The Beatles - Help! [UK]
![Help! [UK]](/images/Help-UK-B000002UAL-L.jpg)
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Free Music Notes for Help! [UK]
Free Music Review: HELP! is on the wayside
Hit: 5 Stars
Compared to A Hard Days Night, like the movie itself, the soundtrack to Help!,though charming in its own way, is a disappointment. Where the movie suffered an all the trimmings(bigger budget,IN COLOR)but no meat(a weak script and a weaker plot)execution, the album was short on spontaneity. But its not without its great moments. The title song is a plea disguised as a pop song, while You've Got To Hide Your Love Away makes no apologies for its theme of depression and self pity. Ticket To Ride is one of the greatest pop singles of 1965(alongside Like A Rolling Stone, My Girl,and Satisfaction) and You're Going/Gonna Lose That Girl although brilliant, seems out of step compared to what Lennon's been composing at the time. Another Girl & I've Just Seen A Face may show Paul McCartney at his pop music best, but Yesterday(shamelessly buried towards the end of the album)is where his legend is set in stone. The rest of the album, although first rate material by anyone else standards, pales against previous Beatle album cuts(although George's hook laden You Like Me Too Much would've worked better in the film than I Need You),but as we all know, their best music is just around the corner.Free Music Review: Mmm...mid-60s Beatles
Hit: 5 Stars
Yeah, I prefer the mid-60s stuff. The early stuff was fresh and electrifying, and the late-60s albums contain some of the greatest pop music ever recorded (and quite a lot of filler as well).
But to me, The Beatles' three mid-60s albums ("Help!", "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver") are their most cohesive, and "Help!" in particular is a tremendously strong album almost all the way through.
Opening with the musically upbeat and lyrically downbeat title track, it features all-time classics like John Lennon's Bob Dylan-esque "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "Ticket To Ride", a wonderful pop song which opens with the instantly recognizable circular guitar riff, and of course "Yesterday", the most covered pop song of all time.
The acoustic "Act Naturally" is an ideal showcase for Ringo Starr's amiable vocals, George Harrison contributes two numbers, and if most of Paul McCartney's songs are overshadowed by Lennon's on this particular album, he gets his own back with the ultimate pop ballad, "Yesterday".
Lennon, in fact, has written four of the best, most remarkable songs on the album (plus two more which are merely good): "Help!", "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", the underrated "You're Going To Lose That Girl", and of course "Ticket To Ride", making "Help!" one of the two or three most "Lennon-centric" Beatles albums.
John Lennon also sings the larynx-shredding lead on a great, fiery cover of Larry Williams' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", and even the filler on this album is generally very good, like McCartney's folkish "Tell Me What You See" and the jaunty "I've Just Seen A Face".
"Help!" is perhaps not as highly regarded as, say, "Revolver" or "Sgt Pepper" or "Abbey Road", but it is quite as good as anything the Beatles ever released, and if you're only ever going to buy a handful of Beatles records, make this one of them.
Free Music Review: A fitting closer to the Beatlemania years
Hit: 5 Stars
While this album can't be called their apex, the Beatles end the early years with a bang here and an album with really only 1 poorish cut on it ("It's Only Love"). The beginnings of their musical experimentation can be seen here with the confessional tone of John's lyrics flowering on the title tune and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" which are not only classics in the Beatles lexicon but in all of rock and roll. Paul adds his own classic with "Yesterday" (which I believe is STILL the most covered rock song ever). Musically, there aren't a whole lot of "breakthroughs" here in terms of structure, but as a primer on how to write perfect 2 1/2 minute pop songs there aren't many better CDs to study.
Highlights are the somber "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" with its wonderful flute solo, the charging pop of "Help!" (the perfect choice to open the album), the stately orchestral grace of "Yesterday"'s elegy to a love affair, "Ticket to Ride" is another melancholy ditty that's become a Beatles favourite, and underrated but fantastic "I've Just Seen a Face" has a classical-ish guitar intro that gives way to a fast country shuffle. There are few hooks as infectious as the "falling" part of the tune, making it hard to believe it was allowed to languish as an album cut.
The bane of most of the early Beatles CDs is the cover tunes, but here Lennon turns in a jagged vocal on "Dizzy Miss Lizzie" and that, plus a "Hippy Hippy Shake" style George guitar, makes it a keeper if not a highlight.
BOTTOM LINE: Buying a "hits" CD for "Help!", "Ticket to Ride" and "Yesterday" isn't good enough. This isn't a track or two and some filler. Nearly every cut here is great. A must for every rock collection.
