A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Artist: The Beatles
Release Year: 1964

Rating: 8/10

Track Listing: 1) A Hard Day's Night; 2) I Should Have Known Better; 3) If I Fell; 4) I'm Happy Just to Dance with You; 5) And I Love Her; 6) Tell Me Why; 7) Can't Buy Me Love; 8) Anytime at All; 9) I'll Cry Instead; 10) Things We Said Today; 11) When I Get Home; 12) You Can't Do That; 13) I'll Be Back.

I suppose I’d call this the first really famous Beatles album, in that the name instantly calls to mind both a hit song and a film.  But let’s not forget the artistic vision, which has also taken another leap.  There’s not a cover to be found here, leaving the Lennon/McCartney juggernaut to entertain us for a full 30 minutes.  So, do they succeed?  Well, I guess you could just look at the number of green tracks up there, but since you’re already reading this, I’ll blather on.  

First of all, if you haven’t seen the film, it’s a harmless bit of wacky, even surreal fun, essentially serving as one long music video to squeeze more cash out of the band and their fans.  The songs are mostly light and sunny, even “silly love songs” at times, as Sir Paul would later call them…but what’s wrong with that?

Well, a few minor things.  “Tell Me Why” is a bit generic in melody and lyrics, and is in fact the song I often use as a counterargument to the claim that the Beatles never wrote filler– yet, I can’t help but conclude that that falsetto “if there’s anything that I could ever doo-oo-ooo” in the bridge singlehandedly saves the song from ruin.

See,  even if the songs themselves aren’t nearly so insipid, there’s still a lot of the teeny-bop mentality floating around here, so it’s refreshing when the album dips into moodier territory.  “And I Love Her” and “I’ll Be Back” are two great examples of that contrast, like dark chocolate on an album of cotton candy, but my favorite of these is the portentous, almost baroque atmosphere of “Things We Said Today”.  I mean, why does Paul make it sound so ominous?   What did they say today?  It isn’t clear, and it’s that ambiguity that makes the song work so well.  Between that and the unexpected turns of “If I Fell”, there’s plenty for the more somber listener to appreciate.

Ha!  How serious can one be, though, when the album also contains “Can’t Buy Me Love”, or “I Should Have Known Better”, or the immortal title track?  Listen to how loud and obsessive, even borderline rabid, they sound on songs like those and try to imagine not grinning like an idiot with great taste.  This is young love par excellence, after all: love of one's partner, love of possibility, love of life, you name it.

Still, nothing in this life can be perfect, so the album is hobbled a bit by a few awkward throwaways like “I’ll Cry Instead” or “When I Get Home”, with the latter grating on me the most.  But those don't impact my enjoyment of the album all that much.  Yeah, there were a few more steps to be taken toward “maturity”, as it were– but in the spirit of this album I say life is better without that.