The Beatles Help (Motion Picture Soundtrack) Rare 1969 Capitol Vinyl LP

$

50

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Help! Studio album by the Beatles Released 6 August 1965 Recorded 15 February – 17 June 1965 Studio EMI, London Genre

• Pop rock 
• folk rock

Length 33:44 Label Parlophone Producer George Martin The Beatles chronology Beatles for Sale
(1964) Help!
(1965) Rubber Soul
(1965) The Beatles North American chronology Beatles VI
(1965) Help!
(1965) Rubber Soul
(1965) Singles from Help!

1. "Ticket to Ride"
   Released: 9 April 1965
2. "Help!"
   Released: 23 July 1965

Help! is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to the film Help!. It was released on 6 August 1965 by Parlophone. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and take up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side includes "Yesterday", the most-covered song ever written. The album was met with favourable critical reviews and topped the Australian, German, British and American charts.

During the recording sessions for the album, the Beatles continued to explore the studio's multitracking capabilities to layer their sound. "Yesterday" features a string quartet, the band's first use of Baroque sensibilities, and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" includes a flute section. The North American release is a true soundtrack album, combining the first seven songs with instrumental music from the film. The omitted tracks are instead spread across the Capitol Records LPs Beatles VI, Rubber Soul and Yesterday and Today.

In the US, Help! marked the start of artistic recognition for the Beatles from mainstream critics, including comparisons to the European art music tradition. It was nominated in the category of Album of the Year at the 1966 Grammys Awards, marking the first time that a rock band had been recognised in this category. In 2000, it was voted 119th in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2020, it was ranked 266th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In September 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed its sales award rules, Help! was certified platinum for recorded sales since 1994.

Background

In 1964, the Beatles appeared in their first feature film, A Hard Day's Night. Despite initial scepticism, reviews were near universal in their acclaim, elevating the Beatles' prestige as artists. Intending to make one film a year, work began on a second Beatles picture for a 1965 release. It would once again be directed by Richard Lester and produced by Walter Shenson, but written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood instead of Alun Owen. It was given the working title Eight Arms to Hold You, one of Ringo Starr's "Ringoisms"; the name stuck until early April, long enough to even appear on the US "Ticket to Ride" single, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney presumed it would be too difficult to write a compelling song with that title, so Help! was chosen instead.

According to McCartney, most of the songwriting for Help! was done at Kenwood, Lennon's house in Weybridge. McCartney also wrote some songs, e.g. "Yesterday" and "I've Just Seen a Face", at his girlfriend Jane Asher's family home, 57 Wimpole Street in London. At this time, the Beatles were heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, especially Lennon, who later referred to it as his "Dylan period". Mark Hertsgaard writes that while Dylan's influence was "evident" on Beatles for Sale, Help! is where it became "fully realized". Additionally, Help! is the first Beatles album on which drugs made a significant impact. Dylan in 1964 had introduced them to cannabis, which they smoked habitually while filming Help!, and they first encountered LSD in spring 1965. According to Alexis Petridis, drugs motivated the Beatles on Help! to take their songwriting to "new emotional depths", such as on "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and "Ticket to Ride".

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Help! was another worldwide critical success for the Beatles. Derek Johnson of the NME said that the LP "maintains the Beatles' usual high standards" and was a "gay, infectious romp which doesn't let up in pace or sparkle from start to finish – with the exception of one slow track". Despite the band's introduction of new instrumentation into their sound, particularly a string quartet on "Yesterday", the reviewer also wrote of the album: "It's typical Beatles material, and offers very few surprises. But then, who wants surprises from the Beatles?" While typical of the light and snappy pop music reviews at the time, according to music journalist Michael Halpin, these comments angered McCartney, who, like his bandmates, believed that artists should constantly develop through their work.

In the United States, where the mainstream press had long focused on the Beatlemania phenomenon and had derided the group's music, as well as rock 'n' roll generally, the summer of 1965 coincided with the first examples of artistic recognition for the Beatles from the country's cultural mainstream. Among these endorsements, Richard Freed of The New York Times likened the band's songs to works from the European art music tradition. Adding to what he described as the Beatles' impact on "serious music", Freed cited musicologists and composers such as Leonard Bernstein and Abram Chasins as admirers of the group's work. Along with several nominations for "Yesterday", Help! was nominated in the category of Album of the Year at the 1966 Grammys Awards. The nomination marked the first time that a rock band had been recognised in this category.

