Please Please Me
Please Please Me | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 22 March 1963 | |||
Recorded | 11 September 1962[1] – 20 February 1963 | |||
Studio | EMI, London | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 31:59 | |||
Label | Parlophone | |||
Producer | George Martin | |||
The Beatles chronology | ||||
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Singles from Please Please Me | ||||
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Please Please Me is the debut
The Beatles had signed with EMI in May 1962 and had been assigned to the Parlophone label run by Martin. They released their debut single "
The album was well-received in Britain, where it remained in the Top 10 for over a year, a record for a debut album that stood for half a century. The presence of several songs written by band members Lennon–McCartney (credited as "McCartney–Lennon" at the time) was unusual and marked the emergence of a "self-contained rock band". On the other hand, the album was not released in the US, where the band sold poorly for most of 1963; after the stateside emergence of Beatlemania, Vee-Jay Records released a mild abridgment of the album as Introducing... The Beatles in early 1964, while EMI's American label Capitol Records divided the material from Please Please Me across multiple albums. Other countries also received different versions of the album, which continued until 1987, when the entirety of the Beatles catalogue was brought to CD and internationally standardised to the UK albums.
Please Please Me remains critically acclaimed; it was voted 39th on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2012, and number 622 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 2000.
Background
EMI offered the Beatles a recording contract on its
Martin doubted the commercial appeal of "Love Me Do" and was surprised when it reached No. 17 on the British charts in November.[9] Now convinced that the Beatles could write hits, Martin met the Beatles on 16 November and made two suggestions for their upcoming work. First, he suggested that they re-record "Please Please Me" and issue it as the Beatles' second single. Next, he proposed that they record a full album—a recommendation Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn deemed "genuinely mind-boggling" because the Beatles were so new to the music scene and because the album market was dominated by adult buyers, not teenagers.[10] On 26 November, the Beatles held another session for "Please Please Me" (to be backed with "Ask Me Why"), after which Martin predicted that they had just made their first number one record.[11]
As the Beatles had extensive stage experience and a large following of local fans in Liverpool, Martin proposed the band could record a
The single "Please Please Me" was released on 11 January 1963 and reached number one on the NME, Melody Maker, and Disc charts.[15] In early February, the group undertook their first national tour, and they planned to record their album during a break in the tour on 11 February.
Recording
According to Martin, "I asked them what they had which we could record quickly, and the answer was their stage act"; (the norm for British 12" vinyl pop albums in 1963 was to have seven songs on each side whereas American albums usually had five or six songs per side).[15] Martin said, "It was a straightforward performance of their stage repertoire – a broadcast, more or less."[16] Initially, a morning and afternoon session only were booked; the evening session was added later.[17] Mark Lewisohn later wrote: "There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music".[15] Martin oversaw each session on the day, with Norman Smith as first engineer and Richard Langham as second engineer.[15]
We didn't rehearse our first album. In my head, it was done "live". We did the songs through first, so they could get some sort of sound on each one; then we had to just run, run them down.
—Ringo Starr[18]
Recording took place on 11 February 1963.[19] The Beatles arrived with John Lennon suffering from a bad cold, which he attempted to treat with a steady supply of throat lozenges.[15] They began their morning session at 10 am with "There's a Place" and "Seventeen" (the working title of what became "I Saw Her Standing There").[15] The band rehearsed during their lunch break and then proceeded with their afternoon session.[15] In that session, Paul McCartney recorded a double-tracked vocal for "A Taste of Honey", George Harrison sang lead on "Do You Want to Know a Secret", and Lennon and McCartney sang co-lead on "Misery".[15] During the evening session, the band recorded covers of "Anna (Go to Him)", "Boys" (Ringo Starr's sole vocal), "Chains" and "Baby It's You".[20] The song "Hold Me Tight" was also recorded during the evening session, but proved "surplus to requirements" and was not included on the album.[17][nb 1]
At 10 pm, with the studios set to close soon, the day ended with a cover of "Twist and Shout". The song was picked after a discussion in the studio canteen in which numerous songs were suggested before "Twist and Shout" was chosen. The performance, caught on the first take, prompted Martin to say: "I don't know how they do it. We've been recording all day but the longer we go on the better they get."[17] Lennon later remarked, "The last song nearly killed me. My voice wasn't the same for a long time after; every time I swallowed, it was like sandpaper."[22]
At the end of the evening session at 10:30 pm, the Beatles attended a full tape playback in the studio control room.[20] Lennon reflected, "Waiting to hear that LP played back was one of our most worrying experiences. ... As it happens, we were very happy with the result.[22] The Beatles were not present during an overdub session on 20 February, during which Martin overdubbed piano on "Misery" and celesta on "Baby It's You".[23]
The day of recording cost approximately £400
Before deciding on the title Please Please Me, Martin considered calling the album Off the Beatle Track, a title he would later use for his own orchestral album of Beatles songs.[28] The album was recorded on a two-track BTR tape machine with most of the instruments on one track and the vocals on the other, allowing Martin to better balance the two in the final mono mix.[23] A stereo mix was also made with one track on the left channel and the other on the right, as well as an added layer of reverb to better blend the two tracks together. The two tracks generally divided the instrumental track from the vocals, with the exception of "Boys", in which the close proximity of Ringo's drums to his vocal microphone placed the drums (but not the other instruments) on the vocal channel.[citation needed]
Two tracks, "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", were only mixed for mono for the single's release and no stereo versions were ever made, so, for the stereo version of the album, during the mixing sessions on 25 February 1963, Martin created "mock stereo" versions by emphasising low frequencies on one side and high frequencies on the other.
