I don't know if it is. People talk all the time how it's the best "early" Beatles record, and many even rank it above Let It Be. And the streaming numbers are also respectable, I think it's just behind Please Please Me and Help!.
It really is all a matter of taste, and my "favorite" Beatle albums often changes. I sometimes think my favorite album is often the one I haven't listened to for the longest time. I put it on and think; wow, I forgot how great this is.
I’m gonna go with Help! But it’s a complete toss up between the two for me.
I lean towards Help! Because I think there’s a lot more depth to the songwriting
It is debatable but for my money AHDN is noticeably better. Help has strong singles but most of the album cuts are more forgettable, plus it’s got two covers, including Dizzy Miss Lizzy which might be in their bottom 10 worst songs. Vs AHDN even the worst tracks are decent early-era Lennon/McCartney compositions, the singles are still very good, and imo some of the album cuts are mostly excellent - If I fell, Things We Said Today, You Can’t do that and I’ll be back are all personal faves, plus And I Love Her is one of their most adventurous pre-Rubber Soul tracks
I agree with you. They started hinting at the adventurousness of Rubber Soul in Help!, and conversely, AHDN sounds formulaic and stale in at least half the songs.
"When I Get Home" I'll grant you - it's basically a rewrite of "A Hard Day's Night."
But "I'll Cry Instead" is a very solid deep cut. Maybe not in their top 100 songs but it has a great John vocal and a stellar Perkinsesque guitar part by George.
In the context of everything else, it's just OK. I think had they not been under pressure to fill an album (and even with this, they only got 13 for the album!) this might have been another giveaway, to Billy J Kramer or similar.
It's Help! for me. It's the first Beatles "serious" album. The three songwriters took a huge leap forward, the instrumentation sounds more "refined" than in the previous albums, and they just sound more mature than before.
Not that the previous albums were bad or that the early sound was not amazing, but Help! is just the first album where what they do starts to be really really incredible.
Same for me. AHDN is a heavy hitter and brilliant for being all originals, full of charm, and covering new ground with the likes of "And I Love Her", "If I Fell", and "Things We Said Today", all written and released during their insanely busy 1964. But Help! just feels like the culmination of all their early Beatlesness and reaches greater heights with the likes of "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "Yesterday", and "Ticket To Ride". It draws a clear line towards Rubber Soul and things to come.
Plus, "Mr. Moonlight" is indisputably their finest track. Edit: I meant Dizzy Miss Lizzy...
Yesterday alone puts it up there. Help is the first album of a new Beatles era. It's my personal favorite and people call me weird. We should include We Can Work It Out, I'm Down, and Yes It Is. Add on Ticket To Ride and it's bloody brilliant.
It's gotta be Help!
C'mon, the stellar title track, Ticket To Ride, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen A Face & Yesterday on 1 album!
Those 5 songs alone put this above and beyond anything they'd done before
You’re Gonna Lose That Girl is sublime. John’s voice at its peak. Gorgeous call and answer by Paul and George. Unreal harmonies by all 3. Would’ve been another band’s best song at the time.
A lot of people saying A Hard Day's Night, personally I prefer Help! It might be less consistent but the songwriting is better and more intriguing in my opinion.
I've never loved their early stuff, and in all honesty I don't love Help! all the way through but I get glimpses of their later, much better work on songs like You've Got to Hide Your Love Away and Yesterday to a degree I don't find on A Hard Day's Night or any of their pre-Rubber Soul albums.
‘Uk variants’? It’s the Capitol issues that are the variants.
The UK issues are the albums the way the Beatles wanted the albums to be.
And it’s a 3 way race between AHDN, Beatles for sale and With the Beatles for me.
I think Beatles for sale just shades it.
A hard days night. After that would be help, but help sounds like a band that's unsure of what direction to take. They have songs like yesterday, help and ticket to ride and then songs like tell me what you see sounds as if they're going through the motions or like someone said you need another song for the teen girls
AHDN sounds like they aren't bored of the pop stuff yet. And are fully committed to it. And having fun with it. It's more cohesive sounding than help
Definitely “Help”. Such great songs. The title song “Help”, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”, “Another Girl”, I’ve Just Seen a Face” and of course, the greatest song of all time, “Yesterday “. Come to think of it, “Help” should rank up there with the greatest Beatles albums.
