A Hard Day's Night (album)

For the Sugarcult EP, see A Hard Day's Night (EP).
A Hard Day's Night
Studio album / soundtrack by The Beatles
Released 10 July 1964
Recorded 29 January – 2 June 1964[1]
Studio EMI Studios, London, and Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris
Genre
Length 30:13
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin
The Beatles chronology
With the Beatles
(1963)		 A Hard Day's Night
(1964)		 Beatles for Sale
(1964)
Singles from A Hard Day's Night
  1. "Can't Buy Me Love" / "You Can't Do That"
    Released: 26 March 1964
  2. "A Hard Day's Night" / "Things We Said Today"
    Released: 10 July 1964

A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film A Hard Day's Night. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. In contrast to their first two albums, all 13 tracks on A Hard Day's Night were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney showcasing the development of their songwriting talents. The album includes the title track, with its distinct opening chord,[4] and the previously released "Can't Buy Me Love", both transatlantic number-one singles for the band.

The title of the album was the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr.[5] According to Lennon in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and Dick Lester [director of the movie] suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had said. I had used it in 'In His Own Write', but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny ... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.'"[6]

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day's Night at number five in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.[7] In 2012, A Hard Day's Night was voted 307th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[8] The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[9]

Contents

A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles (side one) – Parlophone yellow and black label
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[10]
The A.V. ClubA[11]
Blender[12]
Consequence of SoundA–[13]
The Daily Telegraph[14]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[15]
Paste100/100[16]
Pitchfork Media9.7/10[17]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[18]
Sputnikmusic4.5/5[19]

Musically, A Hard Day's Night eschews the rock and roll cover songs of the band's previous albums for a predominantly pop sound.[17] Sputnikmusic's Dave Donnelly observes "short, peppy" pop songs characterised by layered vocals, immediate choruses, and understated instrumentation.[19] According to Pitchfork Media's Tom Ewing, the lack of rock and roll covers allows listeners to "take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms", with audacious "chord choices", powerful harmonies, "gleaming" guitar, and "Northern" harmonica.[17] Music journalist Robert Christgau writes that Lennon–McCartney's songs were "more sophisticated musically" than before.[20]

Side one of the LP contains the songs from the movie soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980s re-release of the movie includes a prologue before the opening credits with "I'll Cry Instead" on the soundtrack.

A Hard Day's Night is the first Beatles album to feature entirely original compositions, and the only one where all the songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.[21] Lennon dominates the songwriting, being the primary author of nine out of the thirteen tracks on the album, as well as being the lead singer on these same nine tracks. (Although McCartney sings lead on the chorus part of the title track which otherwise is strictly Lennon territory.) Lennon and McCartney co-wrote "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You",[22] while McCartney wrote "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love", and "Things We Said Today". This is also one of three Beatles albums, along with Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, in which Starr does not sing lead vocal on any songs. Starr sang the lead vocal on "Matchbox" during the sessions; it appeared instead on the Long Tall Sally EP.

Cultural influence

According to music critic Richie Unterberger, "George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade the Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the US market for fellow English bands like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney."[23]

Reissues

On 26 February 1987, A Hard Day's Night was officially released on compact disc in mono, along with Please Please Me, With the Beatles, and Beatles for Sale. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the 13 track UK version of the album was also issued in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. Stereo mixes of "A Hard Day's Night", "Can't Buy Me Love", and "And I Love Her" had been made available on the first compact disc issue of 1962–1966 in 1993. Most of the rest of the tracks appeared in stereo on compact disc for the first time with the release of the box set The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 in 2004.

On 9 September 2009, a remastered version of this album was released and was the first time the album appeared in stereo on compact disc in its entirety. This album is also included in The Beatles Stereo Box Set. A remastered mono version of the original UK album was part of The Beatles in Mono box set.[24]

Track listing

All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney. 

