42. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night (1964)

1. A Hard Day's Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can't Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I'll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can't Do That
13. I'll Be Back


CLANG! One of the most recognizable opening chords in history, so recognizable that musicologists have trouble deciphering exactly what it is. It is this exclamation mark at the beginning of the sentence that launches us into a rather exciting LP in a rather exciting time. This album came out in July and serves as a soundtrack to the sounds and sights of Beatlemania run rampant across the globe. Since With The Beatles came out in November of last year, the Beatles had conquered America in a grandiose fashion that Elvis could only have dreamed of. Not only did they knock themselves off the #1 position twice in a row (not even Black Eyed Peas can do that yet!) but they held the entire top 5 for one week (and 7 other songs spread throughout the top 100). They were even more inescapable than Twilight and Harry Potter combined.

Not only did they have all that happen to them, they also found time to improve as a band. This album is a marked improvement for what was only a few months of development. Not only did they chuck out the covers, which I'm pretty sure makes this the first non-jazz album of all original songwriting (Even Bob Dylan still had one on Freewheelin', much to my surprise) on the list, but they also got better at it. There aren't any obviously deficient songs like 'Hold Me Tight' or 'I Wanna Be Your Man' here. Instead, we get 13 small slices of Lennon-McCartney goodness.

Lennon goodness, actually. I never realized this until I was listening again for this review, but he friggin' dominates the album, writing 10 out of 13 tracks! He sings almost all of them too, except for 'I'm Happy Just To Dance With You' which sucked too much so he gave it to George (Ah, the politics of the Beatles...). But even this apparent filler song holds its own with the best material of their last album. Leaps and bounds, people!

The innovations of this record lie not in instrumental flourishes but in neat songwriting touches. While their earlier work stuck to the tried and true verse-chorus-verse format, this album mixes it up slightly in songs like "If I Fell" and "I'll Be Back" and "I Should Have Known Better" where you're never quite sure what the verse or the chorus is. Nothing stunningly innovative, but indicative of their growth as songwriters, which is always neat.

And I do mean their growth. Though Paul only gets 3 songs, they're all great. 'And I Love Her' is one of those trademark Paul ballads where it's sappy but not excessively so (How did he do that? More importantly, how did he forget how to do that almost as soon as he left the band?). 'Can't Buy Me Love' is an exuberant rock song with a nice simple solo (By the horrifying standards, Steve Vais and Yngwie Malmsteens of this day and age all of these solos are simple). I've always been intrigued by 'Things We Said Today', because the music sounds so melancholy but the sentiment expressed by the lyrics is really rather cheerful. Even when Paul's trying to sound sad, there's always that optimistic spark there.

Although I'm not too sure about the order of the songs (Hey, here's 7 songs from the hit film! Now, here's 6 songs that weren't good enough to make the film!), the result is still a fine artistic achievement and a very solid album. In fact, I may be jumping at straws here, but the harmonica on 'I Should Have Known Better' sounds almost Dylanesque. Already, the influences of the new decade are creeping in. Buckle your seatbelts, we're in for a turbulent decade. 8.5/10