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Post by Kapitan on Jan 23, 2021 17:12:43 GMT
That's quite an infatuation with Motown/The Detroit Sound. And rightly so! Personally I don't think there was any better American music in the early '60s than our soul/pop music, with Motown and then Stax/Volt.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jan 23, 2021 17:24:12 GMT
That's quite an infatuation with Motown/The Detroit Sound. And rightly so! Personally I don't think there was any better American music in the early '60s than our soul/pop music, with Motown and then Stax/Volt. Agree, but it's still a little surprising to me that they recorded a third of their album using "popular", recent songs, even though they "Beatle-ized" them. Maybe it was part of their plan (?) to get away from the grittier Hamburg days. Maybe?
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 23, 2021 17:55:16 GMT
I don't think it's so surprising that they covered recent songs: that seems to have been much more common right up through the '60s, with people less frequently covering recent tunes from then on.
Elsewhere I've said I actually would love to see this happen more often now. I think multiple interpretations of current or recent hits (or non-hits, for that matter) are almost always interesting.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jan 23, 2021 19:04:41 GMT
...and the album cover:
'With the Beatles' (1963) Manager Brian Epstein brought Robert Freeman into the Beatles' orbit after becoming enamored with his black-and-white pictures of John Coltrane. For inspiration, they showed Freeman a series of early '60s-era photos taken by their friend Astrid Kirchherr in which they were shown in half light. Freeman achieved a similar effect in the most offhanded of ways, shooting them in the dining room of a hotel in the coastal town of Bournemouth, where the Beatles were playing a summer residency. "People think he must have worked at [it] forever and ever," Paul McCartney said in 2001's The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years. "But it was an hour. He sat down, took a couple of rolls, and he had it." The U.S.-only counterpart Meet the Beatles used the same image, but wrecked the concept by colorizing it. In what would become an unhappy theme during the run up to 1966's Yesterday ... and Today, Capitol also butchered the song order.
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Post by B.E. on Jan 25, 2021 1:28:20 GMT
What's with all the 6s!? This ain't MIU or BB85, it's Beatlemania! John Lennon's songwriting would improve (or at least he'd become more prolific), but his voice is PEAKING! He'd hang on to it for a few more years, but it's already here. As such, his leads on this album are among my absolute favorites: "Please Mister Postman", "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "All I've Got To Do", "Money (That's What I Want)" ... otherworldly! Just as exciting as the first time I heard 'em. There are so many moments throughout the album to cherish (from all of the lads), but I won't bore you with a list of 'em. One thing that listening to the album all week (and Please Please Me last week) reminded me of is that John and Paul were incredible shouters (hmm, is that a word?). It's not easy doing that. Let alone sound so great, and cool, doing it. That said, I do wish that there were a little more background vocals on With The Beatles (I'm especially looking at you - "Roll Over Beethoven"). Production-wise, I do think this is a noticeable step up from the debut, but if you dig (or are simply in the mood for) that live-in-the-studio sound, then Please Please Me is the ticket! I do liken it a bit to the change in sound from Surfin Safari to "Surfin' USA". Anyway, despite my praise, I don't fault anyone for ranking this near the bottom of the Beatles canon, nor noting that substituting a few of the singles would have improved it, but for me that means instead of a 10, I'm coming in at an 8. (And a very strong one, at that.)
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 25, 2021 19:39:24 GMT
I think the songs are (relatively) weak, and they aren't yet to the point of really interesting arrangements for the most part. But also, for me, 6s aren't bad! As I said in my scoring post:
In other words, I enjoy it well enough. I almost never--as in, maybe once every few years, tops--put it on to listen to straight through, though.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jan 26, 2021 0:18:00 GMT
A question about "All My Loving"...Many years ago, maybe 30-35 years ago, I purchased a Beatles' vinyl comp. I don't remember the name of the album or even the album cover, but I'm sure it was an import. It's buried somewhere in a closet with the rest of my albums. Anyway, this particular version of "All My Loving" had an intro. It was Ringo hitting the cymbal I think five times, then on the next beat Paul comes in with his vocal "Close your eyes and I'll kiss you..." The only thing different about the song is that intro. I never heard this version before or since. With this discussion about With The Beatles, I remembered the song and I tried to track it down with no success. Is anybody familiar with this version of "All My Loving"?
