More about: The Beatles

Since the dawn of popular music, bands haven’t come bigger than the Beatles. While the ‘best band ever’ will forever remain in the eye of the beholder, the influence The Beatles had, and continue to have, on music and culture across the world is tricky to overstate. 

That said, we, as music fans, don’t tend to focus our plaudits on the band’s early releases; this attention is understandably reserved for the group’s latter records like Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper and the White Album. 

Full disclosure; I myself prefer the foursome’s middle period, just before the so-called ‘studio years’, the period that followed the group’s 1966 abandonment of touring due to the sheer madness of their gigs. Rubber Soul and Revolver jostle for poll position in my head, with the winner often being decided by the weather (the former is perfect for a rainy Saturday). 

But with that said the first Beatles record to be added to my collection was Please Please Me. I remember thinking at the time that I would buy them in order, an idea that, predictably, didn’t work out. But it did mean that Please Please Me was the first Beatles record I fell in love with, and the one that marked the beginning of my love affair with them. Now, 60 years on from its release, seems a good time to reflect on the album that started it all. 

The album was an upbeat and excitable start for the band, who would see the record shoot to the number one spot - the first of 15 Beatles albums to do so in the UK - and would only be knocked off the top by its follow-up, With The Beatles. It all started immediately for them. Beatlesmania got going basically the instant this album dropped, with no letting up on their popularly from that moment on - not something you can say about many other artists in history.

History would reveal that its journey to the top echoed its journey through the production benches at Abbey Road studios; the band’s label Parlophone were keen to cash in on the hype the LP’s proceeding singles had generated, which meant 10 of the 14 tracks were recorded in just one day in February 1963. 

As was commonplace at the time, the LP features covers of contemporary chart hits from the likes of The Shirelles (‘Boys’; ‘Baby It’s You’), The Cookies (‘Chains’), Arthur Alexander (‘Anna (Go To Him)’) and The Top Notes’ ‘Twist And Shout’ which, coming right at the end of the recording session, exhibits the effects the exhaustive day had on John Lennon’s vocals. 

"The songs on this album had a significant hand in firing the starting gun for that shift, making Britain the epicentre of cool."

Despite often revealing the early band’s limitations both instrumentally and vocally, the choice of covers reveals the group’s admiration of the American R&B that birthed Rock ’n’ Roll, and foreshadows their ‘invasion’ of the US that would come only a year later; a journey that would change the world of music forever.

American audiences would catch The Beatles bug in early ’64, when the tracks of Please Please Me were introduced and adopted en masse. Until this time, the US had set the agenda of popular music across the globe and, out of nowhere, the whole thing was turned on its head. The songs on this album had a significant hand in firing the starting gun for that shift, making Britain the epicentre of cool. 

Accompanying the covers of American songs are several Beatles originals which, even this early in the band’s career, often show off the charming melodies the band would become known for. ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’ and ‘Love Me Do’ are great examples, with the latter in many ways forming the blueprint for the pop song machine that Lennon and McCartney would become rely - still remaining as the gold standard of songwriting teams.

The opening track, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, is the standout tune though, and points to the young band’s obsession with the Rock ’n’ Roll of the day. Originally named ‘Seventeen’, the song features Chuck Berry-inspired bluesy chord changes and adolescent lyricism that remain as infectious now as it was then. The song allows you to still feel the jittery excitement within the band who, at this time, were four young lads barely out of their teens and riding a wave of hype. Though not particularly musically accomplished and fairly naive, it remains a dance floor filler.   

"60 years since its release, the record doubles up as both an album and a piece of history..."

The naivety of its opener is echoed across the album and, listening now reveals it to have an endearing nature about it. Here they are, right at the beginning, having been asked to turn up and record 10 pop songs, on the back of a stint in Hamburg and a rushed record deal, having no idea what was about to happen to them. It makes the tracks here that little bit more special; they show The Beatles before they became The Beatles, providing a permanent and mystifying snapshot of history.

At this point, 60 years since its release, the record doubles up as both an album and a piece of history. It documents the beginning of something world-changing, the moment the world’s biggest band began their rise to the top or, as John Lennon referred to it years before, "the Toppermost of the Poppermost."

Most of us will agree that Please Please Me isn’t the best Beatles album, and was surpassed in quality several times by the very same band that made it, but for all its amateurish moments, drops in vocal quality, and the occasional lacklustre performance, the album retains its compellingly charming nature and will forever be the place where it all started. 

What it lacks in musical dexterity is made up for by the indelible part it plays in the wider story of The Beatles and, for that reason, it is just as much a jewel as any of the albums that came after it. 

Please Please Me, similar to Neil Armstrong’s right foot, provided the first step towards a brave new chapter in history.  

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More about: The Beatles