Berry song of the same name, with some great riffing and leads from Harrison as well as a nice vocal performance from him. The Beatles always did good covers of Chuck Berry songs for some reason. Till There Was You is a soft spoken acoustic ballad with some majestic guitar work as well as a spectacular vocal performance from McCartney who really shines on this track brighter than any other on the album. I Wanna Be Your Man was originally a song Lennon and McCartney wrote for the Rolling Stones and Ringo gets a shot at it on this track with a nice vocal performance from him as well. Money ends the album with another top notch cover and some great vocals from Lennon (the same can be said about Please Mr. Postman).

Overall, With the Beatles would be the "sophomore slump" of the group. Although, like Please Please Me, this is in no way shape or form a progressive rock album, you can see the overall progression of the group, as well as the start of a great songwriting career in George Harrison (read the opening paragraph for more). The main problem I believe lies with this album is that it isn't very memorable and despite it being of such a short length (the early Beatles albums were reall really short) it is a bit boring. Fortunately, A Hard Day's Night would rectify the problems that this album was wrought with, and while that album isn't progressive either, it's another step towards what the Beatles would become. As for With the Beatles, fans of the Beatles probably own this, and unless you like non-progressive oldies, you probably won't need this. 2.5/5.

Better than the debut, the second UK album of the Fab Four still contains many covers of classic soul and r'n'b music of American "black" scene, but this is already a competent, developed musicianship of the revolutionary rockers. Again, it is too early for prog rock, but this album deserves to be heard, even by those who do not like THE BEATLES (are there any such people out there?), if nothing then for the amazing vocal harmonies.

Needless to say that the second album of Fab Four will top the British charts. For twenty-one weeks.It is also their first number one in the States (with a different album title as well as track list as it will the standard).

What to say while you listen to "All My Loving". Nothing I guess. Just sit, listen and potentially cry. Sure that shivers will be present as well. At least it is my case. So simple, so straight-forward but so beautiful. It is said that this song (written by McCartney) was aired at the Roosevelt New-York hospital when John was brought after having been shot on that sad December day of 1980.

The recipe is pretty much similar to their debut album (released eight months before). It is a mix of own and cover songs. Even if "Till There Was You" is less known, it holds all the magnificence of the light and profound melodic mood that is so "Beatles". They were the first to write so many beautiful melodies and will probably remain the best ones ever. To be sure, just listen to "Mr. Postman". One of my fave on this album (but there will be at least five of them here).

The version of "Roll Over Beethoven" from the great Chuck Berry has of course nothing to do with the absolutely crazy and fantastic "ELO" interpretation. This one is just a nice and truthful rendition of this rock'n' roll anthem.

But even the Fab Four are not perfect. "Hold Me Tight" sounds pretty weak. A kind of filler, I guess.It was rejected form the "Please, Please Me" sessions for obvious reasons.It was already written in 1961 by McCartney.

My favourite cover from this album is "You Really Got a Hold on Me". A hit from the Motown label written by Smokey Robinson.

Would you believe that "I Wanna Be Your Man" (a daring title for the Fab Four) will be covered by the "Stones" (for whom it is a more appropriate title, right?). The "Stones" being able to release it BEFORE ! Bad guys, I tell you (just kidding...).

The travel back in time continues with this album. Some timeless songs again of which "Not A Second Time" fully belongs. Even if some covers are probably not well chosen nor greatly played, the Fab Four just confirmed their skilled song writing and their care for vocal arrangements. But of course, they will do far much better later on. No question of prog here, of course.

Three stars for this pre-historical rock album.

As my brother convinced me that The Beatles contributed a lot to the development - in fact it was a revolution - of rock music, I started to collect the individual album of the band. Previously I had only some favorite albums like "Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Magical Mystery Tour" and a tribute compilation "All That World War II" (simply because Peter Gabriel sung "Strawberry Field Forever") and "White Album". I traced back the early albums of The Betales. Yes, the music is somewhat raw but I could see it had tremendous impact to rock music, overall.