Artwork and packaging
George Martin was an
The Beatles' press officer
Release
This album was one of the main ambitions in our lives. We felt that it would be a showcase for the group, and it was tremendously important for us that it sounded bang on the button. As it happened, we were pleased. If not, sore throats or not, we'd have done it all over again. That was the mood we were in. It was break or bust for us.[32]
—Paul McCartney
Parlophone released Please Please Me in the UK on 22 March 1963.[33][34] As was typical for the time,[35] the LP was initially released only in mono, with a stereo release following on 26 April.[28][nb 2] Singles remained the dominant format for pop music, made up mostly of teenage buyers, while more expensive LPs were typically reserved for genres like classical music and jazz, whose listeners could more easily afford the format.[35][36] Author Barry Miles suggested the album's cover design, promising "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do" and "12 Other Songs", indicated EMI's desire to promote the album towards "die-hard supporters" excited by the two earlier singles.[35]
Please Please Me hit the top of the UK album charts in May 1963 and remained there for 30 weeks before being replaced by With the Beatles. This was an unprecedented achievement for a pop album at that time.[37] At the time, the UK album charts tended to be dominated by film soundtracks and easy listening vocalists.[38] Please Please Me was the first non-soundtrack album to spend more than one year consecutively inside the top ten of what became the Official UK Albums Chart (with 62 weeks).[39] This record run of consecutive weeks in the top ten for a debut album stood until April 2013, when Emeli Sandé's Our Version of Events achieved a 63rd consecutive week.[40]
In the 30 March 1963 issue of Record Mirror, Norman Jopling reviewed the album in depth, providing track-by-track reviews for the ten songs that had not been previously released. He concludes that, for a debut, the LP is "surprisingly good and up to standard", and contained many tracks that could have been released as singles, such as "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Misery". Jopling further highlighted the LP's packaging, writing that its cover image and sleeve notes provided extra value.[41] Author Jonathan Gould suggests in retrospect that the album's packaging majorly contributed to its success, promising fans "glossy cover art" and a greater companion to the music than the plain paper packaging then offered by singles.[42]
International and CD releases
In addition to the UK, Please Please Me was released, un- or lightly-modified, in India, continental Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In New Zealand, the album first appeared only in mono on the black Parlophone label. The following year (1964) EMI (NZ) changed from black to a blue Parlophone label and the album was again available only in mono. Due to constant demand, it was finally made available in stereo, first through the World Record Club on their Young World label in both mono and stereo,[43] and finally on the blue Parlophone label. The album was released in Japan in 1969 with a different cover and a significantly shuffled tracklist.[citation needed]
EMI's American subsidiary Capitol Records had been offered the opportunity to release Beatles material since the 1962 release of "Love Me Do", but turned it down.[44] Vee-Jay Records, a smaller label unaffiliated with EMI, took the initiative of bringing the Beatles to the United States, releasing the "Please Please Me" single on 25 February 1963. Despite its success in Britain, "Please Please Me" failed to chart in the US, and the May release of "From Me to You" was similarly lacklustre, leading Vee-Jay to lose interest in the Beatles.[45] Originally planning on releasing the Please Please Me album unaltered in July, it ended up trimming "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why" to fit the standard American album length and releasing it as Introducing... The Beatles in January 1964.[46] Capitol remained unimpressed with the group until the rapid success of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in Christmas 1963. Buoyed by the resultant Beatlemania and aware of their previous rejection of the Beatles, Capitol released a modified version of the group's second album With the Beatles, coming out with Meet the Beatles! shortly after Vee-Jay had released Introducing... The Beatles. Meet the Beatles! contains "I Saw Her Standing There", which Capitol released as the American B-side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand".[47] Finally acquiring the rights to early Beatles recordings back from Vee-Jay in late 1964, Capitol released most of the other tracks from Please Please Me on The Early Beatles in March 1965, although "Misery" and "There's a Place" remained unreleased by Capitol until 1980's Rarities.[48]
