The Beatles British Albums (EMI) vs. the American Albums (Capitol Records) in 1964

As far as albums go, the Beatles albums as released in America were very different from the albums released in England. The British albums usually listed 14 songs. Furthermore, singles such as ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ were not included on the British albums. In America, the song listing was usually around 10 or 12 songs although some could have been lower at 8 or 9 songs for pop/rock albums and 5 or 6 for Jazz albums with lengthy songs. Also in America, singles and Extended Plays (EPs) could be repeated on any album, not to mention the compilations and re-packaging albums which would also be sold.

The recording industry’s American market maximized sales by including hot singles on the albums to attract more buyers with their inclusion. The first two Capitol Beatles albums really switched up the songs between the singles ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, and ‘She Loves You’ and their b-sides to make two very powerful rock & roll albums for the American market.

The ‘Meet the Beatles’ album released on January 20th, 1964, maximizes the rock & roll songs on the British issue ‘With the Beatles’ and the first American #1 hit ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ with b-sides ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and the British b-side ‘This Boy’ combined with Beatles penned songs (except ‘Till There Was You’ by Meredith Wilson from the musical “Music Man”) made a very impressive debut album. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked ‘Meet The Beatles’ 59 out of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

‘The 2nd Beatles Album‘ is also praised for its song list programming as to emphasizing fast-paced rock & roll cover tunes by American artists. Fans in America were fed high energy good time rock & roll at a time when the distraction was needed.

Then later in the summer of 1964, Capitol’s release of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ shortchanged the American market by filling in the album with the non- Beatles film score heard in the film and not the Beatles song selection on the 2nd side of the British version. Capitol would go on to release those songs with EP songs and even two German versions of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’ on the album ‘Something New’.

A lot of my disappointment with Capitol was due to the fact that the company claimed it was expertly enhancing the albums for the American audience. When it fact that it really was all about greed, trying to squeeze out every last buck from the American public and reinforcing my theory that record companies have no respect for the artists they produce and promote, it’s all about the money and not the art.