A Hard Day's Night [CD]

This review applies to Sept 9, 2104 vinyl mono releases only. I've waited 35 years or more for new issues of pure analog Beatles on vinyl. No digital manipulation, or any manipulation, just music from original analog tapes to LP's. After years and years of disappointing digital releases and digitally modified vinyl, I thought this day would never come. I actually gave up buying music for a 20 year span. Based on listening to these new all analog mono LP's, I have found these Lp's have very little noise, if any, sound fantastic, and the pure analog sound is as good or better sounding than original Capital/EMI/Apple releases, in my opinion. No harsh compressed sound, no 2 dimensional sound, no digitally remastered sound transferred to vinyl, and no more dashed hopes in DVD Audio and SACD. These LP's sound fantastic.Like many Beatles fans, I grew up listening to them in the 60's. They made a violent and polarizing time in America more bearable. In the 60's, I bought and played their LP's until they were damaged beyond repair. I bought into digital music in the 80's only to find that it paled in comparison to pure analog. I should have bought more pure analog LP's while I had the chance, but, thought the medium was gone, whether I liked it or not. Finally I found vintage equipment (Sansui 6700 Receiver, Marantz Model 6300 Turntable, and JBL S312BE Speakers) and set out to spend mega money on EBAY for sealed analog LP's from the 60's and 70's. Unfortunately, many albums made in the 70's were made of cheap thin vinyl and were often warped or had defects/noise when new and right out of the package, but, I persevered and have a good collection of Beatles and other pure Analog LP's and some 45's.You don't have to spend Mega money, however, as these mono releases are superb in quality and sound. There is very little noise, often none between songs. The LP's are flat as they are 180 grams, and most importantly these LP's sound warm and beautiful. I just sat back, closed my eyes and let the music and harmonizing soothe my soul. I did not buy the box set for $375. I bought each individually. This along with a $40 reduction for applying for a credit card brought the total to about $250, and if you get a defective album, you can send it back instead of the whole box.Remember though, "Let it Be" and "Abbey Road" are not included in the box set as they were only made in stereo. Capital US releases like "The Beatles Again" and "Beatles 65" won't be there either, but, you will find those songs in these mono releases anyway.Thank you Apple/EMI/Optimal Media (Germany) for giving audiophiles what they've wanted for so many years. You did good.

The chiming chord that kicks off The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" shoots the listener right back to 1964 Beatlemania. Just imagine the black and white images from Richard Lester's film of the same name and picture the Beatles running for their lives.Beatlemania aside, this is a great power pop album. The songwriting, musicianship and singing were all improving, and John Lennon steps into the leading man role. Most of the lyrics are still puppy-love, but the melodies and middle-eight changes, along with the harmonies and execution, make these songs come alive."A Hard Day's Night" features a great dual lead vocal with John taking the initial and Paul taking over during the "when I'm home..." Great guitar work by George as well. I love the arpeggio fade."I Should Have Known Better" is another love song, a happy tune with harmonica, double-tracked Lennon vocal and strummy guitars. "I never realized what a kiss could be..." Great melody in the lead and middle-eight."If I Fell" is a Lennon ballad that could have been sappy, and comes across as dated in 2002, but that three-part harmony works so well."I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" is an L/M song sung by George Harrison, with some nice guitar work but otherwise throwaway lyrics. Still, they make it work with a catchy melody and nice hook "just to dance with, oh-oh" and great backing vocals by John and Paul."And I Love Her" is the bookend ballad to "If I Fell", this time with Paul doing the lead vocal. There's kind of a bossa nova feel here. "She gives me everhthing, and tenderly, the kiss my lover brings, she brings to me, and I love her." Another great middle-eight, an acoustic guitar solo, and this one is a classic."Tell Me Why" revs things back up with another John Lennon lead vocal and excellent harmonies, but a little rockier with some jangly guitars."Can't Buy Me Love" is one of Paul's all-time great compositions, with an exuberant lead vocal and killer hook of a melody. There's a nice bouncy bassline and Ringo gets to do some drumming. Cool lead work with some string bending by George. "Say you don't need no diamond rings, and I'll be satisfied...""Any Time At All" is a Lennon working song. "I'll Cry Instead" is another Lennon tune, this time with a country twang and nice drumming by Ringo. "Things We Said Today" is a gem, with its quick acoustic strum, interesting melodic and harmonic structure, and marks a growing maturity to Paul's songwriting. "When I Get Home" falls into the Lennon worksong realm. "You Can't Do That" is a Lennon tune that has some cool Rickenbacker chimey guitars, nice chorus, and I like the stop-start of the "I told you before, you can't do that.""I'll be Back" ends the album with another strummy tune by John, with good harmonies.The first seven tunes were on the soundtrack to the film, while the remaining six were added as fill. This was the first Beatle record to feature all tunes penned by Lennon McCartney, and even the weaker songs are still sing-along worthy and enjoyable, if not always memorable. My favorite of the latter bunch remains "Things We Said Today." Repeated listenings reveal depths not apparent on the first spin. Dig deeper.

I was looking for the songs that were on a CD. I play it often. Love the Beatles...grew up with them.

Between 2005 and 2008, they finally remastered with decent quality all the Beatles cds. Since a good share of the originals were MONO, not stereo at all, this makes for some major improvements over the George Martin 1986 masters (ack, I actually choke on relating the word masters to those earlier cd editions). From what I have read, surmised from facts gleaned from reading all the liner notes,ect., they did not have the four, eight or 16 track masters anymore. Mostly, they hammered out remasters gleaned out of the stereo master tapes themselves. Some of these (like the White Album) they took up to three years remastering. They obviously hired very, very good engineers this time which took their time using every trick in the book to de-compress, remove noise, expand dynamics, restructure stereo steering and what ever else seemed to work on fixing these tragically poor quality but excellent performance quality recordings of some historic note. I have back bought the collection to Hard Day's Night. The later cds are better. As you start to stroll though 1966 into 1965, you start to see the dynamics of the original older recordings fade drastically. So far, I'm afraid to back buy anything earlier than 1965. Overall, they all sound way better than my originals. Worth the money if you play them frequently and have a great system to be able to hear a large difference.