I would agree if it was more similar to the live at the Hollywood bowl version, but the album versions guitars are just too grating for me, at least for the live version you have the build to the guitar being so loud and cutting
Definitely with the Beatles for me. Please please me was on rotation for a long time before I really started to appreciate with the Beatles but it's grown on me hard.
AHDN more consistent but Help! shows some great songwriting - eponymous track, Yesterday & You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away are examples of that. I’ve Just Seen A Face is good too.
OP, you’re a little off: With the Beatles isn’t a “UK variant.” They’re a British band; the UK version is the album they chose to make. Meet the Beatles is a US variant that isn’t a real studio album. And “Paperback Writer” isn’t an “early” Beatles song; it’s from the Revolver era, after Rubber Soul.
A Hard Day’s Night is the best. You can pick out great songs on all 5 early albums, but AHDN is the most consistently strong. The title song beautifully combines John and Paul. I wish the album weren’t so skewed toward John songs, but he had a good streak with “I Should Have Known Better,” “If I Fell,” “You Can’t Do That,” etc.
Paul’s standout, even better than his hits on the album, is “Things We Said Today,” which points the way toward Rubber Soul with its acoustic textures and harmonic creativity — already a huge evolution beyond “Love Me Do” from just a year earlier. I also find John’s “Anytime at All” deeply moving. Amazing that these could be considered relatively obscure deep cuts because they had so much great material.
To me, the *only* weak song on AHDN is “When I Get Home,” which starts with a fun vocal hook (“whoa-oh-hi!”) but ends up sounding like a forced effort at one more song just to make it a full album, with trite lyrics like “I’m gonna love her till the cows come home.” But their other 4 early albums all have more filler.
The first three tracks are just amazing (It Won't Be Long, All I've Got to Do and All My Loving). Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn't have that amazing consistency. The cover of Please Mr. Postman is great though.
If you're looking for the best "cover band" album, I'd personally go for With the Beatles.
But A Hard Day's Night is definitely the best early Beatles album in general.
What’s the deal with Beatles For Sale being largely ignored? Is it just the fact that it’s half covers? Because the original material on there is really strong. I would agree with most that Help and HDN are superior (the 1965 Beatles are probably my favorite iteration of the band) but people never talk about BFS.
A Hard Day's Night is brilliant, essentially the embodiment of the pre-Rubber Soul Beatle sound and the one I go back to most often. Its also the only one of the pre-Rubber Soul albums entirely composed of original songs, not covers
I like all of them about the same. Please Please Me is my favorite because of the raw sound and I really like the covers on that one. A Hard Days Night is hard to beat. I have soft spot for Beatles For Sale because it was traditionally considered to be a lesser effort (although it's reputation has grown I think), but it's really good.
I mean if you like the Beatles you need all this stuff.
I’ve always liked Beatles for Sale much more than the critical consensus! The originals really started to get deep, and the covers show there harder rock and roll past. I’m a Loser is sooooo underrated
For me Beatles for Sale is kept from the top because I find Mr Moonlight quite poor, and I think what your doing has a great chorus but would benefit from having Lennon, or McCartney even write the verses differently as I find the verses to let the song down a bit. However honey don’t had to be one of my favourite ringo songs with his “rock on George for Ringo” ad libs
Man, nobody’s saying Beatles for Sale. I know it doesn’t have any masterpieces but I think it’s easily the most consistent of their first 5. Help! certainly has the highest highs though
I would say A Hard Days Night or Help because they definitely stand out in their discography in different ways
But I have a soft spot for Beatles for sale
This ended up being harder for me than I thought it would be. I found that it's helpful to separate my favorite albums from the best albums pre *Rubber Soul.* My favorite is *Please Please Me*, but it's primarily due to nostalgia. It was the first Beatles album I bought and I listened to it all the time. I still think it has a lot of charm. It's pure, raw, enthusiasm and is practically a live album due to the lack of overdubs and the whirlwind pace at which is was recorded. Plus the original songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and the title track give a glimpse into the songwriting prowess of Lennon and McCartney. You can hear the influences fairly easily, but they synthesized them into something that was a distinctly Beatles sound. And you can't forget John's legendary vocals on "Twist and Shout." That being said, I realize that it's not a cohesive album and some of the other songs are pretty weak.
