Listening to the album, it’s easy to see why. In just a few years, they made more adventurous and accomplished albums, but this is the sound of Beatlemania in all of its giddy glory - for better and for worse, this is the definitive Beatles album, the one every group throughout the ages has used as a blueprint. They had certainly found their musical voice before, but A Hard Day’s Night is where it became mythical. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums had coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies. Not only was the record the de facto soundtrack for their movie, not only was it filled with nothing but Lennon-McCartney originals, but it found the Beatles truly coming into their own as a band by performing a uniformly excellent set of songs.

In that context, the achievement of A Hard Day’s Night is all the more astounding.

Nevertheless, that decision still impresses, not only because the album is so strong, but because it was written and recorded at a time when the Beatles were constantly touring, giving regular BBC concerts, appearing on television and releasing non-LP singles and EPs, as well as filming their first motion picture.

Track A3 Erroneously titled “I Cry Instead” on the label & back cover, rather than ‘I’ll Cry Instead’.Ĭonsidering the quality of the original material on With the Beatles, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Lennon & McCartney decided to devote their third album to all-original material.

Beatles tell me why a hard days night