Side one (soundtrack to the 1964 United Artists film A Hard Day's Night)
No. TitleLead vocals Length
1. "A Hard Day's Night"  Lennon and McCartney 2:34
2. "I Should Have Known Better"  Lennon 2:43
3. "If I Fell"  Lennon and McCartney 2:19
4. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"  Harrison 1:56
5. "And I Love Her"  McCartney 2:30
6. "Tell Me Why"  Lennon with McCartney and Harrison 2:09
7. "Can't Buy Me Love"  McCartney 2:12
Side two
No. TitleLead vocals Length
1. "Any Time at All"  Lennon with McCartney 2:11
2. "I'll Cry Instead"  Lennon 1:46
3. "Things We Said Today"  McCartney and Harrison 2:35
4. "When I Get Home"  Lennon 2:17
5. "You Can't Do That"  Lennon with McCartney and Harrison 2:35
6. "I'll Be Back"  Lennon with McCartney and Harrison 2:24

Charts and certifications

Chart performance

Chart (1964–65) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[25] 1
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[26] 1
UK Albums (OCC)[27] 1
Chart (1987) Peak
position
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)[28] 20
Chart (2009) Peak
position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[29] 66
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[30] 68
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[31] 80
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)[28] 86
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[32] 27
Italian Albums (FIMI)[33] 73
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[34] 28
Portuguese Albums (AFP)[35] 28
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[36] 61
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[37] 29
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[38] 60

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/Sales
Australia (ARIA)[39] Gold 35,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[40] Gold 100,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

dagger BPI certification awarded only for sales since 1994.[41]

North American release

A Hard Day's Night

1964 stereo United Artists release
Soundtrack album by The Beatles and George Martin
Released 26 June 1964
Recorded 29 January, 25–27 February, 1 March & 1–4 June 1964
Studio EMI Studios, London and Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris
Genre
Length 29:29
Label United Artists UAL-3366 (mono) UAS-6366 (stereo)
Producer George Martin
The Beatles North American chronology
The Beatles' Long Tall Sally
(1964)		 A Hard Day's Night
(1964)		 Something New
(1964)
The Beatles United States chronology
The Beatles' Second Album
(1964)		 A Hard Day's Night
(1964)		 Something New
(1964)
Singles from A Hard Day's Night
  1. "A Hard Day's Night" / "I Should Have Known Better"
    Released: 13 July 1964
  2. "And I Love Her" / "If I Fell"
    Released: 20 July 1964
  3. "I'll Cry Instead" / "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"
    Released: 20 August 1964

The American version of the album was released on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records in both mono and stereo, the fourth Beatles album in the United States. The album went to number one on the Billboard album chart, spending 14 weeks there, the longest run of any album that year.[42]

All seven songs from the film, the first side of the UK album, were featured along with "I'll Cry Instead", which, although written for the film, was cut at the last minute. The American version also included four easy listening-styled instrumental versions of Lennon and McCartney songs arranged by George Martin conducting an orchestra of studio musicians: "I Should Have Known Better", "And I Love Her", "Ringo's Theme", and "A Hard Day's Night". After EMI acquired United Artists Records, this album was reissued in August 1980 on the Capitol label, catalogue SW-11921.

While the stereo version of the album included the instrumental tracks in true stereo, the Beatles' own recordings appeared as electronically rechannelled stereo recordings made from the mono releases. The 1980 Capitol Records release used the same master tape as the original United Artists stereo release, despite the availability of several tracks with official stereo remixes by that time. True stereo versions of most of the songs appeared on the Capitol album Something New, released in July 1964. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" finally appeared in stereo on the Apple Records compilation Hey Jude in 1970. The song "A Hard Day's Night" did not appear in stereo in the US until the compilation LP Reel Music in March 1982. In 2014, the American version of "A Hard Day's Night" was released on CD individually and in a boxed set of all the other US Beatles albums to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles first US visit. This CD reissue features all of the songs in both true stereo and mono mixes.

