The Beatles’ third album and the soundtrack of the first film. This is a stunning pop album. Despite the class of the two previous albums, Please Please Me and With the Beatles, this was a breakthrough album in many ways. It was the first album that was composed entirely of Lennon/McCartney compositions – although the following Beatles for Sale had a large proportion of cover versions from the group’s Hamburg days. There were no George Harrison compositions, even though he did get to sing lead vocals on I’m Happy Just to Dance with You, and Ringo did not have his vocal track. Perhaps this is why this could be seen as the most consistent of all Beatles albums in terms of sound and style.

A Hard Day’s Night was the Beatles’ first film. Shot in back and white and directed by Dick Lester, the film featured the Beatles as themselves and was, to a large extent, a documentary following the group through their daily routine of TV shows, personal appearances and backstage grind. The film soundtrack consisted of new songs, although I Wanna be Your Man was heard during a nightclub sequence where the group had escaped from the minders. The first side of the soundtrack album consisted of the songs from the film while the second side – we are talking pre-CD days here – contained additional songs written to complete the album.

From the opening power chord of A Hard Day’s Night this is class throughout, a set of scintillating pop songs that showed many sides of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting skills while remaining totally coherent. They showed they could handle ballads. And I Love Her must be one of the Beatles’ most beautiful love songs. George Harrison’s use of classical guitar for the song including the solo gave it a quite different feel from the electric guitars used on other tracks.

John Lennon picked up his harmonica again for I Should Have Known Better. This was featured early in the film.

After the title track, the other single on the album is Can’t Buy Me Love. This upbeat track accompanied a comedy sequence in the film where the Beatles again escaped from their minders and copied Peter Sellers’ Running, Jumping & Standing Still film.

The non-film tracks are much more than just filler. You Can’t Do That was the b-side of Can’t Buy Me Love and complimented it very well.

This is the essential Beatles album from the first half of the band’s career. The band started to become more experimental with Rubber Soul the following year. A Hard Day’s Night showed that John Lennon and Paul McCartney has mastered the art of pop song writing as early as the third album, giving them the platform to launch off into new directions in 1965.

Release date: 1964

CD Release Date: 1998

Essential Tracks:

• A Hard Day's Night
• Can't Buy Me Love
• Things We Said Today

Track Listing: