Capitol 2228
Producer: George Martin
Track listing: No Reply / I’m a Loser / Baby’s in Black / Rock and Roll Music / I’ll Follow the Sun / Mr. Moonlight / Honey Don’t / I’ll Be Back / She’s a Woman / I Feel Fine / Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby
January 9, 1965
9 weeks
The Beatles were an incredible sucesss in Great Britain, but they were even more successful in America. And it wasn’t just because America had a larger population — it also had a greater number of Beatles albums. With Beatles ’65, Capitol Records continued the tradition it started with Meet the Beatles. Instead of issuing the Fab Four’s albums as they were released in the U.K., Capitol Records would retitle the albums, resequence the tracks, add British singles, and delete other songs so they could be saved for another album.
Something New, the 1964 American release following A Hard Day’s Night, for example, included eight songs from the British version of A Hard Day’s Night. However, it was unable to match the success of that album. Something New spent nine weeks at number two, but it never made it to the top.
The Beatles returned to the top of the album chart with Beatles ’65, which featured eight tracks from the British album Beatles for Sale and various other odds and gems. “I’ll Be Back” was another leftover from the British version of A Hard Day’s Night, while “I Feel Fine” and “She’s a Woman,” only available as a single in the U.K., also became a double-sided hit in America. On December 26, 1964, “I Feel Fine” became the Beatles’ sixth Number One single, while “She’s a Woman” peaked at number four.
For the Beatles, Capitol’s reconfigurations of their British albums became a growing annoyance. “In ’64, when we first came to America, we noticed that With the Beatles was called Meet the Beatles,” says George Harrison. “If you compared the English copy with the American copy, you could see that it wasn’t as good of a cover, but so much was going on, we really didn’t get annoyed over that. We just thought, ‘Oh that’s funny. Look, they changed the title.’ And then we kind of forgot about it. But then we kept seeing the American albums were different. We were trying to be generous by putting 14 tracks on an album, and then we would do singles and extended plays. Those tracks would never be on the album [in the U.K.]. That was like cheating. But in America, people would have a hit single and then make an album of rubbish with just the single on it. Nobody actually told us for ages that in America they would only pay you royalties on 10 tracks. So Capitol would take 10 tracks, keep four tracks, and stick them on a new album with another cover with some singles. We weren’t happy about that at all.”
While the Beatles may not have been pleased with Beatles ’65, the album did contain some significant moments, aside from the usual assortment of rip-roaring rock ‘n’ roll cover versions. “I Feel Fine” opens with a bit of guitar feedback from John Lennon, which is believed to be the first recording of feedback on a pop record. Elsewhere on songs such as “I’m a Loser,” Bob Dylan’s influence on Lennon is apparent.
Beatles ’65 is also significant for another reason. It became the first Beatles album to knock an Elvis Presley title from the top of the album chart. It was a symbolic event that effectively, albeit belatedly, captured the shift of popularity from the King to the Fab Four. Yet it had to be a bittersweet achievement for the Beatles. “They were very big fans of Elvis,” says producer George Martin. “But they weren’t very big fans of Elvis’s films, and neither was I. Elvis’s films were dreadful. Most of the songs that were in them were pretty awful ,too.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of January 9, 1965
1. Beatles ’65, The Beatles
2. Roustabout, Elvis Presley
3. Mary Poppins, Soundtrack
4. Where Did Our Love Go, The Supremes
5. The Beach Boys Concert, The Beach Boys