A Review of the Beatles For Sale Album
The Beatle's "Difficult" Fourth Album and How It Splits Opinion
Aug 18, 2009
Released just six months after A Hard Day’s Night, the album could not be more different. If six months is a long time in politics, it is an epoch in 1960s pop music. There has never been a decade where music has moved forward so at such a pace and nowhere can this be seen as in the work of the Beatles.
Beatles for Sale is an album that stands in stark contrast to their earlier LP. Whereas A Hard Day’s Night was full of joyous musical outpourings from a band riding the crest of a wave, Beatles for Sale is an album from a band whose popularity has not diminished at all, but the pressures and strains of feeding that success has began to take their toll.
Beatles for Sale Cover Photograph
The album cover has to be one of the most revealing in pop’s cannon. While the world continued its love affair with the band and Beatlemania showed no sign of waning, the four men at its centre had lost their spark. The four faces that stare rather truculently from the album sleeve show more attitude than many of their posturing rivals ever managed.
It seems like such a small point now, but in 1964 pop stars smiled on their LP covers and certainly didn’t look so fed up with life. The cover shows a band that has aged well beyond its years and in doing so, the irony is that the music began to get darker and enter areas undreamed of just half a year earlier.
Beatles for Sale Songs
In the entire Beatles’ cannon no LP attracts such divergent opinions (ignoring the non-album Yellow Submarine). The album starts of well with the considered as a single "No Reply". John’s voice is gruffer than usual, a result of near constant touring. Gone is the optimism of previous album openers. The mood is darker and sadder with a world-weariness that even the middle-eight sung with McCartney can not dispel. The chords sound heavy and laboured as if they are played with tired limbs (which they probably were).
"I’m A Loser" starts a trend which would be carried on in songs such as "Help!" and "Nowhere Man" where Lennon hides depression beneath a sprightly melody. It seems amazing now that no one at the time noticed that Lennon’s insecurities could be so dark.
"Baby’s in Black" completes the opening salvo of three “down” tracks. Such was the sheer power of Beatlemania that fans simply did not stop to wonder at the loveable Mop Tops singing a dirge in waltz time about the death of a friend. The song (like the two previous ones) is brilliant, but the change of mood and tone from the band’s earlier work is startling.
Next up is "Rock and Roll Music". A cover of a great rocker, but a still cover version, something which seems a disappointment after the wholly original "A Hard Day’s Night". Of course, this was because the band were expected to record the album in-between the few breaks from touring. It was little wonder there were fewer new songs around at the time (and it should also be noted that the album contains no singles - "I Feel Fine" and "She’s A Woman" were issued at the same time).
"I’ll Follow the Sun" is a delightful acoustic McCartney ballad that seems to buck the darker tone of the album, until the listener realises it was written before the Beatles had released their first record.
Two covers follow, one of which, "Mr Moonlight", may just be the worst thing the Beatles ever released. It’s third rate kitsch at the best and even a spirited Lennon vocal can’t rescue it from its sea of mediocrity. It should have been left well alone.
The second side begins well with "Eight Days A Week", a song easily good enough to have been a single (indeed, it was in the US where it went to number one).
"Words of Love" and "Honey Don’t" are another two covers which while they have their charms, are second rate material that help give the album its reputation as the poorest in the group’s cannon.
"Every Little Thing" is a forgotten gem that is hidden away on what is the most uninspired side of the band’s career, while "I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party" is more evidence of the band’s change of mood. Miserable, glum and slightly grumpy it leaves a funny taste in the mouth.
The album finishes with "What You’re Doing", a routine McCartney song that sounds better than it is in its mediocre surroundings and finally a Carl Perkins cover which is nothing more than the band on auto-pilot.
Summary
It is almost impossible to make an argument for Beatles For Sale as being anything but the low point of their recording career. However, as we’re talking about the Beatles, it’s still an album that would have been a career highlight for almost any other band in the world.
If it’s an album you have resisted buying or if it has languished at the back of your collection, it’s definitely worth giving it a spin. The band would soon be back on track with Help! before hitting new high points with Rubber Soul.
The reputation of Beatles for Sale has not been helped by the flat mastering of the 1987 CD release. Despite this, the album remains worth anyone’s attention and the new stereo re-master to be issued on 09/09/09 may help to show the album in the best possible light.
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