SOMETHING NEW

The Beatles are famous for having a ton of US reissues in their early days, and this is one of them. While this contains some of the best rock from this era ever, I just question the purpose behind this (and almost all American Beatles reissues).

This has eight songs already released on the British version of "A Hard Day's Night", two songs on an EP, and the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The two songs from the EP are simply cover songs. They aren't that good, and the German version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" isn't worth the purchase either. So now we knocked out two of the three sources of this album. The third, being the best album from The Beatles' early catalogue, you should just buy anyway. It has these eight songs, in addition to five other ones. "A Hard Day's Night" is a great album that any Beatles fan should buy instead of this unneeded reissue.

Another problem with this album is that it is EXTREMELY short. "A Hard Day's Night" at least broke a half-hour. This is only 24 minutes. They could have easily put another three songs on here. So in addition to being short, this also has a lousy purpose behind it, and the good parts can be found somewhere else.

This has excellent early 60's rock music, but all of it can be found somewhere else. Just buy "A Hard Day's Night" instead, and you won't regret it.

Collectors ONLY: 2/5

Looking back close to half a century, Capitol Records was way ahead of their time with their marketing of The Beatles in the United States. Cynically releasing circumcized versions of the original British versions of the albums, selling these records for full album prices, and collecting the left over songs, along with some unreleased tracks, in order to sell these as additional albums to a public hungry for anything by this group was an act worthy of the soulless whores who have run the major labels down into near irrelevance in the last three decades.

Nevertheless, I have a bunch of these ripoff albums, thanks to Mrs. Evolver's record collection. I listen to these albums searching for traces of the innovation that will shortly become prominent in their albums. But at this stage, there is very little. Sure, for the early sixties, these are very well written songs, but aside from the occasional minor chord, there really isn't much for the prog fan.

By A Hard Day's Night if you must have these songs. You'll get the best songs on the album, plus a few more good tracks.

For those reasons, 1 star.

This Capitol Beatles release again made an impact in America and is a rarity to find on vinyl for any collectors. It was released in 1964 a year before I was conceived into the world of Prog. On that note there's nothing prog about this album but that does not detract from the magic of The Beatles. There are some gems on here such as Things We Said Today, Any Time at All, When I Get Home, Matchbox, And I Love Her, I'm Happy Just to Dance with You and If I Fell. The real rarity for me for a long time was the German version Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand, but of course it has since been released on other better compilations. Grab on vinyl but otherwise get these tracks on other releases such as the superior "A Hard Days Night".