WITH THE BEATLES

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.