This second album has nothing different with its predecessor. It has the band's hits and singles like "All My Loving", "Please Mr Postman". This second album reconfirmed The Beatles standing in their music direction. Through this album John Lennon and Paul McCartney demonstrated their talents in songwriting and music making even though the rest of the members did contribute as well. Some songs are enjoyable and uplifting including "It Won't Be Long", "All My Loving", "Roll Over Beethoven" which has become favorites of other bands to cover, "Hold Me Tight".

The unique thing enjoying the music of The Beatles in its inception days is its vintage recording quality and simplicity of its composition. This sounds strange if we compare with prog music which tend to be complex and challenging. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Yeh, yeh, yeh... oh, sorry, this album, the first released in Brazil, with the astonishing name of Beatlemania, included 'She loves you' and 'I want to hold you hands', the Beatles first two huge worldwide hits. Of course that Odeon (EMI representative here) got additional coins issuing the mentioned songs and many more from this album via those small saucers named singles.

With The Beatles is more mature and well-crafted when compared with their debut album but it's still far from the progressive gate (not yet founded) or even the proto-prog status, but otherwise songs are fine, we may feel a certain evolution in their music, in spite the permanent hand-in-hand scheme abiding in the lyrics and the inclusion of a couple of songs from the times they were still poor.

Otherwise and unlike their first album where we can hear all tracks en suite, here I need to do some skippig action cause tracks like 'Little child' and 'Till there was you' are really weak. But here, this weakness is compensated by some strong pieces like 'It won't belong' and 'Don't bother me'. I also like 'Hold me tight' and their cover for the classic 'You've really got a hold on me' - not counting the band's visiting to Berry's 'Roll over Beethoven', one of my favorites early/classic rocks.

The issue of applying a rating here follows the same principle of Please Please Me and in balance, if we consider those weak and strong tracks, the rating stair is the same. Good.

This is probably the weakest album by The Beatles ever. Their debut PLEASE PLEASE ME was released shortly before, and even that was better than WITH THE BEATLES. This is not prog at all, but even as a rock n' roll album, it's not great either. The main problem here is the covers. The Lennon/McCartney songs are all great early rock songs, but the covers are all of pretty lousy 50's songs. The best songs are IT WON'T BE LONG, ALL MY LOVING, and all the other Lennon/McCartney songs. The best overall song is the first IT WON'T BE LONG, which is a really great rock song that I listen to more than anything else on the album.

Basically, I skip a fair amount of the songs, and after my own cuts to this album, it's only like 18-20 minutes. Some hidden gems are in this mediocre album, but nothing really makes it worth a purchase for a prog fan.

3/5 for rock. 2/5 for prog.

With the Beatles is the second full-length studio album by British pop/ rock act The Beatles. With the Beatles was recorded only four months after The Beatles debut album Please Please Me (1963) and it was released in the UK on the 22nd of November 1963. Most of the songs saw an American release on the album Meet The Beatles! on the 20th of January 1964 and the rest appeared on the US only release The Beatles' Second Album on the 25th of April 1964.

The music on With the Beatles is very much in the same style as on the debut album by the band. The songs are simple and vocal oriented, melodic and memorable pop tracks. The vocals are a real treat. Great vocal harmonies and strong lead vocals too. There are eight songs written by the band members and the rest are cover songs of r´n´b tracks like Roll Over Beethoven.

The musicianship and sound quality on the album has increased a bit since the debut but this is still an early sixties production and it´s audible.

I enjoyed myself a bit more than I had expected with this album and while this is not an album I put on very often it´s pretty good and deserves a small 3 star rating. There´s just something special about The Beatles and their sense for melody that already showed this early in their career. Not a fantastic album but certainly a charming one.

THE BEATLES is a very contradictory band, capable of sublime albums as "Abbey Road" but with a simply horrendous early career, to the point of being fathers of what we know today as POP.

Except for Roll Over Beethoven (which is by Chuck Berry), there's are very few decent moments in "With The Beatles", an album full of non transcendental songs, anodyne tunes and harmless music without teeth. to complete the scenario tracks that are not remotely close to the three minutes mark, just all we criticize of mainstream, but because this songs were written by THE BEATLES, people seem to forgive everything.