In Canada, the majority of the album's songs were included upon the Canadian-exclusive release Twist and Shout, which featured "From Me to You" and "She Loves You" in place of "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Misery".[citation needed]
The album was released on CD on 26 February 1987, in mono, as were their three subsequent albums, With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale. It was not released on vinyl or tape in the US until five months later when it was issued for the first time in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987.[49][50]
Please Please Me was remastered and re-released on CD in stereo, along with all the other original UK studio albums, on 9 September 2009.[51] The 2009 remasters replaced the 1987 remasters. A remastered mono CD was also available as part of The Beatles in Mono box set.[52]
Retrospective assessment
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [57] |
MusicHound | [58] |
Paste | 92/100[59] |
Pitchfork | 9.5/10[60] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [61] |
Sputnikmusic | 4/5[4] |
In a 1987 review coinciding with the album's CD reissue, Rolling Stone magazine's Steve Pond recommended Please Please Me "for the Beatles' unfettered joy at making music".[62] Senior AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine summarised, "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh", serving as an effective encapsulation of the band's early influences, further finding the covers "impressive" and the originals "astonishing".[53]
Rolling Stone magazine cited Lennon–McCartney's original compositions as early evidence of the Beatles' "[invention of] the idea of the self-contained rock band, writing their own hits and playing their own instruments".[63]
The album's 2009 remaster attracted a number of reviewers. Pitchfork's Tom Ewing described the album as "a raw, high-energy run-through of their early live set" that acts as "the sound of rock'n'roll finding a suddenly large, new audience."[60] He praised the album's cohesiveness, where the "evening with the band" mood sets it apart from the band's other cover-heavy works, creating a non-filler track experience with great covers and originals and, above all, great vocal performances.[60] The same year, Mark Kemp was positive reviewing the band's entire remastered catalogue for Paste, commending the band for infusing African American musical styles with "chirpy harmonies" from girl groups like the Shirelles to create "a sound the pop world had never heard".[59] The Telegraph writer Neil McCormick praised the band's performances throughout the record, contending that "the sheer accomplishment of their tight, syncopated playing and perfect harmony singing is astonishing to behold."[56] Alex Young described the album as a dance masterpiece in Consequence of Sound, finding the remaster an improvement over the original mix.[55]
Writing for BBC Music in 2010, Mike Diver contended that although not regarded as their most critically acclaimed release, Please Please Me stands as a "vital moment" in the band's history, as it "set in motion the wheels that would carry them to the very peak of public recognition, and subsequently into realms of sonic experimentation that would create a template for so much rock and pop music since."[64] Diver further argued that the album's long reign at the top of the UK charts provided a rebuttal to Decca Records' stance that guitar groups were "on the way out".[64] The writers of Rolling Stone agreed in The Rolling Stone Album Guide, writing that Please Please Me acted as a blueprint for "everything the Beatles would ever do".[61]
In
Rankings
Please Please Me has made appearances on several best-of lists. In 2012, it was voted 39th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was ranked first among the Beatles' early albums, and sixth of all of the Beatles' albums, with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver, Rubber Soul, The Beatles (also known as "The White Album") and Abbey Road ranked higher.[66] English writer Colin Larkin listed Please Please Me at number 622 in the third edition of his book All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[67] Rolling Stone also placed two songs from the album on its 2004 edition of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "I Saw Her Standing There" at number 140, and "Please Please Me" at number 186.[68]
Several publications, including NME,
50th anniversary
In 2013, the album's 50th anniversary was celebrated by modern artists re-recording the album in just one day, as the Beatles recorded it 50 years earlier. Stereophonics recorded a cover of the album's opening track, "I Saw Her Standing There". This and the other recordings were broadcast on BBC Radio 2, and a documentary about the re-recording of the Beatles' debut album was broadcast on BBC Television.[74][75][76]
Track listing
All songs written by
