Maps of Music

Meet the Beatles! (1964)

Where the lyrics of Meet the Beatles! take you, and where it was really made.

The cover calls it a first album, yet Vee-Jay Records of Chicago released its American debut ten days earlier.

Key places

Abbey Road Studios, London (1964)

Recording site Abbey Road Studios — The source lists Abbey Road Studios, EMI's London studio, as the album's studio. The point marks the building, not a specific room. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: Jubilee line to St John's Wood station, then about a 5-minute walk.

Album story

Overview

• Meet the Beatles!: studio album by the English rock band the Beatles
• Released as the group's second album in the United States
• Capitol Records' first American Beatles album, issued 20 January 1964 in mono and stereo
• Topped the popular album chart on 15 February 1964 and stayed at number one for eleven weeks
• Cover: Robert Freeman's portrait of the band, with a blue tint added
• Compared to With the Beatles, five tracks were dropped and three added

Background

• Capitol repeatedly rejected requests from Brian Epstein and George Martin to release Beatles records in the US
• In November 1963 EMI label head Sir Joseph Lockwood sent a deputy to Los Angeles to order Capitol to promote and release Beatles records
• Ten days before release, Vee-Jay Records of Chicago released the American debut Introducing... The Beatles on 10 January 1964
• Liberty Music Shops advertised Meet the Beatles! in the New York Times of 12 January 1964; the ad was not authorised by Capitol

Recording

• Capitol planned an album and a single, and the US market usually limited albums to 12 tracks
• The first three tracks: the December 1963 Capitol single I Want to Hold Your Hand, the US B-side I Saw Her Standing There, and the UK B-side This Boy
• The other nine tracks were duplicated from With the Beatles; Till There Was You was the only cover among them
• I Want to Hold Your Hand and This Boy use duophonic (fake) stereo, since Capitol had no proper stereo mixes

Cover

• Robert Freeman's iconic portrait, used in the UK for With the Beatles
• The original black-and-white photo received a blue tint

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
• Grew out of Lennon's earlier band the Quarrymen
• Built its reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg
• Starr officially joined in 1962

Members

• John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr

Career

• Manager Brian Epstein shaped them into a professional act
• Producer George Martin developed their recordings after they signed with EMI
• First hit Love Me Do came in late 1962
• By early 1964 they were international stars
• Part of the British Invasion of the US pop market
• Retired from live performance in 1966
• Turned to more sophisticated studio albums: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album and Abbey Road
• Founded Apple Corps in 1968
• Broke up in 1970

Around this album

• Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded together
• On 20 September 1969, six days before release, Lennon told McCartney, Starr and manager Allen Klein that he wanted a divorce from the group
• No public announcement of the split came until McCartney announced he was leaving in April 1970

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Negative reception in the United States, unlike UK critics' reviews of the counterpart album With the Beatles
• William F. Buckley in the Boston Globe called the band's music "god-awful"
• Newsweek's 24 February 1964 article dismissed the Beatles, calling their music a near disaster

Reappraisal

• Robert Christgau included the album in his Basic Record Library of 1950s and 1960s recordings
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001
• Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list: number 59 (2003), number 53 (2012), number 197 (2020)

Records

• Debuted at No. 92 on the album chart for the week ending 1 February 1964
• Peaked at number one two weeks later, remaining there for eleven consecutive weeks
• Sold 4,045,174 copies by 31 December 1964 and 4,699,348 by the end of the decade
• Certified Gold by the RIAA on 3 February 1964 and 5× Platinum on 26 December 1991

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Vee-Jay Records released its American debut ten days before this album, despite the cover's first album claim
• Liberty Music Shops ran a New York Times ad for the album in January 1964 without Capitol's authorisation
• Two tracks use duophonic fake stereo because Capitol lacked proper stereo mixes
• Capitol executives feared that cover songs would turn Americans off the Beatles, so the album had only original material
• The 2014 CD reissue follows the Meet the Beatles! running order but uses the UK mono and stereo mixes

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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