The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (stereo mix) [APPLE/PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This 180g EU pressing uses the 2009 stereo remaster, made from the original analogue master tapes. "A Hard Day's Night" and "Can't Buy Me Love" were both No. 1 singles on both sides of the Atlantic.

This edition

• Stereo mix
• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

One strum of that opening chord and you're in. Side one of this album is the soundtrack to the band's first feature film, recorded at EMI Studios in London around the shoot, while the band were fresh back from their first Ed Sullivan appearance. "Can't Buy Me Love" had been finished in four takes in Paris back in January, during a session mostly spent singing their hits in German.

George Harrison's Rickenbacker 12-string rings all over the record, a sound that pointed the Byrds and a whole wave of folk rock and jangle pop bands in a new direction. John Lennon takes the lion's share of the songs, from the gorgeous "If I Fell" to the urgent "You Can't Do That" and the wistful "I'll Be Back," while Paul McCartney brings "And I Love Her" and the moody "Things We Said Today." George Martin produced, keeping everything bright, tight and quick.

It's the sound of a band discovering they could write an entire album on their own and make it look easy. Guitarists have been trying to work out exactly what that first chord is ever since; we suggest buying the record and studying it at length.

Also at Kops: more The Beatles on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Parlophone / Apple (cat# PCS 3058), a reissue of the 1964 album.