Track listing

Side one
No. TitleLead vocals Length
1. "A Hard Day's Night"  Lennon and McCartney 2:33
2. "Tell Me Why"  Lennon 2:10
3. "I'll Cry Instead"  Lennon 2:06
4. "I Should Have Known Better"  instrumental 2:10
5. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"  Harrison 1:59
6. "And I Love Her"  instrumental 3:46
Side two
No. TitleLead vocals Length
1. "I Should Have Known Better"  Lennon 2:44
2. "If I Fell"  Lennon and McCartney 2:22
3. "And I Love Her"  McCartney 2:29
4. "Ringo's Theme (This Boy)"  instrumental 3:10
5. "Can't Buy Me Love"  McCartney 2:12
6. "A Hard Day's Night"  instrumental 2:06

Charts and certifications

Chart performance

Chart (1964) Peak position
US Billboard 200[43] 1

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/Sales
Canada (Music Canada)[44] Platinum 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[45] 4× Platinum 4,000,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

Chart succession

Preceded by
Hello, Dolly! by Louis Armstrong		 Billboard Top LPs number-one album
25 July – 30 October 1964 		Succeeded by
People by Barbra Streisand
Preceded by
The Rolling Stones by The Rolling Stones		 UK Albums Chart number-one album
25 July – 19 December 1964 		Succeeded by
Beatles for Sale by The Beatles

Personnel

The Beatles
Additional personnel

Notes

  1. ↑ A Hard Day's Night. beatlesbible.com Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  2. ↑ World – Volume 2 – Page 61, 1973. "[on Help! and A Hard Day's Night], the soundtrack – gone – rock album is a marketing ideal that is passed off on the buying public with objectionable regularity and has already begun to backfire."
  3. ↑ Spignesi & Lewis 2004, p. 140.
  4. ↑ Hook 2005.
  5. ↑ Badman, p. 93.
  6. ↑ Sheff 2000, pp. 174–175.
  7. ↑ Q 2000.
  8. ↑ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: The Beatles, 'A Hard Day's Night'". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  9. ↑ ^ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.
  10. ↑ A Hard Day's Night at AllMusic
  11. ↑ Klosterman, Chuck (8 September 2009). "Chuck Klosterman Repeats The Beatles". The A.V. Club. Chicago. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
  12. ↑ "Maxim". blender.com.
  13. ↑ Consequence of Sound review Archived 4 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
  14. ↑ McCormick, Neil (4 September 2009). "The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night, review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 6 October 2012.
  15. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2006). Encyclopedia of Popular Music. 1. Muze. pp. 487–489. ISBN 978-0-19-531373-4.
  16. ↑ "The Beatles: The Long and Winding Repertiore". Paste. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  17. 1 2 3 Pitchfork review Archived 10 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ↑ The Beatles | Album Guide | Rolling Stone Music Archived 4 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
  19. 1 2 Sputnik Music review Archived 11 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  20. ↑ Christgau, Robert; et al. (1 October 2000). McKeen, William, ed. Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay: An Anthology. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 565. ISBN 978-0-393-04700-4.
  21. ↑ Lewisohn 1988, p. 47.
  22. ↑ Miles 1997, p. 163.
  23. ↑ Unterberger 2009.
  24. ↑ Reuters 2009.
  25. ↑ Kent, David (2005). Australian Chart Book (1940–1969). Turramurra: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-44439-5.
  26. ↑ "Offiziellecharts.de – Beatles – A Hard Day's Night" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  27. ↑ "Beatles | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  28. 1 2 "Dutchcharts.nl – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  29. ↑ "Austriancharts.at – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  30. ↑ "Ultratop.be – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  31. ↑ "Ultratop.be – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  32. ↑ "The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  33. ↑ "Italiancharts.com – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  34. ↑ "Charts.org.nz – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  35. ↑ "Portuguesecharts.com – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  36. ↑ "Spanishcharts.com – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  37. ↑ "Swedishcharts.com – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  38. ↑ "Swisscharts.com – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  39. ↑ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2009 Albums". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  40. ↑ "British album certifications – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 15 September 2013. Enter A Hard Day's Night in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Select Gold in the field By Award. Click Search
  41. ↑ "Beatles albums finally go platinum". British Phonographic Industry. BBC News. 2 September 2013. Archived from the original on 12 February 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  42. ↑ Whitburn 2001, p. 1178.
  43. ↑ "The Beatles – Chart history" Billboard 200 for The Beatles. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  44. ↑ "Canadian album certifications – The Beatles – A Hard Day's Night". Music Canada. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  45. ↑ "American album certifications – The Beatles – Hard Day_s Night". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved 15 September 2013. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH

References

External links

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