Even though I agree with the policy of the site to add all the complete discography of an artist, in cases like this one, I wonder if there could be a solution, because this album should be in POP Archives not here, as a fact I believe everything before "Rubber Soul" should be avoided.

Won't even try to review track by track as I usually do, because I believe there's nothing worthy to be analyzed, but as a complete work, the album must be one of the cheesiest and simplest moments in the history of Rock & Roll.

Plus it would be a futile attempt, being that the songs end almost as son as they start, with such similar length that seem manufactured in an assembly line, the shortest lasts 1:47 minutes and the longest 2:47, so there's very little to talk about a catchy chorus and a verse that have aged terribly as most POP releases, created to reach the peak in a short period of time but also to vanish even faster after selling some millions of albums, this ones have survived longer because of the name BEATLES, but not for the quality.

As I said before, the only memorable moments I find are "Roll Over Beethoven" and Ringo Starr's vocal performance on "I Wanna Be Your Man", which has always surprised me, the rest is pretty forgettable.

Two stars because I don't want to start WW III, but was tempted to give one.

Sophmore slump---but it won't be long

If I were forced to rank the Beatles albums in order of perceived quality, this one would likely hold the bottom slot. While not a bad album it is certainly a slide from the excellent debut, despite the iconic black and white album cover showing part of their faces hidden. Released just 8 months after the first album and recorded in nearly as little time, it would be the final fab four album to utilize twin track technology.

The problem here is simply the lack of memorable material which is a problem few Beatles albums have. The first two albums were likely culled from a large pool of songs representing their live repertoire of the years late 1962-1963, and it would only be natural that the best tracks they had would be selected for the first. Over the summer of 1963 they probably combined some of the new songs with the tracks passed over for recording on the debut. This would explain the mediocrity. Even the one-two leadoff punch of "It won't be long" and "All I've got to do" are as weak an album start as they would ever manage, without much oomph or charisma. But there are a few gems here that are of interest to fans. "All my loving" is a classic with the interesting guitar and bass parts, and "Till there was you" is another absolutely endearing McCartney vocal. It also features a nice acoustic solo. Lennon has a few rocking covers here that almost get the blood pumping with his sneering attitude and gritty guitar, "Please Mister Postman" and "Money." Aside from those much of the second album just doesn't live up to the debut. I also note those who say that this album sounds better than the debut---to me the first album sounds more alive and defined, this one seems duller somehow in its sound presentation.

While not awful "With the Beatles" is probably one of only two albums I would recommend for fans only. As good as they were, the pace of recordings and shows in this period was intense, though this problem would soon be overcome by their growing studio skills and songwriting abilities.

The Beatles second album is a fair singles album with enough catchy radio friendly songs to appease any Beatles addict. For me the highlights are the less known songs that have not been played to death such as It Won't Be Long, Don't Bother Me, and Money. There are some throwaways (gasp) such as Little Child and Till There Was You, but overall this has essential Beatles that appear on near every compilation of the fab Four such as Please Mr Postman, Roll Over Beethoven, and Hold Me Tight.

This is worth a listen for nostalgia and of course there is not a sceric of prog on it. 2 1/2 stars only.

Following the success of their first album, it was only natural that the band would release a second album eight months later. In my opinion however, this one doesn't quite stand up to the first!

On the plus side, you have the wonderful All My Loving, the infectiously pretty Till There Was You and another rocking Ringo track I Wanna Be Your Man, which actually sounds quite hard to sing and drum to at the same time! There are some lesser gems like Please Mr Postman and Roll Over Beethoven as well. However, the rest of this album is mainly forgettable! It's interesting to note the innocence of the early '60s: Little Child could simply not have been written today, with the lyrics 'Little child won't you dance with me? I'm so sad and lonely, baby take a chance with me.'

This album really fails to make a great impact on me, and although some of the tracks are really good, there aren't enough of them to make this a must-buy. The decision to exclude She Loves You from this album is an intriguing one, as I can imagine this would have boosted the sales dramatically. However, history tells us that even without this track, 'With The Beatles' managed to do considerably well, which launched the band into super-stardom. In my opinion however, this is not one of the great Beatles' albums, even from their early period.