Free Music Review: Quality Music from the Midpoint of the Beatles Career
Hit: 5 Stars
I am not objective when it comes to the Beatles. For those of us who grew up in the 60s the Beatles revolutionized music. What came after would be forever changed and improved. The explosion of genres that came after the Beatles opened the door for experimentation. The Beatles may have had a lot of help, but they were out in front with music that seemed to be generally half a step ahead of everyone else, and sometimes much further.
This 1965 album can be considered to be the last of the albums from the frenzied era of Beatles popularity known as Beatlemania. Soon after would come "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver," which led to "Sgt. Pepper" and a whole new era of music. This album, which is a kind of soundtrack album for the movie of the same name, still retained the solid pop music that made the Beatles popular amongst teenagers around the world. With one exception, these songs are also short, in the two to three minute range, a pace that AM radio once demanded. The only thing I find amazing is that there were only three singles released from this album, because I have heard many more of these songs on the radio over the years.
This album begins with the frenzied and popular "Help." This song went to #1 on multiple charts as fans were buying nearly everything the Beatles released at this point. "The Night Before" follows, yet another short and peppy tune. This song has a middle portion that changes tempo and style makes this song much more interesting than it otherwise would be. There is also an abbreviated bridge a bit more than halfway through that uses a lead guitar to spice up the song a little.
"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is a song that continues to get a lot of air play yet today. This song could have been a single as it as interesting and well crafted as most of the released singles. Another song that could have been a single is the beautiful George Harrison song "I Need You." George Harrison may have been a distant third in terms of output, but his quality was always very high.
A change of pace happens with "Another Girl." This song is faster and simpler than the previous two songs. "You're Going to Lose that Girl" is another similarly paced song with a similar simplicity. Both are average songs from the viewpoint of the Beatles' catalog.
The song that follows has been covered by many artists. "Ticket to Ride" was a #1 hit for the Beatles. The pace of the song, the beat, the changes in tempo and the lyrics all come together to make this song, the longest on this CD, a solid entry in the Beatles hit inventory.
"Act Naturally" is a country-sounding song with Ringo doing very well in the lead vocal role. This song was one of two covers on this album. The Beatles did fewer covers as their career progressed, with this cover being one of the last released on an original album. The other cover on this album is "Dizzy Miss Lizzie." This song is fast paced, raucous and styled somewhat similar to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." I seem to appreciate this style of song from the Beatles more as I get older, and enjoy the few they did.
"It's Only Love" is a relatively average song that has an interesting guitar chord that appears several times throughout the song. Some have called this song filler because the quality of the song is lower than is average for the Beatles. However, a listener must consider that average for the Beatles in the 60s was better than the best for many artists. Thus, the song is above average for its era, just one of the lesser songs in the Beatles catalog.
"You Like Me too Much" has an unusual piano introduction that leads into another fair song. A piano is used in several places in this song, which at the time was a rarity for the Beatles. The comments regarding the quality of "It's Only Love" generally apply to this song as well.
The following song is a mellow ballad with catchy music. The lyrics of "Tell Me What You See" are relatively simple. This song is average for the Beatles. The next song, "I've Just Seen a Face," sounds like a template for some of the Monkees' later songs.
The next to the last song is the best song on this album, one of the best Beatles songs, and one of the best songs of all time. Some have complained that "Yesterday" was not a Beatles song given that it was Paul McCartney on guitar with a string quartet backing him. The song is still counted as one of the Beatles' number one hits and this song has established its place in music history, being one of the most covered songs of modern times. The simplicity of the music and music, and Paul McCartney's emotional vocal prove that great music can be created in relatively simple ways.
This album came near the end of the era of Beatlemania. The group was beginning to dislike the downside of fame. The individual members had also grown significantly as musicians and were focusing more on their music than on media and frequently berserk fans. This album may have been the last time we could see the Beatles as a highly talented boy band capable of regularly churning out pop hits. Their next albums would establish the Beatles as the most influential rock group of all time, and mark a new era in rock music.
Free Music Review: Perfect compliment to the movie
Hit: 5 Stars
The only thing here that is "second rate" are people who write tons of reviews here on Amazon that don't go beyond two sentences (is this our attention span?) and who think that Anne Murray is cutting edge.
But why should real music fans care what the ignorant have to say, anyway? The Beatles laughed all the way to the bank and, most importantly, to music history.
The Help! soundtrack is a perfect compliment to the movie (which was hilarious and completely personified The Boys' personalities). I'll admit the only thing I don't like about the album is that there are covers on it (people were probably spoiled when listening to the Hard Day's Night soundtrack, where all the songs were Lennon-McCartney compositions).
Other than that, the then-new Lennon-McCartney tunes were the beginnings of a new phase in The Boys' career: They were proving to the world that they moved beyond the bubble gum, teenybopper image and were evolving into serious musicians who were here to stay.