The Beatles, Please Please Me (side A)

Please Please Me is not an easy record to assess—it's hard to think about the Beatles' debut without the context that we know today. One obvious fact is that half of the songs are not originals, and some of the originals (like "Misery") are clearly derivative of 50s American rock. Norman Smith's mixes are bright and present by any standard, though the 1962 recordings from the singles ("Please Please Me" for example) are a bit murkier than the 1963 recordings (at least on my 90s Capitol vinyl pressing). The playing and singing are consistently great, and the band is impressively tight for a young band in a day when overdubs were nearly impossible. This vinyl reissue (UK sequence, mono) sounds good and looks classy apart from the ugly contemporary center stickers on the vinyl.