The sheer volume of albums released by the Beatles in just two years is astonishing by today’s standards. From the joyful pop rock of Please Please Me to the experimental psychedelic splendor of Revolver, the band underwent a remarkable musical evolution in an incredibly short period of time.
A new vinyl box set, The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono, revisits a pivotal year in music history: 1964, the year Beatlemania exploded in the United States. The box, which will be released on November 22, features seven albums released in the U.S. between January 1964 and March 1965, all on 180-gram audiophile vinyl, from the original mono master tapes.
The albums – all replicated with original artwork and featuring new liner notes by American Beatles historian Bruce Spizer – offer a glimpse into a period of extraordinary creative output by the Fab Four. In a single year, the band released a string of hit albums in the U.S., many compiled and titled specifically for the American market.
Out of print on vinyl since 1995, the seven mono albums are available now for preorder in a new eight-LP box set titled The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono, with six of the titles also available individually. All seven albums – Meet The Beatles!; The Beatles’ Second Album; A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Sound Track); Something New; The Beatles’ Story (2LP); Beatles ’65; and The Early Beatles – feature faithfully replicated artwork and new four-panel inserts with essays written by American Beatles historian and author Bruce Spizer. The albums’ new vinyl lacquers were cut by Kevin Reeves at Nashville’s East Iris Studios. The box set collects the seven albums, and all except The Beatles’ Story are also available individually.
Highlights of the box include Meet The Beatles!, the band’s Capitol Records debut, which launched Beatlemania in the States and featured a mix of original songs and covers. The follow-up, The Beatles’ Second Album, was a compilation that followed three months later and built upon the success of the debut. Capitol Records, which held the U.S. rights to the Beatles’ recordings at the time, released the soundtrack to the band’s first film, A Hard Day’s Night, two months later. The album topped the Billboard charts for 14 weeks. Also included is the band’s then-controversial U.S. debut, Introducing… The Beatles, which came out on Vee-Jay Records a week before Meet the Beatles, despite Capitol’s efforts to prevent its release. And, The Beatles’ Story, described on its cover as “A Narrative and Music Biography of Beatlemania on 2 Long-Play Records,” is an audio grab-bag of interview clips with band members, Beatles song snippets, instrumental versions of songs performed by the Hollyridge Strings, narration, and Beatles storytelling by John Babcock and others.
Also of note are Something New, which features a mix of songs from the film of he same name, and new recordings for the American market, and Beatles ’65, a forward-looking album released at the end of 1964, which included tracks from the UK release Beatles For Sale as well as new songs for U.S. listeners.
The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono (8LP 180g vinyl box set)
- Meet The Beatles! (Capitol Records: released January 20, 1964; 11 weeks at No. 1)
- The Beatles’ Second Album (Capitol Records: released April 10, 1964; five weeks at No. 1)
- A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Sound Track) (United Artists: released June 26, 1964; 14 weeks at No. 1) 1. www.thebeatles.com www.thebeatles.com
- Something New (Capitol Records: released July 20, 1964; nine weeks at No. 2)
- The Beatles’ Story [2LP] (Capitol Records: released November 23, 1964; peaked at No. 7) 1. www.thebeatles.com www.thebeatles.com
- Beatles ’65 (Capitol Records: released December 15, 1964; nine weeks at No. 1)
- The Early Beatles (Capitol Records: released March 22, 1965; peaked at No. 43)
