Beatles

After the unexpected sophistication of “A Hard Day’s Night”, the goofy follow up movie that probably served as The Monkees’ TV show template was disappointing. The 14 song Parlophone Help album was not.

After the out-of-focus Beatles For Sale, George Martin predicted The Beatles would “perk up”. It was more like a raging musical hard-on: in less than one week, beginning a little over a month after the release of Beatles For Sale they recorded and mixed to mono 11 new songs for a movie in which they would star and about which they knew very little.

Two days later, on February 22nd, 1964 The Beatles flew to The Bahamas to begin shooting. A day later Norman Smith supervised stereo mixes all 11 songs.

The percussion heavy darkness of Beatles For Sale gave way to a series of mostly high energy, up-tempo, exuberant (even when they were really downers like the title tune) pop rockers that were arguably the group’s finest and certainly most eclectic of what turned out to be the end of an era.

“Help” was recorded after the movie shoot as were “I’ve Just Seen A Face”, “I’m Down,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” and “Yesterday”. They’d also recorded “Yes It Is”, which was released in America on Beatles VI but in the U.K. got kind of buried.

Help! containing 14 songs was released in the U.K. August 6th, 1964. Along with 7 impossibly unique songs from the film on side 1, Side 2 contained “Yesterday” “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face”! While American track order partisans claim the latter two belong on Rubber Soul they were written well before The Beatles jumped into the musical pressure cooker in which they had to quickly come up with yet another new collection of songs.

The arrangements and mixes on this album are curious. The drums for the most part been been pushed well down in the mix. Acoustic guitars and multi-part, folkie vocal harmonies abound and there are jangly, Byrds’ like electric guitars.

If you’re conditioned to hear the stereo mix this one might at first sound oddly mixed, stuffily EQ’d and opaque but over time (if you don’t immediately) you’ll appreciate the mix’s finesse; the careful layering that by closely juxtaposing various elements exposes far more detail than does the stereo mix that spreads thing apart and so should reveal more detail but somehow doesn’t.

On the title track the tambourine so prominent in the stereo mix during the chorus has “vanished in the haze”. It adds sparkle but once you’ve acclimated to the mono mix you might find it obtrusive. Ringo’s snare slams are tucked in further back helping to give Lennon’s voice greater prominence, which also reveals with great clarity the tonal disparity in the vocal double tracking.

Paul’s vocal brightness on “The Night Before” is on the tape because it’s also there on the original. Again the drums are mixed so far down under the dine they are barely audible. Lennon’s voice on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” might sound a bit “down in the valley” but listen to the tambourine’s clarity and the acoustic guitar’s inviting warmth. You don’t hear it this way on the CD but you do on the original LP.

If you really want to hear what an all analog LP can do that no digital version can begin to do, play first “You Like Me Too Much” and “Tell Me What You See.” They are rich with percussive textures and harmonic colors that digitization seems to blunt and bleach out. As with

Beatles For Sale, the overall tonal picture is rich with some built in harshness probably EQ’d in to punch through particular details. The result is exhilarating, as is the large centered image of John Lennon singing “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” behind which hovering in space slams a convincing sounding tambourine. However the overall balance is warm. If you've got a warm-sounding cartridge the original or the reissue might sound muted in the upper mids.

the digitally sourced stereo LP missed the sonic mark.

Again, the reissue and original are more alike than they are different. The original is more transparent and less congested in the midrange, the reissue sound somewhat recessed and exhibits a bit less overall energy. It’s a very old tape. Still the differences are minor, which means on “Ticket To Ride” you can crank it up (you need to if you want to compare the cut-at-a-lower level reissue with the original) and the tambourine will jingle cleanly, Ringo’s skin slams will sound richly textured and you’ll have a greater sensation of hearing Lennon singing live on the other side of the microphone than you’ll hear on any digital version.

This is an album you can crank up as loudly as you prefer and it just keeps sounding better and better as does the music after so many years.