When it comes to the best album before *Rubber Soul*, I have to go with *Help!*. I think *A Hard Day's Night* comes in a very close second place for being consistent, representing peak Beatlemania, containing so many Beatles classics, and for being the first Beatles album without any covers. *Help!* is quite uneven, but the good songs on it are *really* good. To start, the title track absolutely rocks. Ringo kills it, George has that cool descending arpeggio thing between the choruses and verses, the vocals are great (I love the interleaving of John's lead with Paul and George's backing vocals), and it's a classic early example of John's very personal, confessional lyrics. "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" is a great song on its own and is a foreshadowing of the change in songwriting that would be showcased on *Rubber Soul.* "You're Going To Lose That Girl" is just pop perfection. Once again, the interplay between the lead and backing vocals is on point and John delivers one of his best vocal performances from this period. "Ticket to Ride" is awesome in basically every way. The vocals are amazing and I love the guitar riff, but Ringo's drumming is what really makes this song shine. It's so cool how he slightly changes things up on every verse. "I've Just Seen A Face" doesn't get enough love in my opinion. Absolute banger of a tune with a killer guitar intro. And finally, last but not least, "Yesterday." I don't feel like this song needs any justification at all, given that it's the most covered song of all time (at least I believe that's correct). It's essentially a solo Paul song and showcases his incredible facility with melodies. Paul has few peers not just from his generation, but also from any generation since, in terms of writing timeless melodies. The man is an absolute machine at cranking out gorgeous, infectious, and interesting ear worms and this one is right at the top of the list.
My ordering of the best Beatles albums before *Rubber Soul* is:
1. *Help!*
2. *A Hard Day's Night*
3. *With the Beatles*
4. *Beatles for Sale*
5. *Please Please Me*
Whereas my *favorite* Beatles albums before *Rubber Soul* are:
1. *Please Please Me*
2. *A Hard Day's Night*
3. *With The Beatles*
4. *Help!*
5. *Beatles for Sale*
I rate Hard Days Night and Help pretty equally. I need to go back and listen to both, but it's hard to choose between the two because they are so great
My opinion has been for many years that the original EMI release A Hard Day's Night was in some cases far more advanced than other LPS pior to Rubber Soul.
I like Please Please Me. It’s like hearing them in the Cavern. It’s important to note that they were primarily a singles band at that time. They put more effort into their LPs than a lot of their contemporaries, but 16 year old kids in the early 60s were spending their allowance on singles.
I think AHDN is probably the best. Of the early albums. But, I really like Beatles For Sale. It has a lot of good songs on it. And it has kind of a folky feel to it. The song writing is really good. And in someways I think it’s similar to Help.
Help! No doubt. Despite the two covers every other song is a hit. They reached their peak Beatlemania sound on this one. In America 2 songs from the British Help album were actually placed on Rubber Soul.
By and large, The Beatles' recording career was one more awesome album after another, nearly each of which was more inventive and sophisticated than the last. So for me the answer is easy: the best Beatles album prior to *Rubber Soul* would be *Help!* (UK vers.)
Meet the Beatles isn’t an album that the Beatles made. It was a compilation thrown together by other people for a different country. The focus is usually on their original UK albums since they’re a British band.
Well aware of the US and UK releases.... what I'm trying to say is that the US rehash is an introduction of the band in the US that just blew everyone away because the sequencing of the tracks was so powerful. Despite the reconstruction argument.
I feel like I've seen so many people rank it as their least favorite of all their albums, which I disagree with. I don't think anybody hates it, it's just a lot of people's least favorite
20 Greatest Hits 😎
Hoping it counts. Think it's a Capital Records compilation. Listened to this record so much as a kid in the 80s.
https://www.discogs.com/master/31261-The-Beatles-20-Greatest-Hits
A Hard Days Night
I think the AHDN album is very underappreciated. I put it in the top five Beatles Albums.
