Day 305: The Beatles – A Hard Days Night

Today will be the first of a few days where I’m on a little trip away so posts may be shorter and lack photos or videos, I don’t have access to my laptop. I’ll be going on a sort of Beatles-themed outing so we’re listening to them on the way, starting off with their third album, A Hard Days Night.

Released in 1964, A Hard Days Night accompanied the film of the same name, as the first half of the album consists of songs from the soundtrack. It’s the first album to be written entirely by Lennon-McCartney and features a distinctive guitar sound from George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker.

To me, the magic of the Beatles is condensed onto this album. This is well before they started to get a bit more weird with their sound and it’s probably the Beatles in their simplest form, but Beatles in their simplest is just pop perfection. When you strip away the oddities that later emerged, the basis of their stuff is just their incredible ability to write songs that are so catchy and interesting, even when there’s seemingly not that much to them. This album isn’t my favourite Beatles album, but it’s crucial to understanding the rest of their stuff.

Unparalleled, still to this day. Man I hope I’m alive to witness a similar rise of a band as good. It’s a 9/10.