Album of the day (#908): A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles

[useless]

Loads of fun, unashamedly pop (and how could it not be like that, hello Merseybeat!), incredibly energetic, mostly spontaneous (it rarely feels forced), overall very good and solid. Unfortunately I cannot compare it to any of the pre-Rubber Soul albums as I have not yet listened to any of them, but anyone who says it's far and away from their mid-to-late '60s moments is right in my books. It lacks coherence (which is among the first things that characterise, say, Sgt. Pepper and especially Abbey Road), the fact that they seemed like they could not write a song that did not include the subject of love/relationships makes it sound repetitive and Martin's production, although superb as always, lacks the incredible innovation that started with Revolver and continued with almost everything afterwards. That said, being a "light" record and all, it does its job amazingly well and has dated just fine. Their vocal harmonies are once again very good, as well as Harrison's guitar, and despite its short length, it's mostly the fact that it's so much fun that makes it flow that fast. Favorite songs would be the title track (of course), If I Fell (a lovely grower this one), And I Love Her (the acoustic guitars on this sound somewhat like a preparation to the different styles they were going to try more extensively on Rubber Soul) and I'll Cry Instead. A couple of mediocre tracks, not so memorable to be honest, but overall I dig this. So yeah, it seems like these guys were good when they were together.

[Norman Bates]

I'd sell my mum just for the last seconds of the title track. Half of The Byrds' discography is already in them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl...VdY#t=141s

[Facetious]

Some of these songs are really boring as one would expect from pre-Revolver Beatles (though Revolver is not that perfect either actually), but this might be the best of that period besides Rubber Soul. It's the same kind of pop on the surface as the previous albums, and really the only notable thing is that it contains no covers. It's slightly more difficult to notice, but I do feel that the "no covers" thing made them slightly more confident though, and it's not hard to tell that this paved the way for most of the later development. Here the first two tracks are awesome, maybe even better than Twist and Shout and It Won't Be Long, and there are other decent moments here.

[alelsupreme]

Very overrated album, like most of the Beatles stuff upto Rubber Soul are. Second half is just BLEH.