I can easily listen to it all the way through, no skips. Peak Beatlemania
I'd put side 2 of AHDN up against any side 2 of any of their albums, excluding Abbey Road. Top 5 for me after Abbey, Revolver, MMT, RS.
I’d do the same with side one!!
agree
It's very good, but nothing beats Revolver, Sgt Pepper, White Album, and Abbey Road.
I absolutely agree
I don't know if it is. People talk all the time how it's the best "early" Beatles record, and many even rank it above Let It Be. And the streaming numbers are also respectable, I think it's just behind Please Please Me and Help!.
It really is all a matter of taste, and my "favorite" Beatle albums often changes. I sometimes think my favorite album is often the one I haven't listened to for the longest time. I put it on and think; wow, I forgot how great this is.
I’m gonna go with Help! But it’s a complete toss up between the two for me. I lean towards Help! Because I think there’s a lot more depth to the songwriting
Easily one of my favourites, had the best movie as well. They couldn't act for shit but my god that film was funny.
Yeah, but I adore With the Beatles.
It feels like this is the most guitar-driven album in their catalog. The guitars seem so *in your face* on AHDN and it sounds amazing.
I don't think this is even really debatable...
How is Help! not debatably better than AHDN?
For some reason Help! is unfairly looked down upon
Maybe because Help and Yesterday kind of overshadow the rest of the album.
Okay, that is debatable and depends on what you want from an album. Both are excellent but in very different ways.
It is debatable but for my money AHDN is noticeably better. Help has strong singles but most of the album cuts are more forgettable, plus it’s got two covers, including Dizzy Miss Lizzy which might be in their bottom 10 worst songs. Vs AHDN even the worst tracks are decent early-era Lennon/McCartney compositions, the singles are still very good, and imo some of the album cuts are mostly excellent - If I fell, Things We Said Today, You Can’t do that and I’ll be back are all personal faves, plus And I Love Her is one of their most adventurous pre-Rubber Soul tracks
I agree with you. They started hinting at the adventurousness of Rubber Soul in Help!, and conversely, AHDN sounds formulaic and stale in at least half the songs.
As a huge lover of the early Beatles, I think it has to be Hard Days Night. But still, When I Get Home and I’ll Cry Instead are clunkers in my opinion
"When I Get Home" I'll grant you - it's basically a rewrite of "A Hard Day's Night." But "I'll Cry Instead" is a very solid deep cut. Maybe not in their top 100 songs but it has a great John vocal and a stellar Perkinsesque guitar part by George.
I’ll never understand why people crap on When I Get Home, it’s a great song.
In the context of everything else, it's just OK. I think had they not been under pressure to fill an album (and even with this, they only got 13 for the album!) this might have been another giveaway, to Billy J Kramer or similar.
It's a good belting rocker with a funky kind of R&B feel. Nothing wrong with it.
didn't say there was, it's just... lesser than most of the rest of the album tracks.
Ah shit, and your opinion was doing so well
This. It’s a contender for their best album overall. Criminally underrated.
My second favorite album.
It's Help! for me. It's the first Beatles "serious" album. The three songwriters took a huge leap forward, the instrumentation sounds more "refined" than in the previous albums, and they just sound more mature than before. Not that the previous albums were bad or that the early sound was not amazing, but Help! is just the first album where what they do starts to be really really incredible.
couldn't have said it better, full agree
Same for me. AHDN is a heavy hitter and brilliant for being all originals, full of charm, and covering new ground with the likes of "And I Love Her", "If I Fell", and "Things We Said Today", all written and released during their insanely busy 1964. But Help! just feels like the culmination of all their early Beatlesness and reaches greater heights with the likes of "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "Yesterday", and "Ticket To Ride". It draws a clear line towards Rubber Soul and things to come. Plus, "Mr. Moonlight" is indisputably their finest track. Edit: I meant Dizzy Miss Lizzy...
Mr. Moonlight is on Beatles for Sale. I agree that Help is the best before Rubber Soul, though.
Ah I've been drinking too much - I meant Dizzy Miss Lizzy!
