This is the album that launched Beatlemania in the U.S. Well, sort of. The cover is the same, but this is the U.K. version of the Beatles' second album, which was released only eight months after their debut in March of 1963. The U.S. version (entitled Meet the Beatles) included only nine of these songs and added "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and its b-side "I Saw Her Standing There" along with "This Boy."

But even though this is not the version that millions of baby boomers (like myself) grew up with, it's still an essential album in the Beatles' catalog. Among the originals is their best song never released as a single, "All My Loving." Also Ringo gets a vocal on the song originally given to the Rolling Stones, "I Wanna Be Your Man." And George Harrison gets his first songwriting credit with "Don't Bother Me."

The Beatles raid the Motown vaults for many of the covers. "Please Mr. Postman," "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and "Money" are highlights. The latter features one of Lennon's best vocals. [It wouldn't be until their next album when they released a collection of all original material.]

All told, this album catches the Beatles while they are still not too far removed from their Cavern Club and Hamburg days. As such, you hear an urgency and energy in their performance that sets their music apart from the rest of the British Invasion that followed. ESSENTIAL

As mentioned already by previous reviewers, this is the British version of Meet The Beatles-which combined a few tunes off their 2nd album with this, their 1st(in the US). I was just a wee lass when these guys arrived on our shores & as soon as I saw them on their very first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, I knew life was never gonna be the same. No matter what age you were if you were around 40 yrs. ago, you realized this was history in the making, the start of something new & exciting in the world of rock & roll music. From the opening cut to the very last, the music sounds just as fresh even now. NY's oldies & classic rock stations will be playing most(if not all)of The Beatles catalog during the month of February. Today's so-called 'boy bands' cannot hold a candle to these guys & all the other great rock/pop bands of the British Invasion of the 1960s. No Beatle album collection is complete without this. Extremely enjoyable & worth 10 Stars.

This, the second Beatles studio album, was recorded on a single day in June, 1963. The boys were playing their regular instruments: Ringo on drums, Paul on bass, John on rhythm guitar, and George on lead guitar. So it's all Beatles, and it's all band. It must have seemed like one huge jam session! Recorded, as it was, before Beatlemania swept America, "With The Beatles" finds the band trying to repeat the winning formula of the previous album, "Please Please Me." It was customary in those days, to release albums in Britain separate from singles. So the upcoming smash, "I Want To Hold Your Hand," is not on this album. It, and both its flip-sides ("I Saw Her Standing There" in the UK and "This Boy" in the US) were added to nine tracks of "With The Beatles" to create the American issue, "Meet The Beatles," which sold better than 5 million copies. The five other tracks from "With The Beatles" were issued in America on "The Beatles' Second Album." The group seems to be in two modes here. The 7 Lennon-McCartney numbers tend to be messages for their growing number of female fans... Lesser versions (at least in spirit) of "I Want To Hold Your Hand." The reason I rated this album only 4 stars is because there is only so much, "I'm Gonna See My Baby Tonight" that I can take in one setting. "It Won't Be Long," "All I've Got To Do," "All My Loving," "Little Child," "Hold Me Tight," "Not A Second Time." There is a sameness of message there that makes the whole a bit stale, very quickly. "I Wanna Be Your Man" isn't too far off, but it is interesting, in that it was written for The Rolling Stones! They needed one more song to finish their album, Lennon and McCartney were guests at the session, and they wrote the whole song during a break! The one dissenting voice (as would come to be usual) from all this "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" love-man talk belonged to George Harrison, singing one of his own compositions for the first time on "Don't Bother Me." The other side of The Beatles on this album is reflected in their choice of outside material. "Please Mister Postman" shows the group paying homage to both the "Girl Group" sound (as on the previous lp) and the Motown Sound, which also gets the treament on "Money" and "You've Really Got A Hold On Me." "Roll Over Beethoven" is from the Chuck Berry catalogue, and is sung by George (he still uses it to close his concerts). "Devil In Her Heart" (also sung by George) was a minor hit for a group called the Donays, while "Till There Was You" was taken from the play, "The Music Man." All told, this album showcases a very tight band that was waiting to see if the bank would break. It did.

In the US, these songs were on "Meet the Beatles" and "The Beatles Second Album." Meet the Beatles, for us, added "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" and "This Boy." Otherwise, the rest of the songs on that landmark album are here, largely in order. If you buy "Past Masters Volume One" you get the early singles not included on original release albums in the U.K. Most of us (back in the day) couldn't find the Vee-Jay album "Introducing the Beatles". When they broke out on Ed Sullivan, "Meet the Beatles" was the hot, available, album in stores. I played mine till the grooves wore through.

This is probably the "rockin-est" album of the period with lots of pure rock n roll songs like: "It Won't Be Long", "Please Mister Postman", "Hold me Tight", (would have been a hit single for any other band of the time), "Money", "Little Child", and George's guitar showpiece, (often performed on stage) "Roll Over Beethoven." Chuck Berry, watch out! Crank up the volume on this one! It also has George's first song writing credit on album with "Don't Bother Me."

Soulful tracks are "All I've Got To Do", "You Really Got a Hold On Me", and "Devil in her Heart." Paul's best is the hit classic "All My Loving" (first song performed on Ed Sullivan by the fabs). "Till there was You" is a nice showtune, a little lame, but has an excellent Spanish guitar solo by George. They also did this one on the Sullivan show.

I would rank this second of the early period. Behind AHDN, but ahead of Please Please Me (3rd) and Beatles for Sale. Buy Past Masters Volume One as well, which has 5 #1 hits that are featured on Beatles "One".

One of the great things about the CD revolution back in the '80s was when EMI/Capitol decided to re-release all the Beatles albums on CD in the original UK versions. Naturally, I felt Capitol had ripped me off when I heard the CD versions and realized I had been swindled by Capitol's US versions. Capitol did a big butcher job on "With the Beatles" (starting with the title change- "Meet the Beatles.") Some of the songs on the US version weren't on the UK version. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was not inteneded to be put on an album. "I Saw Her Standing There" was on the UK "Please Please Me." Some of "With the Beatle's" tunes didn't see the light of day until Capitol released it's next bastradized Beatles album, "The Beatles' Second Album."

Enough belly-achin', but, man, "With the Beatles" is a great album. It was wonderful to hear it the way the Beatles intended us to hear it back in 1963 (too bad I didn't hear it the way it was intended to be heard until 1987!) The album really isn't all that different than "Please Please Me," some original tunes and some cover tunes. However, the second album shows the Beatles becoming the studio band which, in less than four years, would release "Sgt. Pepper" unto the world. Lead vocals are double-tracked throughout. More care is observed with the recording quality and texture of guitars, bass, and drums. Overdubbing is obvious. George Martin is guiding the Fab Four in a crash course of studio technique.

The songwriting is getting better. John and Paul are obviously singing lead on the songs which, individually, they wrote the bulk of the lyrics for. This is different from the "let's share the mike we're playin' our Cavern set" approach which the band took of their first album.

I think it's instructive to listen to this album and compare it with its follow-up, "A Hard Day's Night." "A Hard Day's Night," is one of the Beatles' absolute best albums. The studio techniques and songwriting skills apparent on "With the Bealtes" would come to fruition with its follow-up. The Beatles never made an album under 5 stars. "With the Bealtes" is an essential album by any standards.