Please Please Me by The Beatles
Please Please Me is the debut album by English rock band The Beatles. Parlophone rush-released the album on 22 March 1963 in the United Kingdom to capitalise on the success of singles "Please Please Me" (No.1 on most lists but only No. 2 on Record Retailer) and "Love Me Do" (No.17). Of the album's fourteen songs, eight were written by Lennon-McCartney (originally credited "McCartney-Lennon"), early evidence of what Rolling Stone later called "[their invention of] the idea of the self-contained rock band, writing their own hits and playing their own instruments". In 2012, Please Please Me was voted 39th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In order for the album to contain fourteen songs (the norm for British 12" vinyl pop albums at that time was to have seven songs on each side, while American albums usually had only five or six songs per side) ten more tracks were needed to add to the four sides of their first two singles recorded and released previously. Therefore, at 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963, The Beatles and George Martin started recording what was essentially their live act in 1963, and finished 585 minutes later (9 hours and 45 minutes). In three sessions that day (each lasting approximately three hours) they produced an authentic representation of the band's Cavern Club-era sound, as there were very few overdubs and edits. Optimistically, only two sessions were originally booked by Martin-the evening session was added later. Martin initially contemplated recording the album live at the Cavern in front of the group's home audience and visited the Liverpool club on 9 December 1962 to consider the technicalities. But when time constraints intervened, he decided to book them at EMI Studios in Abbey Road instead and record them virtually live. Martin said, "It was a straightforward performance of their stage repertoire - a broadcast, more or less."
You have to hand it to The Beatles: They didn’t really know what they were doing. Their first single, “Love Me Do”, had fared pretty well, but was considered a little rough next to the soppy, Broadway-influenced stuff that constituted English pop at the time. Their second, “Please Please Me”, seemed like more of a sure bet: Simpler, sweeter, something to get the kids’ blood going. (After asking John Lennon to overdub harmonica on top of George Harrison’s guitar line, producer George Martin congratulated the band from the control room on their first Number One.)<br /> A few weeks later, as the national mind was cheerfully unravelling, the band went into the studio for a 10 am session at Martin's urging, and, about 13 hours and countless cigarettes and Zubes cough drops later (Lennon had a cold), finished their first album—essentially a studio snapshot of the material they’d been playing at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, right down to the set-opening count-off.<br /> That much of it was Black American R&B and soul—Arthur Alexander’s “Anna (Go To Him)”, Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Chains” (popularised by The Cookies), The Isley Brothers’ “Twist and Shout” (the day’s last take, hence Lennon’s shredded larynx)—was novel, if not straight-up aberrant, especially when framed in such spartan sonic terms. (Bless The Everly Brothers and Bobby Darin; <i>Please Please Me</i> was neither.) That Lennon and McCartney’s originals showed such innate versatility—polite then raw, buttoned-up then scandalously loose, a synthesis of American rock, pop and soul played with teenage guile and veteran poise—was cause for the culture to take a deep breath. (“Between them The Beatles adopt a do-it-yourself approach from the very beginning,” the album’s sleeve notes chirped. “They write their own lyrics, design and eventually build their own instrumental backdrops and work out their own vocal arrangements.”)<br /> The morning after the session, the band resumed their position as fourth slot on an 11-act bill supporting a 16-year-old pop singer named Helen Shapiro. (Lennon’s voice hadn’t healed; George and Paul did most of the singing.) <i>Please Please Me</i>—yes, The Beatles’ first album—was rush-released that March and stayed at the top of the charts for about six months. It was replaced by their second.