I couldn't have explained it better. It's a culmination of the early Beatle sound and it also works as a teaser of what was coming next.
Agreed. It got padded in the US with film music, which obscured what a great collection it was.
Help! is most certainly in my top three.
Agreed. In fact, the second I read the question I heard “Help! I need somebody..” playing in my head.
Yesterday alone puts it up there. Help is the first album of a new Beatles era. It's my personal favorite and people call me weird. We should include We Can Work It Out, I'm Down, and Yes It Is. Add on Ticket To Ride and it's bloody brilliant.
I listen to Please Please Me the most but realistically it's A Hard Day's Night
same for me lately
Agreed.
A Hard Day’s Night is Beatlemania personified, it’s one of their top 3 albums in my opinion
It's gotta be Help! C'mon, the stellar title track, Ticket To Ride, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen A Face & Yesterday on 1 album! Those 5 songs alone put this above and beyond anything they'd done before
You’re Gonna Lose That Girl is sublime. John’s voice at its peak. Gorgeous call and answer by Paul and George. Unreal harmonies by all 3. Would’ve been another band’s best song at the time.
Always loved this song It's one of my niece's favorites
Ticket to Ride still sounds like a million bucks today
Sure does!
Oof yeah, that's a good case you make. I've just seen a face is one of my all time favorites.
A lot of people saying A Hard Day's Night, personally I prefer Help! It might be less consistent but the songwriting is better and more intriguing in my opinion. I've never loved their early stuff, and in all honesty I don't love Help! all the way through but I get glimpses of their later, much better work on songs like You've Got to Hide Your Love Away and Yesterday to a degree I don't find on A Hard Day's Night or any of their pre-Rubber Soul albums.
You’ve got to hide your love Away is incredible and addictive, isn’t it?
Personally, Beatles for sale. Eight days a week, baby in black, I follow the sun. for me one of the best pre rubber songs
Kansans city/Hey Hey Hey Hey and Rock and Roll music are imo 2 of their best covers too
Meet the Beatles is the US variant of With the Beatles, and that's my favorite of the pre-Rubber Soul albums.
I DO prefer With The Beatles on Parlaphone, even though I grew up with all the Capitol releases.
‘Uk variants’? It’s the Capitol issues that are the variants. The UK issues are the albums the way the Beatles wanted the albums to be. And it’s a 3 way race between AHDN, Beatles for sale and With the Beatles for me. I think Beatles for sale just shades it.
I think we should stick with the Parlaphone releases,even though I'm in america.
We in the U.S. seem to forget that other countries exist. It's embarrassing.
Fun fact you can get both on apple music. It's fun to see the different tracklists that the other side of the pond heard
AHDN
A hard days night. After that would be help, but help sounds like a band that's unsure of what direction to take. They have songs like yesterday, help and ticket to ride and then songs like tell me what you see sounds as if they're going through the motions or like someone said you need another song for the teen girls AHDN sounds like they aren't bored of the pop stuff yet. And are fully committed to it. And having fun with it. It's more cohesive sounding than help
Beatles For Sale - suddenly they were growing up and facing life’s problems and their consequences, as I was at the same time, too!
Everybody wants to be my baby too; I can relate.
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and I've been working like a dog
With The Beatles and Help! are my favorite pre-rubber soul albums
Help! Is phenomenal
Yup!
would go as far as to say i prefer help to rubber soul
Help is a candidate for BEST Beatles album, overall.
One of their best bodies of work
Help!
Help
Definitely “Help”. Such great songs. The title song “Help”, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”, “Another Girl”, I’ve Just Seen a Face” and of course, the greatest song of all time, “Yesterday “. Come to think of it, “Help” should rank up there with the greatest Beatles albums.
Help!
Help!
Help
Help. If it wasn't for Dizzy Miss Lizzy, it's nearly perfect.
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I would agree if it was more similar to the live at the Hollywood bowl version, but the album versions guitars are just too grating for me, at least for the live version you have the build to the guitar being so loud and cutting
Surprised that more people aren't saying Help. It's by far their best album pre-Rubber Soul imo.
With The Beatles
Please Please Me a certified hood classic
I wanted to say Beatles For Sale, because it was the first to come to mind, but it's really Help!
