Customer Reviews

A Hard Day's Night

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If With The Beatles launched Beatlemania, then A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (the movie and this soundtrack) sealed it worldwide. The first album featuring entirely original songs, AHDN marks a big step forward for The Beatles and rock and roll in a time when singers and bands sang other people's compositions. This is the pinnacle of mid-60s British pop before the psychedelic era.

John Lennon dominates this album, starting with the strong opener, the self-titled AHDN, I Should Have Known Better featuring a jaunty harmonica, If I Fell and I'll Be Back (two of his sweetest ballads), the rockers Anytime At All and When I Get Home, the Wilson Pickett-inspired You Can't Do That and I'll Cry Instead, which features John's first confessional lyric (a la Dylan) expressing self-doubt.

Paul offers the million-selling hit, Can't Buy Me Love, and the strong ballads, And I Love Her and the underrated Things We Said Today. Otherwise, Paul takes a low profile.

The only weakness are the boy-meets-girl lyrics which were the standard of the day. Only I'll Cry Instead suggests any maturity in the songwriting, as Dylan's full influence hadn't yet touched the band.

Musically, the album's one great advance is George's introduction of the 12-string Rickbacker, whose jangly sound would be picked up by a folk quartet from L.A. later known as The Byrds. The Their success in turn would help push The Beatles in a different direction.

A final note: I still prefer listening to my Parlophone vinyl in stereo than to this mono CD. The stereo mixes are no better or worse than Help! and Rubber Soul, yet they remain officially locked in the EMI vaults. George Martin mistakenly believed that stereo mixes were never made in 1964, but this is not so. Perhaps one day Apple will have the good sense to re-issue this great album in stereo.

A Hard Day's Night (1964.) Beatles' third album.

Following the Beatles' early 1964 tour of America, it fast became apparent to the band that they had become more popular than they could have ever imagined - and their popularity was only continuing to rise. For their next project, the band decided to do a film that demonstrated that spoofed their feelings on their life as celebrities. What resulted was the film A Hard Day's Night, produced by Dick Lester. The soundtrack to the film became the band's fourth studio album. Read on for my review.

This was the band's first LP to feature nothing but original songs - there are no covers whatsoever. It's also the first of the band's albums on which a particular member of the band dominates - in this case, John Lennon. Of the thirteen songs here, he wrote ten (although George Harrison sings one), and Paul McCartney wrote the other three. First of all, let's look at Lennon's material, which makes up the majority of the album. The title track is straight-up pop-friendly sixties rock that you'd expect the band to shell out in this era. The opening guitar strumming is priceless. When I Get Home, You Can't Do That, and Any Time At All are other pop-friendly rockers that John wrote for the album - all of which are excellent. The rather popular Tell Me Why, featured toward the end of the film, is one of the band's finest pop-style tunes. But the album isn't all about pop-style stuff. If I Fell is one of the band's first true original ballads, and it's a damn fine one too. I'll Be Back is a sort of half-ballad that closes out the album, and it's another great song. Lennon's vocals are top notch through and through. I'll Cry Instead is an extremely catchy song, despite it being a last-minute addition to the film. And then, of course, is I'm Happy Just To Dance With You. This is a Lennon composition, but George Harrison sings - and his vocals are very good here. It's a shame the band didn't use more of his material or let him sing more often - it's a mistake that would ultimately lead to him being dissatisfied with the band later on. McCartney's three compositions are very good as well. Although And I Love Her is NOT one of his stronger tunes, the other two he wrote make up for it. Can't By Me Love is, by far, the most popular song on this album - and it's damn catchy too. The last of his compositions is Things We Said Today, a sort of half-ballad. Though very different from other Beatles songs, it's an excellent song nonetheless. In the end, this is a damn fine pop-rock album. I wish they would have had Ringo singing on a song, but I'm not complaining.

THIS TEXT REFERS EXCLUSIVELY TO THE STANDARD AMERICAN ISSUE OF THE ALBUM, RELEASED IN THE EARLY NINETIES. In the early nineties, when compact discs were becoming the mainstream format of the music industry, the record company released every original United Kingdom Beatles album in America! Back in the Beatles' prime in America, the original albums from the early days were NOT released here. Rather, the record company of the day just threw together "compilations" that fused album tracks with hit singles - NOT the real albums that fans wanted. At long last, the REAL albums are available here, the way the band wanted us to enjoy them. The record company even did fans one better, and released two Past Masters CDs, which compiled all of the singles-only tracks from England! Unfortunately though, the record company wasted an opportunity, in a sense. Many of the band's albums could have been combined, (one release could have been Please Please Me/With The Beatles, one could have been A Hard Day's Night/Beatles For Sale, etc.,) but they didn't do this. That's a real shame, because it would have been a better value for customers - and since places jack up Beatle album prices anyway, the record company really SHOULD have done it. Bonus tracks and expanded liner notes would also have been nice. Oh well, we can't have it all. But these are just complaints about the issue of the album - they have no impact whatsoever on the way I feel about the album.

A Hard Day's Night is a damn fine album through and through, and is arguable the finest album of the band's pop period. If you're a Beatle fan, this album is just waiting to be added to your collection. Don't hesitate to make the purchase - by holding off on buying it, you're only hurting yourself.