With The Beatles offers stagnation and progress in equal portions. The Beatles are able to diversify their sound a little - check out the easy listening ballad You've Really Got a Hold On Me or the acoustic Till There Was You - but these dabblings, whilst outside their comfort zone, weren't exactly innovative. In the rock sphere, however, the delivery is noticably improved. All My Loving and Hold Me Tight are highlights of the album, and the more relaxed recording sessions and superior studio equipment improve the sound quality appreciably. If anything, the weakest point on this album is the lyrics, which remain mired in cliche, though Not A Second Time does take things in a darker than usual direction.

It is unfair that people are giving particularly low scores to the first four Beatles albums just because they aren't progressive; unfair because they are, in actual fact, very innovative, but also unfair because prog rock didn't exist in the early Sixties, so how can a band be criticised for not doing it? It's all to easy to say that With The Beatles isn't as good as Dark Side of the Moon, and therefore that it's a crappy album, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and I wonder: how boring and derivative would all of those Seventies albums be if this very band not taken those brave first few steps?

Rant over.

I like this album slightly more than The Beatles debut, Please Please Me. Even though there is one particular song on here that I hate more than any other Beatles tune ([%*!#]ing "Please Mr Postman") the rest are really very good. 'It Won't Be Long' is almost a rock song, with some great chords and a shouty hook from Lennon. Then 'All I've Got To Do' takes things down a notch, but we get one of the best and most emotional melodies on the album, and Ringo creates a marvellous R&B beat here. A good start. On side one, I would also like to highlight the first song George Harrison ever wrote, 'Don't Bother Me', which is just as decent as the Lennon/McCartney compositions, and the beautiful 'Till There Was You', a Broadway song that features some of Paul's best ever singing and a great Spanish guitar solo.

The second side has less to offer but there are two excellent songs. Chuck Berry's famous 'Roll Over Beethoven' (and tell Tchaikovsky the news) is a great rock and roll cover, probably quite controversial among lovers of classical music. Also, the album's closer 'Money (That's what I want)' provides a memorable and bluesy ending to this underrated album. I still prefer The Flying Lizards version of that song, however!

With The Beatles is not an essential release from the band, but it is one of their better early records, better still if it had had the coinciding singles on it; 'She Loves You' and 'From Me to You'. The main thing is that there are far fewer 'throwaway' tracks than on Please Please Me and Hard Days Night.

'With The Beatles' - The Beatles (4/10)

The influence of 50's rock n' roll is very evident on The Beatles with their second album.While this band is mostly known for their excellent art pop material from 'Help!' onwards, this group started off as a fairly typical group of British youngsters attempting to claim some of the glory pioneered by the American rock n' roll movement of the past decade. The quality of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting duo is not in question, but as it stands, this band was at a fairly adolescent and simplistic stage with this album.

As with every album that The Beatles ever did, there are a handful of songs that stand out, regardless of the quality of the overall album. Here, 'All My Loving' is the big winner, a beautiful tune with great melody and lyrical rhymes. The more rock based songs 'Hold Me Tight' and 'It Won't Be Long' are also memorable, although they cling onto the bluesy American format. 'With The Beatles' is a very simple album, and musically speaking, The Beatles were little more than a typical boyband. The potential of the band is heard here, without it being tapped into. The only strong thing about the band at this point were their melodies, which are straightforward and predictable, but effective. The vocal harmonies that the band would be so famous for later in their careers are pretty rough this time around.

While the band's songwriting is very American R&B influenced, there are actual covers from that scene, particularly a Chuck Berry track, 'Rock n' Roll Beethoven'. Here, they pay decent homage to some greats of early rock music, but as one might expect, there is not anything here that these adolescent Brits are doing that makes it better than the originals. For fans of The Beatles, this is naturally a worthy album to check out, as it features some early examples of Lennon/McCartney songwriting. However, there is a reason that this is one of the less recognized albums by the band.