Some Guy's Top 1000 Albums

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164: A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (U.K. version) | THE BEATLES

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With A Hard Day’s Night the UK version is quite a bit better than the US release. Check the track listings from the “Read more” wiki link.

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A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964 by Parlophone, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film of the same name. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. In contrast to the Beatles' first two albums, all 13 tracks on A Hard Day's Night were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, showcasing the development of their songwriting partnership.

The album includes the song "A Hard Day's Night", with its distinctive opening chord,  and "Can't Buy Me Love", both transatlantic number-one singles for the band. Several of the songs feature George Harrison playing a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar, a sound that was influential on the Byrds and other groups in the folk rock movement.

Musically, A Hard Day's Night eschews the rock and roll cover songs of the band's previous albums for a predominantly pop sound.  Sputnikmusic's Dave Donnelly observes "short, peppy" pop songs characterised by layered vocals, immediate choruses, and understated instrumentation.  According to Pitchfork's Tom Ewing, the lack of rock and roll covers allows listeners to "take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms", with audacious "chord choices", powerful harmonies, "gleaming" guitar, and "Northern" harmonica.  Music journalist Robert Christgau writes that Lennon–McCartney's songs were "more sophisticated musically" than before.  It also features lead guitarist George Harrison playing a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar, a sound that was influential on the Byrds and other bands in the folk rock explosion of 1965.

Side one of the LP contains the songs from the film soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980s re-release of the film includes a prologue before the opening credits with "I'll Cry Instead" on the soundtrack. The title of the album and film was the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr. According to Lennon in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and [film director] Dick Lester suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had said. I had used it in In His Own Write, but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny ... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.'"

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A Hard Day's Night is the first Beatles album to feature entirely original compositions, and the only one where all the songs were written by Lennon–McCartney. Lennon is the primary author of nine of the thirteen tracks on the album, as well as being the lead singer on these same nine tracks (although Paul McCartney sings lead on the title track's middle-eight). Lennon and McCartney co-wrote "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You", sung by Harrison, while McCartney wrote "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Things We Said Today". It is one of three Beatles albums, along with Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, in which Starr does not sing lead vocal on any songs. (Starr sang the lead vocal on "Matchbox" during the sessions; it appeared instead on the Long Tall Sally EP.) It is also one of three Beatles albums, along with Please Please Me and Beatles for Sale, in which Harrison does not contribute to the songwriting. Read more

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