HELP!

"Help" is the 5th full-length studio album by UK pop/rock act The Beatles. The album was released through Parlophone Records in August 1965. It´s the successor to "Beatles for Sale (1964)" from December 1964. "Help" was produced by George Martin and recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London. The album features fourteen tracks. Seven of those tracks (the seven tracks on the A-side of the original vinyl version of the album) appear in the "Help" movie. The exact same model which was used for the "A Hard Day´s Night (1964)" album/movie.

The material on on the album is predominantly rather simple pop/rock greatly influenced by the American rhythm´n´blues and rock´n´roll tradition that The Beatles loved so much but new influences were beginning to sneak into the music too. Some of the tracks are as a result much more sophisticated than on earlier releases by the band. A song like "Ticket to Ride" for example features some pretty advanced harmony vocals and the beautiful ballad "Yesterday" features a new level of sophistication in the song writing department and in the way the song is arranged.

The Beatles increasingly got better at playing their instruments and honed their craft with each release, and "Help" is just another example of that. They always wrote instantly catchy melodies and easy to sing along to choruses, but the development of their harmonies and choirs is still impressive on "Help". Considering that "Help" was their fifth album released in only little over two years the band´s development is pretty amazing.

"Help" features a well sounding production job and enough highlights to be a strong album release by The Beatles. Not all tracks are equally interesting though, and it´s still an album released just before The Beatles dedicated themselves to producing nothing but top notch songs for their albums, which means that the hits/the standout tracks on "Help" stand out so much, that some of the other tracks simply come of a bit unremarkable. Still a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.