The Beatles made their film debut in 1964 with "A Hard Day's Night," and this album is the accompanying soundtrack (although only the first seven songs are heard in the film). "A Hard Day's Night" is unique in that it's the only Beatles album to be exclusively written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with no songs written by George Harrison, no cover songs, and no lead vocals by Ringo Starr. Still, the album is outstanding pop from beginning to end, giving the Beatles yet another jewel in their musical crown, and *also* showing that the band were just starting to evolve into producing music a tad more deeper than the little rock 'n' roll ditties they started out with (though I totally love the group's early ditties, don't get me wrong!). Immortal Beatles rock 'n' rollers like the title song, "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You" (with George on lead vocal), "Tell Me Why," "Can't Buy Me Love," "Any Time At All," and "You Can't Do That" are all in residence, but the Fab Four also surprise you with the gorgeous beauty of "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," "Things We Said Today," and "I'll Be Back." "I Should've Known Better" is another pop classic, "I'll Cry Instead" is a fine country-ish number, and "When I Get Home" is one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs, an awesome little pop-rocker. With Beatlemania in full swing, John, Paul, George & Ringo lay down another Beatles classic with "A Hard Day's Night." It's totally Fab!

If you are a Beatles afficionados this is a great collection to have, but sincerely the 2009 remastered CD will do just as good, I would wait for the mono versions, but being a incurable collector I've bought them all.....

With the mighty opening chord of A Hard Day's Night, comparable in dramatic power to the end chord of A Day In The Life, The Beatles open their first album consisting of entirely original songs. The first seven are the soundtrack songs, the others are compositions that didn't make the movie. However, these non-soundtrack songs are of no lesser quality than the movie songs. Particularly outstanding songs amongst these include, Any Time At All, I'll Cry Instead, When I get Home. That's just a few. In fact, one could argue that all the songs are of an equally high quality.

The album is a joy to hear. Lively, varied and immaculately produced, it was and still is an excellent showcase for Lennon and McCartney as composers in their own right. What makes the quality of the songs more impressive is the fact that this was their first all-original album.

A Hard Day's Night is a feast of raw, punchy rock music which any keen Beatles fan or music enthusiast will enjoy immensely.

The strong opening note of the CD album grabs the listener's attention-although it doesn't take much extra effort to KEEP the listener's attention as this CD is one of The Beatles' finest outputs of music. The first seven songs are from the movie (now on DVD) of the same name; the collection of songs and ballads on this album is striking and reflects the youthful excitement and optimistic energy of the early Beatles' work.

A Hard Day's Night is the first song and this is a phrase coined by Ringo as he reflected on a previous all-nighter pulled by the band when they were under great pressure to turn out some hits. He is known to have said that the foursome had worked through "a hard day's night;" and thus the main line of the title song (as well as the title itself) was born!

Of particular note is the moving ballad "If I Fell." The ballad is beautiful and shows a man's (not just a woman's) vulnerability in a romantic relationship.

The sound quality is excellent and the cover pictures are photographic stills from the end of the movie of the same name.

This Beatles CD is indeed full of the "classic songs" another reviewer refers to and I highly recommend it as a must-have for any Beatles fan as well as lovers of this type of music. Moreover, this is an excellent starting point for those of us who are more accustomed to the "traditional" sound of the crooners or other music genres if these listeners want to get a first class introduction to early 1960s rock.

With the notable exceptions of The Hollies` Allan Clarke, Jackie Lomax, Ray Ennis of the Swinging Blue Jeans and one or two others, no-one of the other 60s group singers had that thrill in the voice that Lennon had (which, to my mind, makes so much of his later solo efforts such a comparative anti-climax) as exemplified here in spades on Tell Me Why, Any Time at All and the title song. He`s singing with every cell in his body, each pore, from head to toe...no wonder the Fabs felt the need to go `Whooo` every now and then!
This has always been my favourite Beatles album - the oft-underrated Beatles For Sale coming second. It`s perfect pop, and they all sound like they`re just glad to be alive!
I rate it way above Sgt Pepper, and light years above the `White Album` or Abbey Road. It`s from the same era as I Feel Fine - for me the most joyful, poignant pop song of its time.

The Beatles third album, A Hard Day's Night, was released at the absolute height of Beatlemania, to coincide with the release in the summer of 1964 of a film about the boys by the same title. Finally, but interestingly not for once and for all, the Beatles would release an album consisting entirely of their own compositions. The original soundtrack to the film included only the first seven songs, beginning with the title track and ending with the album's other hit single, Can't Buy Me Love. Sandwiched between are I Should Have Known Better, the b-side to A Hard Day's Night, a very pretty trio of songs - If I Fell, I'm Happy Just to Dance With You, and And I Love Her. The exciting Tell Me Why follows, then gives way to one of the best songs ever to come from Paul, Can't Buy Me Love. Side two, for those who remember what it was like to flip a disc over and find more music, started strongly with John's exciting vocal on Any Time At All. I'll Cry Instead and Things We Said Today are more than filler and much preferred to having the Beatles cover rock n' roll or r & b tunes. The Beatles then rock out on When I Get Home, and John's no longer politically correct possessive/jealous You Can't Do That. The album finishes with I'll Be Back, which sounds as country and bluesy as some of the tunes that would appear more than a year later on Rubber Soul. I'll be back, indeed! The Beatles would not go away for many years, and A Hard Day's Night convinced some of the naysayers of Beatlemania, who had dismissed their Ed Sullivan Show appearances five months earlier, that the Beatles were for real. The early Beatles, despite their commercial success and their screaming fans, were not the Dave Clark V or the Monkees, but genuine artists.

I'm not as keen on this one as their first two! But then there are many songs I love, like If I fell, And I love Her, I should have known better, Can't buy me love and the title track! I have always loved If I fell, it has such a beautiful melody and harmony. And I love her is a really sweet sort of song. Also a fantastic melody. The same can be said of I should have known better. Can't buy me love and Hard days night are spirited and fun. I personally don't dig the rest, but a must have as The Beatles were moving away from pop and into more unusual territory.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT is the first Beatles album to contain nothing but original songs, all of which are great. This, the other 12 British Beatles albums (except YELLOW SUBMARINE), LET IT BE...NAKED, and PAST MASTERS, VOLS. 1 & 2 are the essential Beatles library.