BEATLES FOR SALE

"Beatles for Sale" is the 4rth full-length studio album by UK pop/rock act The Beatles. The album was released through Parlophone Records in December 1964. It´s also the fourth studio album released by The Beatles in under two years (their debut album being released in March 1963) and the tired and serious looks on the faces of the band on the album cover artwork, were probably due to an extensive and exhausting work load which in addition to writing and recording music also included countless live shows and TV appearances as well as numourous interviews. Sometimes The Beatles played two shows a night. This was not considered unusual at the time and the shows were shorter back then than they are today, but the band were still pushed to the maximum of their physical and mental abilities.

The tracks on "Beatles for Sale" are, probably as a consequence of the little time the band had to write the material, again a mix of the band´s own original compositions and cover songs like on the two first albums by the band (which was not the case on the previous album "A Hard Day´s Night (1964)", where all compositions were written by the band). This leads to a slight decrease in compositional quality compared to "A Hard Day´s Night (1964)" but the quality is generally still very high. The vocal melodies and harmonies/choirs are beautiful and well arranged, and there´s a folk influence on some songs on the album, which is a new thing for The Beatles. "Eight Days a Week" was the big hit single from the album and probably the most well known track of the album. It definitely is one of the highlights of "Beatles for Sale" but tracks like "I'm a Loser" and "Baby's in Black" are also quality compositions. There are a few misses/fillers along the way but it´s been like that on all previous releases too, so really no surprises there.

George Martin has created a well sounding production, suiting the material well and upon conclusion "Beatles for Sale" is a good quality album by The Beatles and a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.