Vinyl Tap: The Beatles' Second Album
Published October 08, 2007
I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #48:
It might be pure pop for “then” people. But The Beatles' Second Album is timeless enough to still be a manic now thrill. It was 1964 and I was ten and there was no assembly required, but it wasn’t until later that I was to learn that the Second Album was a hodge-podge of songs — and mostly non-Lennon-McCartney ones at that — culled from various British and American EPs, singles and B-sides as well as tracks left over from With the Beatles, all put together by Capitol Records for the American market.
All that didn’t matter. Though I’m mostly at variance with Capitol’s profiteering vinyl connivance over the fab four’s fab career, some results turned out nicely — the U.S. version of Rubber Soul, for instance, is a suitably folkish improvement over the British — and The Beatles' Second Album is chock full of melodic yet raucous and harmony-driven R&B, Motown, and rock ‘n’ roll, served up American style.
Often breathtakingly so. On Motown’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” and “Please Mr. Postman," the blisters-on-me-fingers backup is more than ably matched by John’s bristling vocals that build in a screamer fit of fever pitch relentlessness. Not to be outdone, Paul takes on Little Richard’s pounding ‘50s hit, “Long Tall Sally,” and, bearing in mind the lessons learned directly from one of his idols firsthand, he obviously is “woo-o-o-oh baby / havin' me some fun tonight.”
“Roll Over Beethoven,” indeed, to paraphrase Chuck Berry and the song’s version by George Harrison as it opens for the Second Album and gets you “rockin in two by two.”
Smokey Robinson’s little miracle of slowed-down soulfulness and sublime Beatles-rich harmony, “You Really Got A Hold On Me,” will capture you both melodically and lyrically (after all, when Bob Dylan praises Robinson's poetic skills as he has, you must take heed). The title says it all — you really got a hold on me — but the lyrics strike at the ambivalence: “Oh, oh, oh, you do me wrong now / My love is strong now.”
Gordon "Von Zipper" Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, free lance writer, and book reviewer for the San Diego Union Tribune. He's also an enigmatic visionary of unfathomable secrets and many a guise, or at least he plays one in his delusions of grandeur. His mandate also includes weird bugs.
In a previous life he was a leprous horse thief. 
- Vinyl Tap: The Beatles' Second Album
- Published: October 08, 2007
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Pop, Music: Rock
- Part of a feature: Vinyl Tap
- Writer: Gordon Hauptfleisch
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Well, here's another clue for El Bicho and you all,
The walrus was Paul.
Although I was alive during those times, circumstances dictated that I would forever be a latecomer to The Beatles' mania and even the Beatles' demise. So the chopped up Beayles albums were never an issue to me until I was much older and history had exposed this profiteering enterprise on the part of to American record label, Capitol. ALthough the "offical" running orders are often considered to be the UK sequence, there are many who prefer the Americanized version. Personally, I do think the American Rubber Soul plays as a much better overall album - more folk rock than rock and roll, as cited in the article. But I did buy this Breatles mono/stereo box set )along with volume one), and I can't really hear how the American versions are any superior to the Brit versions - or much different for that matter. Personally, I think theses CDs are for the completeists only..... which makes me wonder when the mono White Album & Revolver come out - if they ever were in mono.
The Real Tragedy is the delay in issuing the American Versions of Yesterday & Today. Revolver.
Sgt Pepper. & Magical Mystery Tour in the mono/stereo format like the others. The White Album IS very different in Mono(speed and compression variations etc) Yellow Submarine & Naked Let It Be are superior in the revised versions and Abbey Road was probably never mixed for stereo. When is Captitol Records going to get moving on this? I did Beatle's Second because it is U.S. issued.
clawjack: Was there a British version of 'Yesterday and Today'? -- Considering that it was strictly a Capitol slice o' matic affair of songs found on other British albums.
I'm not disputing the contention -- it just struck me as curious.
sorry, clawjack, I mis-read your comment. Apart from the mono/stereo issue, 'Yesterday and Today' is an American/Capitol hodge-podge compilation of already-released tracks in Britain (hence my curiosity as to whether it was released there).
By the way, many years after I having 'Yesterday and Today', I steamed off the pasted-on 'steamer-trunk' cover to find that I had the infamous "butcher cover" in which JPG&R were in butcher smocks, handling cuts of meat and pieces of dismembered baby dolls. Cool.
It doesn't matter if you're a 'completeist', it's just nostalgia for American baby-boomers, like myself, who were getting an introduction to serious rock & roll at the time from listening to this record. For those of us just learning guitar or just discovering the fun of music back then, this album was a Master Class in the subject.
More so than "Meet", and with little or no availability of "PPM" in the States (until "The Early Beatles"), the "Second Album" shows the complete range the group had: from raw, soulful, gut-wrenching R&B, to foot-stomping finger-bleeding go-ahead rock. On it, they demonstrate a wider range of styles than any other album, their appreciation of the roots of r&r, and where they were taking it. It also showed the group as we would have imagined (or wanted) to see them in a club before their rise to fame. "PPM" lacks the energy (remember, they were sick, especially John, while recording that album), and the studio and musical sophistication gave a clearer indication of the potential of a small four-piece combo.
Now, while I admit that profiteering may be a factor, with fewer tracks the grooves were bigger and spaced farther apart, making Capitol records louder than their overstuffed counterparts (they didn't sound better - just louder), which was always appreciated at a dance party in those days.
Another thing to compare is the breadth and scope of albums with fewer songs will seem to have better focus than their overcrowded versions, making for a more concise meaning of the album. And, the "Second Album", more than any other, encapsulates how important to the band's impressive musicianship George was as a singer and guitarist.
Thanks for the comment, Ed. But speaking of "foot-stomping finger-bleeding go-ahead rock," with great harmonies, too, how can I forget to remark upon the great "You Can't Do That"?
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Very good write-up, GH. Me and my monkey particularly enjoyed the Beatle references lightly sprikled in.