Please Please Me [Original recording remastered]

Why would you need to read a review of a Beatles' album? If you've been a fan for many years, you know exactly what you want and exactly what you're getting. If you're coming to them new, do you really want a potted history of this particular recording, locating its place in the band's development?

I don't listen to Beatles music for a cerebral or spiritual experience, nor to be able to impress anyone with the fact that I can pinpoint when and where they recorded that track - George was recovering from an in-growing toenail, Ringo had just bought a new set of drumsticks. I listen to the Beatles for the emotions I've nurtured over forty years of more. So can I convince you that my passion for a particular album or track will parallel yours? Of course not!

For me, the excitement generated by the Beatles is something I grew up with. I was thirteen when they had their first hit. The first records I ever bought were by the Beatles. I joined the Fan Club. I covered my walls in photos. I was threatened with expulsion from school because of the length of my hair. I even managed, as a teenager in a small Scottish town, to obtain copies of 'Merseybeat' - the Liverpool music paper. It says something about the dynamism of the 60's that Liverpool could have its own music paper (this was way before desktop publishing, the Internet, etc.).

"Please Please Me" was released in March, 1963, and was the Beatles first album ("With the Beatles" would follow). Inspired by the title song reaching number one in the charts, the LP was famously based on their current stage act - compare and contrast these studio recordings with the live version available on the unofficial, "Live at the Star Club" offerings.

These were the days when bands played live: they grew up on the circuit, playing pubs, clubs, and dives, hoping to establish enough of a fan base to secure a recording contract ... and a chance to record someone else's song, maybe cover an already successful US hit.

But the Beatles broke out of this restrictive process. "Please Please Me" combines cover versions of standards with numbers written by Lennon and McCartney, and marks their growing confidence as songwriters.

That was the dynamic attraction of the Beatles. Their music was - remains - raw and exciting. There was something liberating about it. Here were ordinary lads from Liverpool who could write their own stuff, not depend on professional songwriters to grind out hits for them. There was an immediacy about their words. This was the decade when the first working class kids were making their way to university. It was an age of sensed meritocracy and upward mobility. The Beatles were flying the banner for the triumph of talent over elitism, for the victory of regional accents over the sterile BBC English we were normally fed. And the Beatles had seized the baton from the USA and were now setting the cultural initiative for the rest of the world to follow.

And I knew all this at school. My mother sent me to an all boys school. I'd noticed girls. There were a couple I passed every morning who I really noticed. But I'd never talked to one! And here were the Beatles. You could imagine dancing with some mini skirted lassie in the sweaty din of the Cavern Club. These were songs of love and lust, of energy and passion, of time and place.

That's the significance of Beatles music. For a generation, it changed their world. For the future of pop, it set new standards and directions. And for the individual, it established patterns of memories and emotions which are still alive to this day.

The music of the Beatles inscribes a unique history for every fan. Songs which you associate with someone or somewhere special, songs you associate with laughter, pain, love, despair, loss or triumph, songs which provide the punctuation marks to your own life's narrative. Few other artists have come close to this.

"Please Please Me" established a yardstick for the quality of recording: here are songs which have a beat, which are well sung and provide dynamic bass lines, but they are also songs with passion and depth, songs which elevate your spirits and make you feel positive. Still melodically simple, but embodying a universal sentiment, the songs on "Please Please Me" lack artifice or pretence that they are by anyone else but the Beatles. This is assertive music, music with personality. And it's timeless.

John Lennon first met Paul McCartney in July 1957, so the Beatles' debut album is the culmination of about 5 years of hard work - mainly gigging in the Northwest of England and Hamburg. Debut albums are often notoriously good as they have fermented for so long. The Beatles, of course, went from strength to strength in subsequent releases. It's hard to imagine that this record is almost 50 years old at my time of writing. It was created with very primitive sound recording technology (compared to today) and at a time when record producers wore a shirt and tie to work. It also only cost £400 to make. How times change. It's also hard to imagine that in 5 years these same guys would evolve from tracks like 'Love Me Do' and 'PS. I Love You' to songs like 'A Day in the Life' and 'I Am The Walrus.'

The key to the Beatles' songwriting is in their use of 3 key words: "I", "ME" and "YOU". Listen to their songs and note how often these 3 words constantly occur, particularly in the first half of their recording career.

As for the album - it has 14 tracks (8 Lennon/McCartney songs and 6 cover version), the majority of which were recorded in a single day at Abbey Road Studios in London. No track exceeds 3 minutes in duration and the total running time of the 14 songs is 32.27 mins. The fact that there are any original songs on 'Please Please Me' was revolutionary in itself. This was the time when 'A&R' really meant matching Artistes (performers) with Repertoire (from songwriters). The Beatles were self-contained and could write their own material. This is something that we now take for granted. The Beatles continued to revolutionise the music industry in subsequent years - for example, in being the first to perform at sports stadiums, and in opening the commercial path to American success for other British bands.

Note that the vocals on this CD will come through your right speaker. If you run it through a hi fi system at a decent volume with your ear to the right speaker then you'll think you are standing at the microphones beside Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. Quite remarkable.

My only gripe is with the record label as the packaging is unfortunately in cardboard form. This means making some contact with the CD when moving it and out of the sleeve (something I usually prefer to avoid, as they're nowhere near as durable as first thought when they came out in 1982).

Overall, this is a momentous, turning point album in the British music industry and the commencement of the recording career of a band that became a cultural institution that will continue to reverberate throughout the ages, probably for many centuries to come. Had Brian Epstein not been in the HMV record store in Oxford Street that day with the Beatles failed Decca demo session (in order to turn a reel into a sample record), then this music may not have come to the attention of George Martin and Parlophone. It makes you wonder how many near misses are actually out there in music, literature and the arts etc.

Extras include a 20 page inlay booklet (including commentary and a series of photos) and a 5 minute documentary video clip.

Judged by the standards they set in the mid-sixties, this is not a great Beatles album, yet it is far superior to anything most of their rivals could ever hope to achieve. As such, it (like all Beatles albums) comfortably deserves five stars.

Like all the early Beatles albums, this one contains several covers – six in this case. The three best are Baby it's you (Shirelles), Twist and shout (Isley brothers) and A taste of honey. Twist and shout became a UK top ten hit for Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, the group that Decca signed in preference to the Beatles.

The album's title track became the first major Beatles hit. The chart that is now generally regarded as the standard UK chart (and published in the Guinness book of British hit singles) registers a peak position of 2, but back in the early sixties there were three other charts and all of those gave a peak position of 1. No chart was regarded then as being more reliable than the others, so most connoisseurs regard Please please me as the first Beatles chart-topper.

Three of the other seven originals stand out. I saw her standing there opens the album and was presumably considered for singles release. Do you want to know a secret was covered by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and provided them with their first major pop hit. Love me do was the debut single for the Beatles, making the UK top twenty at the time, though it would make the top five when re-released in the eighties.

This is not the best place to begin a Beatles collection but it is a great album in its own way and is required listening for all true Beatles fans.