It's tough not to make this a history lesson. Believe me, as much as I know about the Beatles, I am not the guy to give that lecture, and you can find it in any number of excellent books (and several that suck.) I don't want to spend my breath running down what a monumental moment this turned out to be for pop music. The narrative is well known. It's common knowledge that the bulk of Please Please Me was recorded in a day, and you can hear it. You can practically feel the guitars being picked up, the microphones being passed around, the endless lozenges used by a soar-throated John Lennon. This record is a record of rock & roll as a living, breathing thing, just like those stage shows in Hamburg and Liverpool.For such an earnest beginning, the album has its fair share of classics. "Love Me Do" was already a hit, as was "Please Please Me." The former was primative even by early 60s standards, which was maybe the point, to boil everything down to its basics. "Love me do, you know I love you, I'll always be true, so please love me do." Cue the harmonica. "Please Please Me" was the first of the truly irresistable Beatlemania hits, with its buoyant guitars, infectious momentum and undeniable charm. After the 1000th listen I realized the Beatles songs contained so many "woah yeahs" because they were just unstoppable.
The rest of the album is filled out with great working band rock. Songs like "Anna (Go To Him)" and "Chains" are easily marked as covers, a bit too constructed (with due respect to Carole King, Gerry Goffin et al, who knew what they were doing.) For what it's worth, Lennon has an awesome vocal performance on "Anna." And their vocal charm is likewise the hook on the bouncy "Chains" and the original "Misery."
One of the highlights of the second side, for me, is "There's a Place," one of the first lyrically smart songs John wrote, which hints at seeking solitude and privacy when he feels low, and carrying some weighty material without sacrificing an appealing, poppy tempo. The album is actually kind of a fascinating patchwork, with a ton of gentle moments like "P.S. I Love You" and "Baby It's You" filling out the spaces between the raucous numbers. Ringo's take on "Boys" often gets forgotten about, despite being the one cover that can compete with "Twist & Shout." It's known more for its odd lyrical content (unchanged from the girl group original) than for the fact that it kicks total ass. "Twist & Shout" still sounds utterly now, with its commands to "Work it on out!!!" and the way the harmonies resolve into an utter shriek of rock excitement. Lennon sounds like a monster from the id in that one. And "I Saw Her Standing There" is the best non-single original on the album, a bit too ragged to be a radio hit, raw enough to show you exactly what the Beatles were all about. "She was just seventeen / You know what I mean."
Never forget that The Beatles were very much an early model for the boy band. There were upbeat dance numbers and downtempo lovey-dovey ones. But they were also the Beatles, which means that so much of this album is slathered in awesomeness, even in the moments you don't remember. They were already figuring out not just how to copy their influences, but to move their craft forward. Soon the Beatles albums sounded a lot less like "Chains" and "Boys" and "PS I Love You," but more like "Please Please Me" from top to bottom.
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