No. | Title | Lead vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "I Saw Her Standing There" | McCartney | 2:52 |
2. | "Misery" | Lennon and McCartney | 1:47 |
3. | "Anna (Go to Him)" (Arthur Alexander) | Lennon | 2:54 |
4. | "Chains" (Gerry Goffin, Carole King) | Harrison | 2:23 |
5. | "Boys" (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell) | Starr | 2:24 |
6. | "Ask Me Why" | Lennon | 2:24 |
7. | "Please Please Me" | Lennon and McCartney | 2:00 |
Total length: | 16:44 |
No. | Title | Lead vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Love Me Do" | McCartney and Lennon | 2:19 |
2. | "P.S. I Love You" | McCartney | 2:02 |
3. | "Baby It's You" (Mack David, Barney Williams, Burt Bacharach) | Lennon | 2:35 |
4. | "Do You Want to Know a Secret" | Harrison | 1:56 |
5. | "A Taste of Honey" (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow) | McCartney | 2:01 |
6. | "There's a Place" | Lennon and McCartney | 1:49 |
7. | "Twist and Shout" (Phil Medley, Bert Russell) | Lennon | 2:33 |
Total length: | 15:15 |
Personnel
According to Ian MacDonald and Mark Lewisohn:[79]
The Beatles
- John Lennon – lead, harmony and background vocals; rhythm and acoustic guitars; harmonica ("Chains", "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do", "There's a Place"), handclaps
- Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and background vocals; bass guitar, handclaps
- George Harrison – harmony and background vocals; lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars; handclaps; lead vocals ("Chains" and "Do You Want to Know a Secret")
- Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine ("Love Me Do"), maracas ("P.S. I Love You"), handclaps; lead vocals ("Boys")
Additional musicians and production
- Stuart Eltham – balance engineer(20 February 1963)
- George Martin – producer, mixer; piano ("Misery"), celesta ("Baby It's You")
- Norman Smith – balance engineer, mixer
- Andy White – drums ("Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You")
Charts
Weekly charts
|
|
Year-end charts
Chart (1963) | Ranking |
---|---|
UK Record Retailer[99] | 2 |
Chart (1964) | Ranking |
UK Record Retailer[100] | 6 |
Certifications and sales
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Argentina (CAPIF)[101] | Platinum | 60,000^ |
Australia (ARIA)[102] | Gold | 35,000^ |
Canada (Music Canada)[103] | Gold | 50,000^ |
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[104] | Platinum | 20,000‡ |
New Zealand (RMNZ)[105] Reissue |
Gold | 7,500^ |
United Kingdom Original release |
— | 500,000[106] |
United Kingdom (BPI)[107] sales since 2009 |
Platinum | 300,000‡ |
United States (RIAA)[108] | Platinum | 1,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
† BPI certification awarded only for sales since 1994.[109]
See also
Notes
- ^ It was later re-recorded and released on With the Beatles.[21]
- ^ Before 1968, stereo was a small proportion of the music market.[35] The album mixing process focused on the mono version, while the stereo version was comparatively rudimentary,[35] displaying a major left-right separation between the rhythm and vocal tracks.[23]
References
Citations
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- Castleman, Harry; Podrazik, Walter J. (1976). All Together Now: The First Complete Beatles Discography, 1961–1975. New York: ISBN 0-345-25680-8.
- Gould, Jonathan (2007). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America. New York: ISBN 978-0-307-35338-2.
- Guesdon, Jean-Michel; Margotin, Philippe (2013). All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release. New York: ISBN 978-1-57912-952-1.
- Harry, Bill (1992). The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 0-86369-681-3.
- ISBN 978-0-600-63561-1.
- Lewisohn, Mark (2000) [1992]. The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The Only Definitive Guide to the Beatles' Entire Career. London: ISBN 0-600-60033-5.
- Lewisohn, Mark (2013). The Beatles: All These Years Volume 1: Tune In. New York: ISBN 978-1-4000-8305-3.
- ISBN 978-1-55652-733-3.
- ISBN 0-316-54783-2.
- ISBN 978-0-7119-8308-3.
- Norman, Philip (1993). Shout!. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017410-9.
- Penman, Ross (2009). The Beatles in New Zealand ... a discography. ISBN 978-0-473-15155-3.
- Russell, Jeff P. (1982). The Beatles Album File and Complete Discography. Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press. ISBN 0-7137-1277-5– via Internet Archive.
- Salewicz, Chris (1986). McCartney – The Biography. London: Queen Anne Press. ISBN 0-356-12454-1.
- Wallgren, Mark (1982). The Beatles on Record. New York: Fireside. ISBN 0-671-45682-2– via Internet Archive.
- ISBN 978-0-521-68976-2.
External links
- Quotations related to Please Please Me at Wikiquote
- Please Please Me, at the Beatles official website
- Please Please Me at Discogs (list of releases)
- Beatles Interview Database
- Recording data and notes on mono/stereo mixes and remixes