Retrospective assessments

Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating AllMusic The A.V. Club A Chicago Sun-Times Consequence of Sound B The Daily Telegraph Encyclopedia of Popular Music MusicHound 3.5/5 Paste 100/100 Pitchfork 9.2/10 The Rolling Stone Album Guide

In his review of the Beatles' 1987 CD releases, for Rolling Stone magazine, Steve Pond remarked on the "unstoppable momentum" evident in the band's pre-Rubber Soul albums and recommended Help! "for the relatively quiet and understated way in which they consolidated their strengths". Writing in 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Sheffield says that the US version of Help! was "utterly ruined" through the replacement of the Beatles songs with the soundtrack music, and that, as a result, the album remained relatively overlooked. He describes the full album as "a big step forward" and "the first chapter in the astounding creative takeoff the Beatles were just beginning".

Mark Kemp of Paste considers it to be the equal of A Hard Day's Night and cites "Help!", "Ticket to Ride" and "Act Naturally" as highlights, along with Harrison's return as a songwriter. Kemp identifies "Yesterday" as "the album's masterpiece" and a song that "set the stage for one of the most groundbreaking and innovative periods in The Beatles' career, not to mention pop music in general". Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph says that the album evokes "a band in transition, shifting slightly uncomfortably from the pop thrills of Beatlemania to something more mature", with Lennon's writing increasingly autobiographical and the group's sound growing more sophisticated. McCormick concludes: "Help! may not be their greatest album, but it contains some of their greatest early songs."

In 2000, Help! was voted 119th in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2006, it was recognised as one of the "Most Significant Rock Albums" in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History. Two years before then, Tor Milde, music critic for the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, ranked it at number 20 on his list of "The 100 Best Pop and Rock Albums of All Time". In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Help! number 332 on their list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", raising the ranking to number 331 in the 2012 update and then number 266 in the 2020 list.

North American Capitol release

Help! Soundtrack album by the Beatles and Ken Thorne Released 13 August 1965 Recorded 15 February – 17 June 1965 Studio EMI, London Genre

• Rock 
• instrumental

Length 29:34 Label Capitol Producer George Martin, Dave Dexter, Jr. The Beatles North American chronology Beatles VI
(1965) Help!
(1965) Rubber Soul
(1965) Singles from Help!

1. "Ticket to Ride"
   Released: 19 April 1965
2. "Help!"
   Released: 19 July 1965

The North American version, the band's eighth Capitol Records album and tenth overall, includes the songs in the film plus selections from the film's orchestral score composed and conducted by Ken Thorne, which contains one of the first uses of the Indian sitar on a rock/pop album, and its very first use on a Beatles record. "Ticket to Ride" is the only song on the American release in Duophonic stereo (also known as "fake stereo") reprocessed from the mono mix. Likewise, the mono version of the album uses a folded-down stereo mix of "Help!" instead of the true mono version used on the single, which features a different vocal track. Help! is available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set. This CD contains both the stereo and mono fold-down versions as heard on the American LP release. A second CD release of this album, which contains the seven songs in true mono mixes, was issued in 2014 individually and as part of the Beatles' The U.S. Albums box set.

All of the non-film tracks from side two of the Parlophone album were spread out through three American albums. Three were already issued on the previously released Beatles VI: "You Like Me Too Much", "Tell Me What You See" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love" were placed on the Capitol Rubber Soul, with its follow-up album Yesterday and Today receiving the remaining two tracks: "Yesterday" and "Act Naturally".

The American version of Help! reached the number one spot on the Billboard Top LPs chart for nine weeks starting on 11 September 1965.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

Side one No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length 1. "Help!" (preceded by an uncredited instrumental intro based on the "James Bond Theme")   Lennon 2:39 2. "The Night Before"   McCartney 2:36 3. "From Me to You Fantasy" Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne instrumental 2:08 4. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"   Lennon 2:12 5. "I Need You" Harrison Harrison 2:31 6. "In the Tyrol" Ken Thorne instrumental 2:26 Total length: 14:32 Side two No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length 1. "Another Girl"   McCartney 2:08 2. "Another Hard Day's Night" Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne instrumental 2:31 3. "Ticket to Ride"   Lennon 3:07 4. "The Bitter End/You Can't Do That" Ken Thorne/Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne instrumental 2:26 5. "You're Gonna Lose That Girl"   Lennon 2:19 6. "The Chase" Ken Thorne instrumental 2:31 Total length: 15:02