A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

I may have a differenct perspective here than most but I definately look at this record as prog. Everything is relative folks and if you were around in 1964 and can remember what pop radio was like at the time knows this is true. For me the true measure of "Prog" is whether it takes the music to a new place. And believe me, "A Hard Days Night" was a new place. New because it was all written by the performers, new because the chord structures weren't based on the normal blues 1-3-5. We also have minor chords and keys, "If I Fell" for example. This may sound like just normal pop music now, but at the time it was a revolution for Rock and Roll. This sounded like nothing else. As we look back now it sounds like a most 60's pop music, but this came first. The Dave Clark Five, Hermans Hermits, Hollies and all the others came after. And if the Beatles don't make "Hard Days Night" they never write "Sargeant Pepper's 3 years later. It's a necessary step in the progression. I do see this as a masterpiece of what we now call Pop music, but at the time it was progressive. This is the final record as a 4 piece combo, they had perfected the form. From here they begin to experiment with instrumentation and sound. Always taking the music one step farther until they become what we now recoginize as prog on Sargeant Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. I'm lucky because I still remember Beatlemania, and every time I here these songs I get that feeling you only get at the first time you discover something that has a deep and lasting impact. For me, these songs made me a music lover, a love I never lost.