Album of the Day #61: HELP! - The Beatles

Title: Help!

Artist: The Beatles

Label:

US: Capitol/EMI

UK: Parlophone/EMI

Year: 1965

Songs:

UK Album: Help!/The Night Before/You've Got To Hide Your Love Away/I Need You*/Another Girl/You're Gonna Lose That Girl/Ticket To Ride/Act Naturally**/It's Only Love/You Like Me Too Much*/Tell Me What You See/I've Just Seen A Face/Yesterday/Dizzy Miss Lizzie***

US Soundtrack: Help!/The Night Before/From Me To You Fantasy [Instrumental]/You've Got To Hide Your Love Away/In The Tyrol [Instrumental]#/Another Girl/Another Hard Day's Night [Instrumental]/Ticket To Ride/The Bitter End [Instrumental]#/You Can't Do That [Instrumental]/You're Gonna Lose That Girl/The Chase [Instrumental]#

Written by: John Lennon & Paul McCartney, except *George Harrison, **Johnny Russell & Voni Morrison, ***Larry Williams and #Ken Thorne

Produced by: George Martin

Thoughts: Help! was a weaker film than A Hard Day's Night, and the soundtrack is a weaker album. Although, how anyone can call an album with "Yesterday", "Help!" and "Ticket To Ride" on it anything but the greatest is beyond me, even though I just did it. It just feels unfinished. Ringo's "Act Naturally" and John's "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" proved that the songwriting burst John and Paul experienced for AHDN did not happen with Help!. The songs on the second side, despite Paul's "Yesterday" and "I've Just Seen A Face", are nowhere near as good as AHDN's second side tracks. In fact, George thought his own songs were so maligned that he 'forgot' to write notes about "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much" in his I, Me, Mine book. (By the way, these were his first songs to appear on an album since with the beatles.) The American soundtrack, featuring Ken Thorne's instrumental music, most of which involves sitar and other Indian instruments, is actually a more interesting listen, if only for the fact that these are not all just boring Martin arrangements.

Rating: 7/10