The thirty-fifth album: #35 The Beatles - With The Beatles
Here we go - I've been waiting to cover these guys for a while, as this feels like modern music really coming in, especially with the rock/poppy sound I imagine them having early on. The guitars jump in early on It Won't Be Long, but there are some harmonies in there as well. It starts off as you imagine early Beatles, and the message would appeal to teenage girls. It leads to the one downside - loads of love songs, which makes the themes less interesting, but Harrison's Don't Bother Me actually works very well as an antidote to that once it comes up.
In sound and vocals, this sounds younger than the later songs of theirs that I'm more used to. Lennon certainly doesn't quite sound how he does earlier, which makes it interesting to work out it's him. Beyond that, the songs always sound interesting, offering more interesting segments and relying so much more on the lyrics and how they are performed than I feel I've heard earlier. It also doesn't let you go - the album absolutely didn't fade into the background as others have done in the past.
Now, this is all ignoring the covers, as those clearly aren't their strengths. I guess this is down to them needing to fill room and not having time to write more, as well as being what's expected (especially considering concerts would need material that wouldn't suffice with their originals early years). They are performed well enough, but without the passion the original songs have, and the combination of that and them not necessarily being written to their strengths always make them the weak entries on the track.
I think I need to seek out more Beatles albums now, the first artists who have made that claim for me.