MEET THE BEATLES! : 50th ANNIVERSARY

Meet the Beatles! wasn’t quite the first album released in the United States by the innovative Brit-pop sensations, the Beatles. A little less than a week prior to the Meet the Beatles! release, Vee-Jay Records gave the eager U.S. its first taste of the band with Introducing… The Beatles. But after multiple legal and economic struggles, Introducing…’s production and distribution was stopped. 

Then came Meet the Beatles!, Capitol’s first release of the band. This album was in many ways a counterpart to the band’s UK release, With the Beatles. Released a few months before, With the Beatles shares nine tracks with the American version of the album.

Despite the ambiguity of the album’s identity and chronological place, one thing was apparent: the U.S. had never heard of anything quite like the Beatles.

Meet the Beatles! is full of the charm and simple musicianship that catapulted the British boy band into paramount success. The opening single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is the prime example of the recipe for a great pop song. A fun, upbeat tempo guided by a playful bassline, simple harmonies and flirtatious lyrics is the mold that the Beatles return to multiple times throughout the record.

“I Saw Her Standing There” comes next and remains in the same vein of catchy pop as “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It’s a simple song about not being able to take your eyes off of a young, beautiful girl on the dance floor. The innocent and smooth songwriting is what imbues these songs with such affectionate appeal.

The album goes beyond cookie cutter pop music, though. A refrain takes place with “This Boy,” a swaying doo-wop type ballad written by John Lennon. A song later the heightened tempo is brought back with the rock-tinged “It Won’t Be Long.” More aggressive, yet just as lively, with McCartney and Lennon shouting back and forth, “It won’t be long, yeah (yeah), yeah (yeah), yeah (yeah), ‘till I belong to you.”

It’s the transparency and light-hearted themes that allow Meet the Beatles! to captivate listeners. Instead of the mysterious and grandiose style that many rock outfits had been offering, the Beatles appealed to the folk who just wanted to listen to good music and have a fun time while doing it. There are no 8-minute long anthems or spacey jams on this record. In fact, the longest song clocks in at 2:50 (“I Saw Her Standing There”).

This modest style of pop music had not before been executed with the musicianship and songwriting that the fab four from Liverpool displayed. Screaming girls and radio stations everywhere earnestly beckoned John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s addictive music. Although Lennon and McCartney are the primary singers, each member had his moment on the microphone.

The second half of Meet the Beatles! contains fewer hits. McCartney softly serenades a cover of Meredith Wilson’s “Till There Was You,” and the flirty “Little Child” is constantly accompanied by a harmonica, but compared to the single-heavy first half, the B-side is rightly given less emphasis.

Meet the Beatles!, just as any other album by the quartet, wouldn’t be the record it is without the production and guidance of George Martin. Martin had been the Beatles’ go-to guy for practically their whole career. In addition to recording and engineering the record Martin contributed on piano as well.

Meet the Beatles! may have been an American impression of the UK release (they had the same cover art albeit the American version’s blue tint), but it’s shorter length and single-packed contents made it its own entity that would go on to sell millions more than With the Beatles. 

Meet the Beatles! was a precursor of what was to come. Although the Beatles’ ventured into many different musical styles, the fun vibes that radiate throughout this album set the tone for what people could expect in the coming years from the band.

The album topped the Billboard Top 200 in less than a month and stayed there until it was usurped by the band’s next Capitol release, The Beatles’ Second Album.

“I Want to Hold Your Hand” spent nearly two months at the #1 spot on the Hot 100. “I Saw Her Standing There” and “All My Loving” also made appearances on the charts. In 2012 Rolling Stone ranked Meet the Beatles! as the 53^rd greatest album of all time.

This album came before the Beatles refined their sound and perfected the art of their expansive songwriting, but their raw talent was enough to turn the heads of listeners everywhere. They showed that highly infectious pop can come in the form of radio-ready melody fests like “I Saw Her Standing There,” or incredibly sensitive and serene love songs like “All I’ve Got to Do.” The dozen songs on Meet the Beatles! breeze by and leave the listener feeling refreshed and lifted.

 

Meet the Beatles! wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg for the Beatles. It was more like them setting their sales in uncharted waters for the first time. The United States adored them. Not a year went by that the Beatles didn’t release a record that eventually went platinum.

Their legacy is one that is arguably unmatched in the world of rock and roll music. Until they disbanded in 1970 they explored a wide range of musical styles. What started off as lighthearted pop rock was constantly evolving. Whether it was the folk tendencies in Rubber Soul, the psychedelic rock of Revolver, the eclectic range of sounds in The Beatles (The White Album), or everything in between, the Beatles not only ruled, but defined the world of rock.

They impacted and influenced the world of music more than most artists could ever dream of. Every great legacy has a hallowed beginning, and for the Beatles, Meet the Beatles! was just that.