‘Meet The Beatles’: the only good American Beatles album

The entire catalogue of The Beatles’ music has forever been viewed through the lens of their UK releases. It was open season in terms of what every other market was doing to the band’s albums, but when looking at the body of work that the Fab Four wanted to put out, all of the UK records are considered to be the ideal version of what they wanted their fans to hear. And while America lived up to their name as the musical version of the Wild West, only a few managed to squeak by as passable releases.

Then again, America already had a hard time getting used to The Beatles. Sure, they were welcomed with open arms the minute they played on The Ed Sullivan Show, but it would take months for the American market to realise their brilliance. Songs like ‘From Me To You’ and ‘Love Me Do’ were turned down by radio programmers before they hit it big.

During the band’s mop-top period, rock and roll was still in the era of singles. Albums were only known as a one-stop shop for all of the band’s best material, and since the Fab Four felt like they were selling their audience short by including singles on their albums, every UK release managed to cram in as many original compositions as possible while throwing in a handful of covers to fill out the standard 14-track runtime.

But as far as American audiences were concerned, it didn’t matter whether singles appeared on albums, and while Magical Mystery Tour does fit into the conversation as one of the band’s best records in its US form, Meet the Beatles is a much different animal. It isn’t what the band wanted, but it’s a far better introduction to their work than either of their first two UK albums.

What makes Meet the Beatles the best American Beatles album?

First things first, the record does away with many of the covers that they used in their live set and brings in a lot of the original compositions. While it does keep ‘Till There Was You’ thanks to the band’s performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the A-side they put together was one of the strongest openings to any Beatles album from around that time.

Whereas ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ is known by many to kick off Please Please Me in spectacular fashion, using ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ as the opening track here is the perfect way to encapsulate the rush of Beatlemania. The single itself is fine, but by including ‘This Boy’ as the third track, this is a much more pop-oriented record than what fans got a few months earlier on With The Beatles.

While an album like Rubber Soul did have a few tasteful changes like including ‘It’s Only Love’ and ‘I’ve Just Seen A Face’ to capitalise on the folk-rock trend, this does a better job at hearing the band as they were on their journey to becoming the best rock band in the world. As time would soon prove, though, there was no way they would keep letting other markets dissect what they wanted to create.

…and when did The Beatles’ American albums end?

Right as the band began working exclusively in the studio, they knew there was no point in trying to make different versions of their records for the American market. And since Sgt Pepper’s was an album meant to work together as a whole, the Fab Four insisted that from that point forward, every one of their albums would be heard with all of the songs placed in the order they intended.

Granted, some records came out of the American market afterwards, and while they never featured any new songs, they did have some interesting moments. Magical Mystery Tour finally gave us ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ on a proper album, and despite the Yellow Submarine Songtrack being a lesser entry in their catalogue, hearing all of the music from the movie along with their previous hits is a ton of fun to listen to.

However, the choice to renegotiate with their American record labels was more about being able to call their own shots. The band had grown into complex musical thinkers, and while they still had to put out as many records as they could, they wouldn’t let any middleman in a suit rearrange their artistic statements.