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 26, 2021 14:36:29 GMT
The polling for With the Beatles expires at midnight, so please be sure to vote! Tomorrow we forge ahead.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 27, 2021 12:25:06 GMT
Seven voters rated With the Beatles an average of 6.9. I'll update the first post and move on to our next album shortly.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 27, 2021 12:52:11 GMT
A Hard Day's Night After the November 1963 release of With the Beatles, a string of international collections of Beatles music were compiled into five different albums for release in the U.S. and Canada--all reaching #1 in their respective countries.
In June 1964, after touring America and filming a movie of the same name, the band released A Hard Day's Night. Their third album proper (not including the five released for international markets), it was the first to be released in the UK and US almost simultaneously. But the UK version, released about two weeks earlier, had a different track listing than the US version, as would remain the case for the next few albums.
The album comprised exclusively songs credited to Lennon-McCartney. George Harrison did not have a writing credit, but sang lead on "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You." Ringo Starr did not sing a lead on the album.
A Hard Day's Night reached #1 in the US, UK, Australia, and Germany in 1964; it has also been certified as at least platinum the UK, US (4x), New Zealand, and Canada.
Please rate and discuss A Hard Day's Night.
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Post by kds on Jan 27, 2021 13:23:33 GMT
Whenever the topic of great Beatles albums comes up, you usually hear Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, Abbey Road, and even The White Album. For some reason, the pre Rubber Soul albums don't seem to come up (Patrick Bateman voice), but they should.
I believe A Hard Day's Night is the first classic Beatles fan. Also notable, as Kap pointed out, that it includes all original songs for the first time, firmly establishing Lennon / McCartney as the premiere writing team in rock music at the time. You've got iconic songs like the title track and Can't Buy Me Love, plus songs that any band at the time would kill to release as A sides.
Oh, I almost forgot
Ten
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Post by jk on Jan 27, 2021 13:30:37 GMT
Not a bad song for me this time round. The only one I had to refresh my memory on was "I'll Be Back", and I know that one as well. Lotsa good stuff. The stunning "And I Love Her" has always been in my piano repertoire. I can't give it ten, thinking of the pinnacles to come, so it gets a solid nine.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 27, 2021 14:24:00 GMT
9.
This is a great album. Two phenomenal singles (the title track and "Can't Buy Me Love"), but really an album full of really, really good songs. "I Should Have Known Better" and "You Can't Do That" were B-sides, while "Tell Me Why" and one of the most underrated, hardest-rocking Beatles songs ever, "Any Time At All," were album cuts!?
One of the classic album openings with the sus chord of the title track, plus the electric 12-string sound that went on to make a massive impact on especially West Coast folk rock. It is an album also brimming with creativity within the relatively limited scope of popular rock music.
For example, "Things We Said Today," in A minor, switches to the parallel major of A major for the bridge. The song primarily shifts between the i and v7 chords (Am, Em7), moving to the related key of F major for the B section ("Someday when I'm lonely") to add some color that's not quite in the same key signature: it uses the diatonic chords of C and F, but also the IV chord of F major, which is Bb major. And then after a few runs through that, we get the aforementioned section in A major, colored even further by the V7 of the V chord, a B7 resolving to the E7. This sounds like a minimal shift, from A minor to A major (and a few accidental chords inserted), but those key signatures are actually significantly different (no sharps or flats in the former, three sharps in the latter, and a fourth in the key of E major, implied briefly with the B7).
It's far from radical, it's not an invention or anything ... but it's clever. It's very similar to the oft-mentioned Brian Wilson technique of using non-root notes the bass parts. These are very standard compositional/arrangement techniques, but they weren't used as often in basic rock and roll, early R&B, folk, or country music. The songs are still familiar enough in form that you wouldn't have been likely to be thrown off as if listening to Arnold Schoenberg (or Captain Beefheart), but they are different enough with these little twists that they would--AND DO!--stand out as interesting, tuneful, memorable.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 27, 2021 19:53:58 GMT
I wish the production was better though, not that it's bad, but I don't think it improved much over the past two albums... but that was about to happen in Beatles For Sale anyway I'm curious about this part of your opinion. Can you say more about what you mean by production in this case? What you wish were different/better?
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 27, 2021 20:43:12 GMT
No apologies necessary! I just am often curious about people's impressions of a lot of things that go into recordings.
(Frankly I'm not always good at explaining what I mean, either. After the Beach Boys TWGMTR and Brian Wilson's NPP, I recall getting into lengthy discussions trying to explain what I was calling "squishing" voices. That didn't go well.)
But I like to try to hear whatever it is that others are liking or not liking. I'm going to listen again to some of Hard Day's Night as opposed to Beatles For Sale.
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