Beatles: "Help " Vinyl LP (UK EMI Parlophone PCS 3071) 1965
$
41
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Description
You are bidding on a rare Vinyl LP of The Beatles’ fifth UK album “Help!” This is a UK Import, issued on the EMI Parlophone label. (EMI UK PCS 3071). This LP was originally released in 1965; ours appears to be a 1969 reissue. If you need more info, please ask! If you can help us pin it down, we would be glad to do it. We will be glad to check Matrix and runoff numbers. The Runout has a notation of “YEX 168-1” on side 1, and “YEX 169-1” on side 2.
We purchased this item decades ago, and it has been sitting in our home (vertically) for the last few decades.
The LP is in EX condition; it looks great. The label is the black EMI-Parlophone label with white lettering. The album Jacket is in VG+ condition. It looks good, but does show signs of age, and the upper right corner of the front cover had an ink mark (See last photo in this posting). The inner sleeve comes with the LP, and includes adds for other EMI LP’s of the day including “Sgt Peppers,” and “Scaffold,” (Michael McCartney’s band). Please remember that this album was well taken care of, but it was played as part of our record collection decades ago. (See Photos).
This item has been stored at room temperature, in a smoke free home. Please see photos of actual item being sold.
“Beatles: Help! (UK)” 1965
In my opinion, this album is absolutely fantastic and probably their most underrated album.
Now I'll admit, after the first time I heard this I walked away thinking it was a weaker version of their classic movie tie in LP "A Hard Day's Night" but upon repeated listens I keep finding more and more to love. While I would still say A Hard Day's Night is the better album, I find there is much more to talk about on Help! Most people regard Rubber Soul as their first semi-jump as artists before going full on into Revolver, but you can see the tinier steps work their way into the Beatles repertoire in Help! and that makes the album all the more interesting.
The opening track is one of the Beatles masterpieces and really shows that while both writers were excellent, John matured his writing at a faster rate than Paul. "Help!" has great harmonies (it's really cool how the background vocals aren't on a simple time measure with the lead vocals, almost like an pre-echo of John) and this marks the first time the Beatles (John) wrote a song that was not about love. Paul follows it up with a very Beatlemania-esque song, although the implication of sex makes it a little more interesting, before John follows with another coup doing his best Bob Dylan impersonation on "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away". Then there's another John masterpiece with "Ticket to Ride" which has a really sick guitar riff to open the song.
Paul writes two standout tracks along with the rest of his Beatle-mania material, the folk rock "I've Just Seen a Face" and the constant contender for favourite Beatles song "Yesterday". The latter is interesting because its the Beatles first use of instruments that couldn't be played by the band themselves, with George Martin's choice to add a string quartet that Paul was initially opposed to, but upon hearing it loved it. This kind of experimenting is what would push the Beatles in their studio era. The only drawbacks are the two inessential covers, which could have been replaced with heart-breaker "Yes it Is" to make a much better album.
There's a lot of Beatle-mania material here, even George adds two entries as good as most of Paul and John's material, but the highlights I've talked about show how this album is much more than "A Hard Day's Night 2.0."”.
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