THE BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM

Again, let me say it up front. This isn't prog music but it's here and it deserves a decent review. It's easy to criticize this album in retrospect but, at the time, we youngsters in the USA didn't care about packaging. We just wanted more Beatles music. Period. We wanted more of that uptempo merriment that "With the Beatles" had given us and this LP delivered in spades. Just look at the lineup. There's not a slow song to be heard, just intense rock and roll from front to back. I'm sure the Fab Four weren't happy with the label taking liberties with the English versions of their albums and repackaging them for the states as they saw fit but it still got the job done as far as we fanatics were concerned. Beatlemania was in full swing and this "2nd" collection of songs hardly ever left our turntables unless it was to replay the first album. It definitely rocks, even today.