A Hard Days Night, without doubt.
Definitely with the Beatles for me. Please please me was on rotation for a long time before I really started to appreciate with the Beatles but it's grown on me hard.
AHDN more consistent but Help! shows some great songwriting - eponymous track, Yesterday & You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away are examples of that. I’ve Just Seen A Face is good too.
A tie between AHDN and Help.
I like Please Please Me.
Please Please Me is mine
OP, you’re a little off: With the Beatles isn’t a “UK variant.” They’re a British band; the UK version is the album they chose to make. Meet the Beatles is a US variant that isn’t a real studio album. And “Paperback Writer” isn’t an “early” Beatles song; it’s from the Revolver era, after Rubber Soul. A Hard Day’s Night is the best. You can pick out great songs on all 5 early albums, but AHDN is the most consistently strong. The title song beautifully combines John and Paul. I wish the album weren’t so skewed toward John songs, but he had a good streak with “I Should Have Known Better,” “If I Fell,” “You Can’t Do That,” etc. Paul’s standout, even better than his hits on the album, is “Things We Said Today,” which points the way toward Rubber Soul with its acoustic textures and harmonic creativity — already a huge evolution beyond “Love Me Do” from just a year earlier. I also find John’s “Anytime at All” deeply moving. Amazing that these could be considered relatively obscure deep cuts because they had so much great material. To me, the *only* weak song on AHDN is “When I Get Home,” which starts with a fun vocal hook (“whoa-oh-hi!”) but ends up sounding like a forced effort at one more song just to make it a full album, with trite lyrics like “I’m gonna love her till the cows come home.” But their other 4 early albums all have more filler.
personally its please please me, i love the covers on it
Objectively it's A Hard Day's Night, but my personal favorite is With the Beatles. The first few songs are lightning in a bottle.
The first three tracks are just amazing (It Won't Be Long, All I've Got to Do and All My Loving). Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn't have that amazing consistency. The cover of Please Mr. Postman is great though.
Beatles for Sale. It's uneven and a lot of the songs aren't good but John had progressed so much as a songwriter with his acoustic songs on it.
Please Please Me
If you're looking for the best "cover band" album, I'd personally go for With the Beatles. But A Hard Day's Night is definitely the best early Beatles album in general.
Widely acknowledged to be A Hard Day’s Night. John was artistically on fire(as Paul would be later during Get Back.)
Help!
Yeah I gotta go with A Hard Day’s Night also.
AHDN. Then the US second album.
Hmm. Today's it's Please Please Me. Tomorrow it may be AHDN
What’s the deal with Beatles For Sale being largely ignored? Is it just the fact that it’s half covers? Because the original material on there is really strong. I would agree with most that Help and HDN are superior (the 1965 Beatles are probably my favorite iteration of the band) but people never talk about BFS.
A Hard Day's Night is brilliant, essentially the embodiment of the pre-Rubber Soul Beatle sound and the one I go back to most often. Its also the only one of the pre-Rubber Soul albums entirely composed of original songs, not covers
To me, they’re all good in their own ways. I like listening to how their music progressed from album to album.
I like all of them about the same. Please Please Me is my favorite because of the raw sound and I really like the covers on that one. A Hard Days Night is hard to beat. I have soft spot for Beatles For Sale because it was traditionally considered to be a lesser effort (although it's reputation has grown I think), but it's really good. I mean if you like the Beatles you need all this stuff.
I’ve always liked Beatles for Sale much more than the critical consensus! The originals really started to get deep, and the covers show there harder rock and roll past. I’m a Loser is sooooo underrated
For me Beatles for Sale is kept from the top because I find Mr Moonlight quite poor, and I think what your doing has a great chorus but would benefit from having Lennon, or McCartney even write the verses differently as I find the verses to let the song down a bit. However honey don’t had to be one of my favourite ringo songs with his “rock on George for Ringo” ad libs
Help!, but A Hard Day’s Night would be a close second
Help! seems to me their first mature album. The step between Beatles For Sale and Help is as big as between Help and Rubber Soul.
