HELP!

The Beatles album 'Help!' is one I like very much. It is a very enjoyable album, and was a lot more sprightly and upbeat than 'Beatles for Sale' and the second half of 'A Hard Day's Night', and more consistent that 'With the Beatles'.

The style hasn't really changed since the first album; Beatlemania and love songs, rock 'n' roll mixed with rockabilly and brill building pop done in a guitar setting. That said, The Beatles had changed a fair bit since the 'Please Please Me' days. They were experimenting more, and were exploring more styles.

My favourite contributions here come from George Harrison, particularly how he experimented with the guitar tone on almost every track, and he added two melodious songs, 'You like me too much' and in particular 'I need you'.

John Lennon has delivered the emotionally charged, off-kilter folk song 'Hide your love away' and 'It's only Love', which is very passionate.

Paul contributes a few really good rockabilly songs, like 'Another Girl' and 'I've just seen a face', as well as the haunting ballad 'Yesterday', one of their most respected songs to this day. This is almost classical music, with a melancholy string arrangement and very melodic, but has perfect pop appeal, it's very easy to humm along to this song, even when not intending to! Ringo is entertaining on a cover of 'Act Naturally'.

Overall, the album 'Help' is a more sprightly and up-tempo affair than many of the other Beatles albums. Although firmly in the early period of the Beatles career, the experimenting with more unusual songs and with guitar tones began here. And it's a fun album to boot!

Rating, four stars!