Released
on December 4th, 1964, the fourth LP by The Beatles, Beatles for Sale,
turns 60 years old today. The album was not officially released in
North America until The Beatles catalogue was standardized
internationally for CD in 1987. Instead the US and Canada got Beatles
'65, released concurrently with Beatles for Sale, and containing 8 of
the latter album's tracks, with the remainder of the album's 11 tracks
coming from a track excluded from the US release of Help, plus a UK
non-LP single.
The overall mood
of Beatles for Sale is markedly darker and more sombre than their
previous albums, with the band shying away from the trivial love songs
that were predominant on their earlier works. Part of the reason for
this has to do with their trip to the US and their first meeting with
Bob Dylan, who famously lauded their musical abilities while chiding
them for their superficial lyrics. He encouraged them to use their
influence to explore more meaningful and introspective subjects. John
Lennon took his comments particularly to heart. But don't think the
influence was only one way. It was shortly after Dylan's encounter with
The Beatles that he made the decision to go "electric" and front a rock
band, recognizing that the format The Beatles had popularized was where
the future of pop music was heading. The group's trip to the US also
influenced the album in its use of country and folk influenced musical
styles, as the band were exposed to US country music radio and sought to
incorporate that style into their sound.
The
album also brought a new palette of sounds into the group, particularly
in the use of more exotic percussion instruments, like tympani and
African hand drums. By this point, the studio was also undergoing a
transition as far as how the band perceived its use. Rather than being
merely a place to document their live sound, they began to understand
the artificial potential of the tools at their disposal. It was with
this album that they truly began to take an interest in the process of
recording and the techniques that could be used to alter their sound.
With this, they began to augment their arrangements, stripping back
layers and complexity and giving depth and space to their sound with the
use of reverberation devices.
The
other factor that influenced the end result for the album was the
breakneck schedule that the group had been held to because of the
unprecedented explosion of popularity that had happened in the preceding
two years. They were worked to the bone by their label, and because of
their naivety, didn't understand that they had any say in the process.
The schedules of recording, touring and making personal appearances on
radio and TV meant that the group's principal songwriting team of Lennon
and McCartney were left with very little time to come up with new tunes
for their latest record. With Beatles for Sale, they only had eight
new original songs, plus a couple used for a non-LP single, so the
remainder of the album's 14 tracks consisted of cover versions of songs
they'd been playing in their live set. This was a bit of a step
backwards given that the previous LP had been all originals.
Despite
the lack of time allowed to work on the album, the band still managed
to come up with something that demonstrated definitive progress, both as
song writers and performers. There was a palpable evolution in the
maturity of the music, its emotional scope and the group's willingness
to push their own boundaries. They were reaching a point where they
would soon develop a complete command of their abilities and the tools
they used to realize their vision. Critics of the times were picking up
on this as well, and the album received overall very positive reviews,
and of course, it was able to continue the domination of the charts The
Beatles had secured with their first three albums.