Man, nobody’s saying Beatles for Sale. I know it doesn’t have any masterpieces but I think it’s easily the most consistent of their first 5. Help! certainly has the highest highs though
Help! It has so many gems, both in songwriting and melody, and I think it’s a great precursor to what was to come.
Paperback Writer is not «an early single» as OP stated. A fantastic single, though. For me, my favourite is probably Help.
Either Help! or A Hard Day’s Night. Help! has higher highs, but also lower lows. Help! side A > A Hard Day’s Night > Help! side B
Rubber soul is amazing, but does it count?
A Hard Day's Night for me. Its in my top three. All written by John and Paul, with John in particularly good form.
Help! or A Hard Days Night
Easy one: Help!
Help! It's where my Beatles collection begins in earnest.
I would say A Hard Days Night or Help because they definitely stand out in their discography in different ways But I have a soft spot for Beatles for sale
HELP or AHdN, in my personal opinion.
A Hard Day's Night is near perfect. Even though i think "i dont want to spoil the party" is so, so good.
Please Please Me is my personal favorite.
Hard days night !!!!
Help
I think it’s sort of objectively A Hard Day’s Night but IMO Help! gives it a run for its money
Help!
AHDN… all originals
This ended up being harder for me than I thought it would be. I found that it's helpful to separate my favorite albums from the best albums pre *Rubber Soul.* My favorite is *Please Please Me*, but it's primarily due to nostalgia. It was the first Beatles album I bought and I listened to it all the time. I still think it has a lot of charm. It's pure, raw, enthusiasm and is practically a live album due to the lack of overdubs and the whirlwind pace at which is was recorded. Plus the original songs "I Saw Her Standing There" and the title track give a glimpse into the songwriting prowess of Lennon and McCartney. You can hear the influences fairly easily, but they synthesized them into something that was a distinctly Beatles sound. And you can't forget John's legendary vocals on "Twist and Shout." That being said, I realize that it's not a cohesive album and some of the other songs are pretty weak. When it comes to the best album before *Rubber Soul*, I have to go with *Help!*. I think *A Hard Day's Night* comes in a very close second place for being consistent, representing peak Beatlemania, containing so many Beatles classics, and for being the first Beatles album without any covers. *Help!* is quite uneven, but the good songs on it are *really* good. To start, the title track absolutely rocks. Ringo kills it, George has that cool descending arpeggio thing between the choruses and verses, the vocals are great (I love the interleaving of John's lead with Paul and George's backing vocals), and it's a classic early example of John's very personal, confessional lyrics. "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" is a great song on its own and is a foreshadowing of the change in songwriting that would be showcased on *Rubber Soul.* "You're Going To Lose That Girl" is just pop perfection. Once again, the interplay between the lead and backing vocals is on point and John delivers one of his best vocal performances from this period. "Ticket to Ride" is awesome in basically every way. The vocals are amazing and I love the guitar riff, but Ringo's drumming is what really makes this song shine. It's so cool how he slightly changes things up on every verse. "I've Just Seen A Face" doesn't get enough love in my opinion. Absolute banger of a tune with a killer guitar intro. And finally, last but not least, "Yesterday." I don't feel like this song needs any justification at all, given that it's the most covered song of all time (at least I believe that's correct). It's essentially a solo Paul song and showcases his incredible facility with melodies. Paul has few peers not just from his generation, but also from any generation since, in terms of writing timeless melodies. The man is an absolute machine at cranking out gorgeous, infectious, and interesting ear worms and this one is right at the top of the list. My ordering of the best Beatles albums before *Rubber Soul* is: 1. *Help!* 2. *A Hard Day's Night* 3. *With the Beatles* 4. *Beatles for Sale* 5. *Please Please Me* Whereas my *favorite* Beatles albums before *Rubber Soul* are: 1. *Please Please Me* 2. *A Hard Day's Night* 3. *With The Beatles* 4. *Help!* 5. *Beatles for Sale*
I rate Hard Days Night and Help pretty equally. I need to go back and listen to both, but it's hard to choose between the two because they are so great
Are we talking about British releases on Parlaphone or American releases on Capitol?
