Beatles for Sale.
| The Beatles
Beatles for Sale.
Beatles for Sale is the fourth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 4 December 1964 in the United Kingdom on EMI's Parlophone label. The album marked a departure from the upbeat tone that had characterised the Beatles' previous work, partly due to the band's exhaustion after a series of tours that had established them as a worldwide phenomenon in 1964. Beatles for Sale was not widely available in the US until 1987, when the Beatles' catalogue was standardised for release on CD. Instead, eight of the album's fourteen tracks appeared on Capitol Records' concurrent release, Beatles '65, issued in North America only. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
The angriest, most aggressive record in the Beatles catalogue, For Sale finds them reaching back to their Hamburg club days in both attitude and sound.
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Consequence of Sound
Although I wouldn’t classify Beatles for Sale as one of the band’s most noteworthy LPs, it’s definitely one of the most interesting. The personal songs give a glimpse into the band’s aging hearts and improving songwriting skills, and the song selection is a snapshot of the band in 1964. It’s the kind of album where what’s going on outside the studio is almost as important as what’s happening in your speakers.
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BBC
A transitional record, but still joyous, inventive and exciting.
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AllMusic
That exhaustion results in the group's most uneven album, but its best moments find them moving from Merseybeat to the sophisticated pop/rock they developed in mid-career.
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neonmoderntimes
It signalled the maturing of Lennon as a song-writer, a shift away from pure rock n roll and first evidence of the Bob Dylan influence. All of which helped create the greatest run of classic albums ever produced by a band from 1965 onwards.
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Starling
It's not that there's anything badly wrong with the performance; it's just that there's nothing particularly interesting about it. Might as well have been done by Manfred Mann or an even more faceless outfit of the epoch. With an arrangement and a pace so lacklustre, John's hoarse wailing in the middle-eight only makes matters worse. Come to think of it, maybe that is why Beatles For Sale is so often given the cold shoulder? Just because it's got the most
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Warr
It's well-performed ("Words of Love") but the covers are redundant and the originals are mostly lackluster ("What You're Doing"). "I'll Follow The Sun" is a pretty ballad Paul had written years before but revived for this project as a last resort.
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Adrian Denning
'Beatles For Sale' is usually regarded as a temporary step backwards - an album including too many old style Beatles Rock N Roll covers and a general lack of sparkle. If you're familiar with the album art, none of the guys look happy. The front-sleeve isn't a stark image of artistic seriousness aka 'With The Beatles' rather a glance into the mind of a group who simply didn't want to pose, couldn't raise much of a smile and weren't particularly happy given the huge success they'd enjoyed. They still manage to put together a fine one-two-three opening sequence, after which, 'Beatles For Sale' swings from highs to lows to mediocre inbetweens.
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Hokeyblog
Beatles For Sale is entirely emblematic of the beginning of their evolution from mop-topped Mersey rock-n-cover act to an evolving and exciting creative musical vision.
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The Young Folks
My point is, if you’re going to include ten Beatles albums on your list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, this should be one of them.
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altrockchick
Beatles for Sale reinforces the fundamental truth that the Beatles were indeed human beings and human beings get tired from time to time. It’s a running-in-place album. Considering the great leap they made in the astonishingly short period between Please Please Me and A Hard Day’s Night, an album stuck in neutral should have been expected.
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