Every Little Thing- Beatles Discussion > The Beatles- Albums

Please Please Me

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Mervap:
Released March 22, 1963.

Mervap:
The Mark Lewisohn book "The Beatles Recording Sessions" clocks the boys studio time on this album at 585 minutes...that's nine hours and 45 minutes that set in motion a seismic shift in the recording world....the entire world, in fact.

What I hear on this album is the sound of four very talented guys laying everything they've got on the line...if this record doesn't make it, they become a footnote in music history...."Remember that band that recorded Love Me Do? Wonder whatever became of them?". Maybe it wasn't that desperate, but they clearly weren't going to waste this opportunity.

I remember reading that all four of the Beatles were suffering from heavy mid-winter colds at the time of this recording, Lennon in particular...I can't fathom how they soldiered through all these tunes that way and sounded so very good. I was in a band that covered "I Saw Her Standing There" and I can't imagine singing that song with a cold, much less the shredding JL took during "Twist & Shout".

kylenz:
I just came across this article regarding the tranferring of the original master tapes for the mono release of PPM -
http://www.uncut.co.uk/the-beatles/the-beatles-engineers-forced-to-make-new-master-tape-for-please-please-me-news

Apparently they were having major problems with sludge accumulating on the tape heads as they were transferring the recording, and ended up having to transfer the album song-by-song, stopping to clean the tape heads each time, otherwise if you do say more than 1 song you start to lose the high frequencies, as we all know from our own tape recorder experiences!

So they decided to make a whole new analogue master. I found that a bit weird - why would they do that in this digital age? Wouldn't that introduce unwanted noise/hiss? Surely it would make more sense to transfer them straight to digital, one song at a time?

But yeah, not very good news to hear that these tapes are actually falling apart with age.


--- Quote ---I remember reading that all four of the Beatles were suffering from heavy mid-winter colds at the time of this recording, Lennon in particular...I can't fathom how they soldiered through all these tunes that way and sounded so very good. I was in a band that covered "I Saw Her Standing There" and I can't imagine singing that song with a cold, much less the shredding JL took during "Twist & Shout".
--- End quote ---
That's right, they all had bad colds and John was able to get that one-of-a-kind 'Twist And Shout' vocal because of that!

It's such a remarkable recording - the speed at which it was done (recorded in one day, no overdubs!). At that point they must've been a super-tight band to be able to do that - and it's a credit to Ringo being a relatively new addition at that time to be the kind of drummer they could rely on and rally around to get the job done. Would Pete Best have been able to pull off a performance on par with Ringo there? Going on the early take of 'Love Me Do', perhaps not, and I don't think the band would've been able to afford laying those songs down without a tight assured rhythm at all times. Could you imagine 'I Saw Her Standing There' and randomly breaking into a samba rhythm just when it's supposed to be gearing up to those high melody lines? Ringo knew exactly where to take each song, where to keep it steady and where to raise it to the next level.  8)

Mervap:

--- Quote ---So they decided to make a whole new analogue master. I found that a bit weird - why would they do that in this digital age? Wouldn't that introduce unwanted noise/hiss? Surely it would make more sense to transfer them straight to digital, one song at a time?
--- End quote ---

I'd think they would have done both.

Keri:
I love this album. The first always has something special about it. It's nicely recorded, it shows us what the Beatles were then and they were good, there is a good range of songs starting with the fabulous "I saw her standing there", Chains and Boys are great introductions to George and Ringo who each have distinctive and engaging voices. Side one closes with the great single Please Please Me. Side two has "love Me Do" which I think is a great track much under appreciated by George Martin, A Taste of Honey is lovely and kind of corny, There's a Place has a real classic Beatles vibe to it, I totally love that song and then it closes with the raver Twist and Shout.

the album is just the right length, it takes you on a trip and is a fantastic debut album of the worlds greatest pop band.

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