We're rocking in two by two

The Beatles - With The Beatles - 1963

Let me start by saying this: This one is my favourite out of the earlier Beatles albums. It always sounds fresh to me, and it's probably the one in which they were starting to approach their "trademark sound", so to speak.
Yesterday, I was talking about how the Decca audition sounded very 1950s, and that was still true (to a much lesser extent) in Please, Please Me. But this one is fully a 60s product, from beginning to end.

• This was the first album to have a song written by George Harrison, "Don't Bother me". It is also the first song to have less cheerful lyrics, and while it was never a song chosen to be played live, I think it's a great tune.
• Again, John Lennon carries this whole thing along. I find it surprising, because I don't think I ever realised how much cooler the songs he sings are. 
• Thinking about that: I wonder if it wasn't his vocals that actually gave The Beatles more of a universal appeal, not so restricted to being what we would call now a "boy-band". Paul's songs would definitely attract girls more (and most likely their mothers too!). But John's voice was something different altogether.
• This album also has "I Wanna be your Man", sang by Ringo. Just a couple of weeks before the album was released, the song was released by the Rolling Stones. Lennon and McCartney gave/sold it to them. Apparently the Stones were looking for a commercial hit, and decided this was a good choice. The Rolling Stones version ranked 12 in the UK. It's got some interesting guitar work by Brian Jones there. 
• Releases were confusing back then, with albums being released in the UK and US with different names and tracklists. In the US, this one was called Meet the Beatles!, and had "This Boy", "I wanna Hold your Hand", and "Saw her Standing There". It didn't contain any of the covers that appear in the UK version, except for "Till there was you" 

I don't care too much for money

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night - 1964

If With The Beatles was the album in which they were approaching their trademark sound, I think this one marks the point in which they were fully there. At least with respect to what they would sound like until they got more "experimental" during the second half of the 1960s or so. At any rate, this is the sound that people will usually think about when you mention The Beatles. 

I have never been too sure how much I liked the shift. Listening to it again, I have mixed feelings. For one, I don't much like the shift from the rockier songs (mostly covers) from the first two albums in favour of a more pop sound. Also, songs like "A Hard Day's Night" and "Can't Buy me Love" have been played so much that I can't really enjoy them too much anymore. 

On the other hand, there's a lot of very cool songs here, so I'm not too sure about this one. 

• There's a funny story about how the title came to be. Apparently Ringo, after a very long day of work, not realising it was already night, said: "It's been a hard day.....night", and the title emerged from there. 
• Ironically, there aren't any songs sung by Ringo here. I know, many will be thinking it's no big loss, but I always sort of liked his unusual voice.
• The title track starts with a very distinctive chord, that's pretty much universally recognisable. As much, or even more, than the end chord from "A Day in the Life", from Sgt. Pepper's. Amazingly enough, apparently nobody really knows exactly how the chord was made, which sounds crazy to me. If you're so inclined, there's what seems to be an interesting article about it on Wikipedia. 
• This was also the first Beatles album to have only songs written by them, without any covers, and all tracks were written by Lennon/McCartney.
• While this one is not one of my favourites, I have just realised that it does have what I think is the first really very good song sung (and mostly written) by Paul, which is "Things we said Today". There's something about the changes in the song, and I think the melody is superb, and much less sugary than anything Paul had done up till then.
• But if there is a gem in this album, I'll have to choose "I'll be back". There is so much going on in the song, the structure is quite unusual, because it doesn't really seem to have a chorus, it has two different bridges (if that's what they're called), Spanish-like guitars in the background, and it sounds more like a song that would belong in a much later album. 
• As an aside, there's a demo take of this song in the Anthology 1 album. Apparently, originally it was meant to be in 6/8 instead of 4/4. The demo ends when John screws up the lyrics halfway through the song and complains: "It's too hard to sing!!." 

You know I just been sittin' here thinkin'

Muddy Waters - Folk Singer - 1964

And mostly, I've been sitting here thinking what to write about this one. There's something weird that happens to me with blues: with a few exceptions (Robert Johnson comes to mind, and I will cover the Complete Recordings at some point), I usually like it more when it's played by people who did other things than just blues. 

This one is no exception. I can tell it's in many respects a brilliant album, and it sounds amazing. It's a more "acoustic" one than other of his releases, and the guitar work is great. There's something missing here, though. His singing, for one. It does seem to me as if it was somehow lacking in feeling. Also, it feels a bit dated to me, even for mid 1960s standards. 

But it's a good album, nevertheless, if you like this style of music. And, well, Muddy Waters is a legend.

Random thoughts

German 80s band Men Without Hats, who had their 15 minutes with a song called "Safety Dance", have a song called "Kenbarbielove". Story goes that one of the members of the band, when he was a little kid, thought that "Can't buy me Love" was, actually, "Ken Barbie Love". How cute is that?