Review - A Hard Day's Night

Album: A Hard Day's Night
Release Date: July 10th, 1964









 A Hard Day’s Night was momentous for several reasons.  It was the first Beatles album without any cover songs, as well as the only one written entirely by Lennon and McCartney.  It also served as the soundtrack for the band’s first feature film.  That’s quite a lot of firsts for just their third album, and it becomes even more interesting when you figure out the proper historical context.  A Hard Day’s Night, both the record and film, is said to represent the state of the band at the height of Beatlemania.  This assertion is so strong that I believed it to be true before I ever read anyone who outright stated it.  It became one of those givens of music culture.

The trouble is that the collective consciousness tends to ignore dates.  I always thought that Beatlemania was the result of years of success, but A Hard Day’s Night was released a little over a year after Please Please Me.  Beatlemania actually happened fast and early. What we don’t often hear is that pop music in the 60’s was not too different than it is today.  It was based entirely on trends, with no act having a shelf life of much longer than a year, at least as performing musicians.  After that, they might find opportunities in TV or film.  The industry was generating personalities, and was perhaps more blatant about it than it is today.  As the Pitchfork retrospective explains, the album’s response to this cynical outlook is it’s greatest achievement.  The Beatles knew that they didn’t have to bow out gracefully if they could prove that they were still relevant.  So they showed that they could write their material all on their own, and they made said material push boundaries that no one expected pop songs to try and bother with. 

So far I’ve admittedly only recycle other, better observations on this record.  Now for my own opinion on its quality.  It’s one thing to say that the band tried to push the pop envelope, but did they actually succeed? And can a modern listener without much musical knowledge tell the difference?  I think so, but it isn’t always easy.  Some of the songs here still have that sock hop sound, with cutesy lyrics and harmonies, but legendary tracks like “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” certainly feel more mature and exciting.  The content is not about awkward teenagers, but perhaps somewhat older lovers, dealing with love and life and money and jobs.  They may not sound edgy by modern standards, but they make it clear that the band was now about touch as much as it was look.  Tracks like “If I Fell” and “And I Love Her” are slower and more mellow sounding.  A Hard Day’s Night deals with all the same themes, but childish pining and fictional pain are replaced with something that sounds more like real love and loss.  Compared to past works, there is definitely an evolution in sound and content, and if you  still believe it sounds straightforward, you’re right.  It’s just that the reasons for this are that The Beatles helped establish several decades worth of pop canon, starting somewhere around here.

Overall, I find A Hard Day’s Night to be something I have to listen to from start to finish.  There are no tracks that I cherry pick, nor are there real stinkers.  It is a thoroughly enjoyable event, from start to finish, and I tend to only bring it out every so often, so as not to burn out on it.  Perhaps my favorite thing about the album is how it reminds me that pop music doesn’t have to be disposable; it is simply often made that way by design.  When someone insults The Beatles for being a “pop band”, they’re gonna have to try harder.