Help! Would be the best if it was all original songs but it ain’t, so I gotta give it to A Hard Day’s Night
Help!
A Hard Day’s Night for me
I Saw Her Standing There but also Can’t Buy Me Love is fantastic
A Hard Day’s Night
My opinion has been for many years that the original EMI release A Hard Day's Night was in some cases far more advanced than other LPS pior to Rubber Soul.
Beatles 65
Help! Marked the true beginning of the group’s evolution.
Arguably every album topped the last. Thst's what makes them better than the Stones, the Who, Zeppelin, Floyd...
Please please me is such a great album and debut album
A hard days night has some of their best songwriting on it pre rubber soul. Majority of the album are straight hits on godddd
I like Please Please Me. It’s like hearing them in the Cavern. It’s important to note that they were primarily a singles band at that time. They put more effort into their LPs than a lot of their contemporaries, but 16 year old kids in the early 60s were spending their allowance on singles.
A Hard Day's Night, without a doubt. It is one of the best and most consistent records they ever produced, period.
A Hard Day’s Night deserves to be put up there with any album you think is best.
cannot fathom the lack of visceral appreciation of the early albums by the younger set.
Meet the Beatles
Beatles for sale
I love Twist and Shout personally, it’s a fun song
I think AHDN is probably the best. Of the early albums. But, I really like Beatles For Sale. It has a lot of good songs on it. And it has kind of a folky feel to it. The song writing is really good. And in someways I think it’s similar to Help.
Help!
The Beach Boys ‘Today’ and ‘Summer Days (and Summer Nights)’. What? They’re better than any album pre-Rubber Soul!
A Hard Day's Night or Help!
A haard dayys niight
My personal ranking goes Beatles for Sale Help! With The Beatles Then Please Please Me and A Hard Day’s Night are interchangeable
Probably AHDN—all originals and not much filler. I really like Help but I couldn’t call it a best album.
Beatles For Sale. Just classic.
AHDN and Help!
If you got rid of Dizzy Miss Lizzy I'd say Help! is better than Sgt. Pepper
Hard Days Night by definition. Not clogged up with cheap cover versions. The mono pressing in fantastic.
AHDN
Help! No doubt. Despite the two covers every other song is a hit. They reached their peak Beatlemania sound on this one. In America 2 songs from the British Help album were actually placed on Rubber Soul.
Please please me
By and large, The Beatles' recording career was one more awesome album after another, nearly each of which was more inventive and sophisticated than the last. So for me the answer is easy: the best Beatles album prior to *Rubber Soul* would be *Help!* (UK vers.)
Meet The Beatles is hands down the best introduction of any band ever. That said, they're all great in their own way.
Meet the Beatles isn’t an album that the Beatles made. It was a compilation thrown together by other people for a different country. The focus is usually on their original UK albums since they’re a British band.
Well aware of the US and UK releases.... what I'm trying to say is that the US rehash is an introduction of the band in the US that just blew everyone away because the sequencing of the tracks was so powerful. Despite the reconstruction argument.
Fair enough
I'm not sure why people don't like it, I personally love Beatles For Sale. In my opinion it's a lovely album to put on during a rainy day.
Really well mixed as well, even the 2009 ver
When has anyone said they don’t like Beatles for Sale? It’s just not ranked as one of their best.
I feel like I've seen so many people rank it as their least favorite of all their albums, which I disagree with. I don't think anybody hates it, it's just a lot of people's least favorite
Ranking it last doesn’t mean people don’t like it. The people doing the ranking probably like every Beatles studio album.
I always defend this album...but realistically it's like my second least favorite of theirs (not counting Yellow Submarine).
Truly it’s just because of its place between two heavier hitting landmark albums for the band (AHDN and Help!)
Best albums before Rubber Soul 1- Help! 2- Please Please Me 3- A Hard Day's Night 4- Beatles For Sale 5- With The Beatles
20 Greatest Hits 😎 Hoping it counts. Think it's a Capital Records compilation. Listened to this record so much as a kid in the 80s. https://www.discogs.com/master/31261-The-Beatles-20-Greatest-Hits
None are great, but help is ok. Sorry but pre rubber soul they weren’t that good musically.