Farting in church. Making an illegal lane change in front of a
\nfuneral. Giving the finger to a police officer while you’re
\nspeeding. Declaring your candidacy for the governor’s race in
\nCalifornia. Walking into an AA meeting holding a Mai Tai. Admitting
\nthat you actually liked
\nGigli<\/i>.<\/p>\n
All of these, apparently, are far more acceptable than making
\nany form of negative comment about the Beatles. Even after 30-plus
\nyears since they went their separate ways, the Fab Four are held in
\nhigh regard among the music intellegentsia and the unwashed masses
\nalike.<\/p>\n
So I know I’m risking the chance of having to hire someone else
\nto start my car in the morning when I make a few comments about
\nPlease Please Me<\/i>, the debut effort from The Beatles (at
\nleast as far as their history on Capitol was concerned – many
\npeople forget that The Beatles were first signed to Vee-Jay
\nRecords). Yes, there’s plenty on this disc to celebrate, even 40
\nyears after it first hit the airwaves. But this first effort also
\nshows a band which was desparately trying to find where they
\nbelonged genre-wise.<\/p>\n
Now, I’m no fool. I wouldn’t dare to slam such time-honored
\nfavorites as “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Love Me Do,” “Please
\nPlease Me” or “Twist And Shout”. As overplayed as some of these may
\nseem from time to time, they have held up extraordinarily well over
\ntime, and still are enjoyable to listen to, especially with the
\nharmony vocals that The Beatles knew how to execute to
\nperfection.<\/p>\n
If anything, I’ve found over the years that the real gems on
\nPlease Please Me<\/i> lie not in the time-honored songs but in
\nthe tracks which seem to have fallen through the cracks. Take their
\nversion of “A Taste Of Honey,” for example. Two years before Herb
\nAlpert would record the definitive version of this track (at least
\nin my mind), Paul McCartney delivered a heartfelt rendition of the
\nvocal lines while the whole band created a truly wonderful vibe
\nbehind it. In a sense, it almost seems like a slow shuffle rather
\nthan a rock song, and as such would never be touched by any
\nself-respecting classic rock radio station. Too bad – it’s one of
\nthe best tracks on the disc.<\/p>\n
The same argument could be made for “P.S., I Love You” – which
\nswitches the shuffle out for an almost Latin backbeat which is
\nnailed perfectly by McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and
\nRingo Starr. Yes, I recognize that sometimes this track gets dusted
\noff and played\u2026 good, ’cause it deserves more than to be
\nrelegated to the back of the vast Beatles discography.<\/p>\n
Yet
\nPlease Please Me<\/i> has more than its share of uncertain
\nmoments, showing a band which was still very much gelling together
\njust before they exploded in popularity. Such tracks as “Chains,”
\n“Boys,” “Misery” and “Ask Me Why” just don’t have the kind of snap
\nthat the casual fan has all but come to expect from anything
\nbearing the Beatles brand name. I recognize that one can’t forget
\nthis was a first effort, and to try and compare this 40 years down
\nthe road with their later masterpieces is like comparing a Picasso
\nto something he drew when he was a toddler. On their own merits,
\nthough, these particular tracks – indeed, nearly the first half of
\nthe album – don’t have the power to light the firecracker that
\nwould become Beatlemania.<\/p>\n
Still, it’s not that the first half of the disc is a failure by
\nany means. A track like “Anna (Go To Him)” – a song which will
\nforever be linked in my mind to an episode of
\nMarried\u2026 With Children<\/i> – or “I Saw Her Standing
\nThere” demonstrates that The Beatles went into the studio ready to
\nswing, even if they didn’t necessarily hit home run after home run
\nwith each subsequent track.<\/p>\n
The fact that the second half of
\nPlease Please Me<\/i> contains the strongest music without a weak
\nsong in the bunch should also speak volumes about where The Beatles
\nwere headed. In retrospect, this turns out to be a fairly decent
\nfirst effort, even if it does take a little time for the wheels to
\nget rolling. But while many of the classic tracks can be found on
\nany number of the posthumous compilations,
\nPlease Please Me<\/i> should best be remembered for the tracks
\nthat didn’t make it to the top of the charts – or to the charts at
\nall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5675],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37714","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-beatles","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37714"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}