HELP!

After the successful Hard Day's Night film, The Beatles used their next film as an excuse to jet off to various exotic locations around the world and do a bit of skiing, sunbathing and generally larking about. With a "hilarious" plot concerning Ringo and a ring, it was not the greatest film ever made and certainly not up to the standards of its innovative predecessor, however some of the music is pretty good.

They began a slightly "folky" phase with this album with the use of acoustic guitars and electric piano, and this continued to the next album, Rubber Soul.

The standout tracks are the title track, which most people probably took to be about the film but was a real cry for help from Lennon in his "fat Elvis"period, "Ticket To Ride" (or was it Ryde?), with its powerful guitar riff and some excellent drumming from Ringo, and of course "Yesterday", which came to McCartney in a dream and is the most covered song of all time.

There are some lesser known gems here as well, including their first real acoustic number, the wonderful "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" (influenced by Dylan), McCartney's rocker "The Night Before", a couple of good Harrison numbers ("I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much") and Lennon's "It's Only Love", which he considered to be not very good but was later covered to great effect by Gary "US" Bonds.

There are a couple of duffers, the obligatory Ringo number "Act Naturally" and the rock'n'roll cover "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", which fails to display much energy.

After this album, The Beatles entered their real golden era with "Rubber Soul", but this is a pretty good effort, an improvement on its rather rushed predecessor "Beatles For Sale".