Let’s say you’re an American Beatles fan in the Sixties, Seventies, or Eighties. You chat with a British fan about your favorite albums. But you have no idea what they’re talking about — what is Beatles for Sale? Or With The Beatles? Meanwhile, they’ve never heard of U.S. classics like Meet the Beatles or Something New or Yesterday and Today. You both agree how great Rubber Soul is — but you’re discussing two different Rubber Souls. How can this be?
That’s because the Beatles albums were totally different in the States. The vinyl box set 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono collects the first 7 Capitol LPs rushed out in the first wave of the Beatlemania invasion. (That’s counting A Hard Day’s Night, officially a United Artists soundtrack.) Capitol did not regard the moptops as true artists expressing themselves on wax — the label just wanted to crank out product as fast as possible, before fickle fans fell out of love with these long-haired limey loverboys. So they chopped up the 14-song U.K. albums into 11 or 12-song quickies. The Beatles couldn’t get any of their original albums released intact in America until Sgt. Pepper in 1967. The U.S. version of Revolver left out “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “Doctor Robert,” and “I’m Only Sleeping.”
The 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono box finally gives these records a proper home. These editions have been forgotten by history, ever since the original U.K. versions came out on CD in 1987. But fans will never part with our cherished vinyl of Something New or Beatles ’65 — they remain evergreen classics, even though the Beatles never meant for them to exist.
Exhibit A: Meet the Beatles, the January smash that turned John, Paul, George, and Ringo into an American obsession. It’s got one of the great Side Ones in the history of vinyl: “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (their most joyful boy noise), “I Saw Her Standing There” (peak “ooooooh”), “This Boy” (John’s vulnerable doo-wop angst), “It Won’t Be Long” (peak “yeeaaah”) “All I’ve Got To Do” (fan mail to Smokey Robinson), and “All My Loving,” where any emotional hesitation collapses the moment Paul sings “Close your eyes [okay keep talking] and I’ll kiss you [go on] tomorrow [this is getting good] I’ll miss you [ugh] remember I’ll always be truuuue.”
Game freaking over. They don’t even really need a Side Two, except that’s where George takes his bow with “Don’t Bother Me” and Ringo brings down the Walls of Jericho with “I Wanna Be Your Man.” The lads didn’t compile or even intend this album—but yeesh, imagine a world without it.
The LPs sound punchier than ever, fixing the notorious sonic oddities added by the shadowy label exec Dave Dexter, who despised the Fabs and everything they stood for. The U.S. editions were marred by excessive echo and “pseudo stereo,” finally corrected here in the sparkling new mix by engineer Kevin Reeves. So they finally sound as fab as they always deserved to sound.
All the albums are available separately except for The Beatles Story, a documentary with funny interviews and voice-over narration but not a single full song. (Not exactly classic, but still charming.) The lads didn’t believe in putting singles or B-sides on their albums — they were morally opposed to charging fans twice for the same song. Capitol, however, was morally opposed to leaving any spare change rattling in the kids’ pockets—and the kids agreed. That means America got The Beatles’ Second Album, which has “She Loves You,” “Thank You Girl,” and “I Call Your Name.” As Americans saw it, leaving these tunes off the albums would have been criminally insane. Modern fans know these tracks from the Past Masters collection, but when you hear “I Feel Fine” on Beatles ’65, or “I’ll Get You” on Second Album, they sound right at home, in the context of the band’s musical evolution and in the organic flow of the moment.
If you’re dabbling in the individual albums, the place to start might be Something New and Beatles ’65, where they’re getting moodier, more complex, more into Bob Dylan and weed and introspection. When Dylan did a Paul tune for the 2014 tribute album The Art of McCartney, he chose “Things We Said Today,” a bittersweet deep cut, never a hit or even a single — one he probably heard on Something New. The mid-December Beatles ’65 opens with “No Reply,” “I’m a Loser,” “Baby’s In Black”—Dylan might have heard himself in these as well, as he decided to plug in and go electric himself. But the whole box is a spectacular redemption for these oft-forgotten albums—a crucial part of the Beatles story, finally restored in all their splendor. Meet these Beatles.