Meet the Beatles!
Meet the Beatles! is a studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released as their second album in the United States. It was the group's first American album to be issued by Capitol Records, on 20 January 1964 in both mono and stereo formats. It topped the popular album chart on 15 February 1964 and remained at number one for eleven weeks before being replaced by The Beatles' Second Album. The cover featured Robert Freeman's iconic portrait of the Beatles used in the United Kingdom for With the Beatles, with a blue tint added to the original stark black-and-white photograph.
Meet the Beatles!
Music[edit]
By November 1963, the Beatles had already recorded over 35 songs for EMI's UK Parlophone label, while Capitol Records in the US planned to release an album and a single, and more at a later date. The US rights to the Beatles' first 14 tracks were held by Vee Jay Records along with a few others. "She Loves You" had been issued in America on the Swan label and also sold poorly. In Britain, Parlophone was already releasing its second Beatles album With the Beatles and had issued several singles which were not included on any UK albums with the exception of the first two ("Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why" and "Love Me Do"/"PS I Love You"). While the Beatles' first two British albums each contained 14 tracks, in the American market albums were typically limited to 12 tracks and it was expected for albums to include the current hit single.
The first three tracks on the album include the December 1963 Capitol single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" along with the record's B-sides both in the United States, "I Saw Her Standing There," and in the UK with "This Boy" from the original November 1963 release. Neither "I Want to Hold Your Hand" nor "This Boy" had appeared on album at the time in the UK, while "I Saw Her Standing There" had been the lead-off track to the band's debut album. The other nine tracks on Meet the Beatles! are duplicated from its nearest UK counterpart album With the Beatles. Those were original Beatles songs and not cover versions of songs done by other artists with the exception of "Till There Was You". The remaining five tracks from With the Beatles were songs originally recorded by other artists. Capitol determined that for their first album they would only include original and fresh material. There was fear that the remakes would turn Americans off of the Beatles. The other five songs would appear on Capitol's next American LP, The Beatles' Second Album, released in April 1964.[5] The songs "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy" are in a duophonic [fake] stereo, as Capitol had not been provided proper stereo mixes.
Commercial performance[edit]
In the U.S., the album debuted at No. 92 on the album chart for the week ending 1 February 1964. Two weeks later, it peaked at #1 where it remained eleven consecutive weeks, eventually replaced by The Beatles' Second Album. It sold 4,045,174 copies by 31 December 1964, and 4,699,348 copies by the end of the decade.[13] It was certified Gold by the RIAA on 3 February 1964, and 5× Platinum on 26 December 1991.[14]
According to Ian MacDonald:[15]
The Beatles
Additional musician and production