Please Please Me Review

The story of the session is the story of the record: a working club band pinned to tape in one long day, playing a set they had already hammered flat in Hamburg and Liverpool. That means it moves. It also means it is half other people's songs, and the group's own material at this stage runs on charm and hand claps rather than ideas. I Saw Her Standing There is a great opening because it is a bass line and a count in and nothing else, and nothing else is needed.

Anna and Boys are competent covers. Twist and Shout is the reason anyone still plays the album end to end, a lead vocal shredded by a cold and a long day, tracked once because there was no voice left for a second pass. The mono mix is flat and mid heavy and the drums sound like a biscuit tin, which somehow suits it. Judge it as songwriting and it is early days. Judge it as a document of a live band at the exact moment it stopped being local, and it holds up completely.