Boy, do I ever remember the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. My Father would not allow us to watch. So, I walked the block and heard the show booming from every window. The street was completely empty, no cars, no kids outside, no pedestrians. You could feel it in the air that something big was happening.

I was 11 years old in 1964. My mom, an opera and symphony orchestra music lover, one day brought my one year younger brother and me a pop record by Bobby Rydell. She didn't know if we'd be interested or not. My brother was interested, but I played it over and over so much that mom moved the record player upstairs! Then she brought home "Meet The Beatles". This album literally changed my life! The music had SUCH an exciting and enthusiastic sound and delivery! Beatlemania was so exciting! I began miming along with the album with a Roy Rogers plastic-stringed guitar in front of a large mirror, holding it left-handed because that was the way my favorite Beatle, Paul, held his guitar. My parents had divorced when I was five, but one day my visiting dad caught me "performing" in front of the mirror and said, "You're right-handed! If you're gonna play a guitar, you'd better learn to hold it the other way 'round!" My mom, seeing I was serious about my love of music, bought me a cheap Sears box guitar, and I spent every day after school and weekends sitting in front of the stereo learning the bass parts, note for note, on that box guitar. Next Christmas, my dad bought me a red Hagstrom Kent model bass and a Magnatone Estey amplifier that my brother, who got a 6-string guitar, and I could both plug into. I began performing with a local band, called "The Ramrods" (LOL!) when I was 13 years old, playing "Top 40" covers. We had our own teen club, made a 45 record, were once on a local "Bandstand" type TV show hosted by George Clooney's father, Nick; hooked up with a local AM radio DJ (Bob White, WSAI-AM 1360 aka John Patrick Teiken) for some gigs, and played all around our area for a few years. I'll be 70 years old this year, and I've been in and out of bands all my life, all because of The Beatles. The Meet The Beatles album started a lifelong love of music and performance with local bands for me, and many famous musicians, when asked, also trace their musical heritage back to hearing and seeing The Beatles. For me and countless others in the U.S., it all started with the Meet The Beatles album!

My grandmother bought this album for my mom the week it was released (my grandmother loved the Beatles too, she was a hip lady). It was this album that 10 year old me stumbled across in 1989. I was hooked, I listened to that album over and over and over before slowly making my way thru the rest of the catalog. Sadly the cover was destroyed in a flood a few years back. Even though the record was salvaged and still plays, I'm still heartbroken over having lost that cover specifically. Thank you for the wonderful trip down memory lane!

My sister born in 1950 was a Beatle maniac. And I (born 56) got to hear all the 45s and albums. It was an incredible impact on our lives. The moptops replaced the crewcuts and slick backed Elvis styles. The guitars and 3part vocals and inventive songs wowed us and made a lot of other music dull. The fab four raised the bar of pop music to new heights. Everyone tried and failed to keep up to them but it brought out the best in the Beach Boys, Animals, Kinks and Rolling Stones

I still have my original Meet The Beatles album that I bought back in Jan. of '64. What an experience it was being stricken with Beatlemania.

As a Brit, I always looked down on the US albums as not the real thing. But then I picked up a copy of The Beatles' Second last year and was struck by how great it sounded to hear those tracks in that order with those mixes - and now you've made a great case for seeking out a copy of this one. Thanks as ever!

In Feb 1964 our family lived in Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles. I was not quite 5 years old and had a friend (Dwight) who was my age and lived around the corner. My older sisters (14 and 10 at the time) would often babysit us when our parents went out. Dwight's Father worked for Capital Records. He received an early release of Meet The Beatles in January. He gave a copy to my sisters. They played it 24/7. My sisters went bonkers over the Fabs. That album sadly is long gone, but its impact never truly faded. Great video Andrew. Cheers, RNB

I remember hearing this album a couple of weeks before they were on Ed Sullivan. One of my sisters came home from her after school job with the album under her arm. "Look what I just bought!" Two of my sisters and I played it over and over again the first night the album was in the house - I think we listened to it three times in a row. The three of us would frequently listen to music together - usually just a bunch of singles, but even on the odd time we'd play an album, we never would play one more than once in an evening - but that night we did. I hadn't heard any rock and roll on the radio in ages (it was all crooners and pop singers on the radio - novelty songs - Little Richard was doing "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and stuff like that) - so "I Want to Hold Your Hand" / "I Saw Her Standing There" sounded pretty rocky for the time. It sounded great on the car radio - always my measure if a single was going to be a hit or not. That particular single jumped out of the speakers and would compel you to turn up the volume. We liked the single quite a lot - but the album - that blew away every expectation we had. We needed repeated listens because we didn't know what we'd just heard! First off, albums back then were usually pretty awful affairs - a bunch of lame material, cranked out watching the clock, with one or two hits with the B-sides, and a bunch of same-sounding filler. But not this time. We loved the single, so thought the album might be pretty good - but we weren't prepared. We were really impressed with their harmonies - they reminded me of the Everly Brothers - and the fact that they wrote almost all the songs and played nearly all the instruments - nobody else did that; we were impressed by the variety of music on the album. Even the guitars on "Till There Was You" seemed musical and different (my mom even liked that one!). The Beatles hit with people on so many levels simultaneously - and that's the only verbal description I can give of their impact on people at the time. They were different from everything else on the radio at the time, and for a few months in 1964, nobody else could get played! Their effect was seismic.

As a child I remember one of my older brothers Vee-Jay pressing of '' Introducing The Beatles '' playing on his Panasonic home stereo. I believe that started his hobby of purchasing vinyl almost every week , thus accumulating his collection to more than 2000 mostly Rock vinyl records and later in the 1980's another collection of CD's. I also remember my oldest brother blasting his The Beatles '' Second Album '' on his very heavy Zenith foldable luggage style record player . It seems like if it was just yesterday but that was many many moons ago. As for me , back in 1988 I managed to purchase The Beatles blue box set in vinyl which I immediately equalized to my taste and DOLBY recorded all the albums to TDK metal bias cassettes. 35 years later those cassettes still sound as vibrant and clear as they did for the very first time.

Growing up with these original Capitol albums, I know personally the effect they had on me, my friends, my school, country and the world. Meet The Beatles is one of the greatest LPs ever made. Period. Still spinning it 60 years later. In mono.

At the time of release in the U.S, most people only had mono record players. I first heard the song on a car radio (AM) in a 1951 Ford. ROCK music made a quantum leap that day.

Please take the fork outta Meet the Beatles. For the first time and every time afterward I was jolted to my soul whenever I heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand." It was a shiny, happy sound I had never experienced in my sleepwalking teenage life. The vocals, the beat, the guitars and the handclaps have stunned me for well over half a century. The tune began to divide me from all the generations but my own. Famous conservative William F. Buckley, Jr had a different opinion: "The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music." God bless the commenters on this great video. You knew what it was all those years ago. We will always be ONE....

I was 7 when The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. I watched it with my Dad. The controversy over their hair was a really big deal with the adults. It's hard to relay how much that one thing impacted society at the time. All I knew was they were cool! I had Beatle Boots by the end of the week, and was combing my hair down in the front. I've been a fan ever since.

This album is so iconic for me, and really set me on the road to becoming a musician, and later producer and music-publisher. College friends of my parents came back from a trip to England in 1964, and witnessing Beatlemania first-hand, bought a copy of "With The Beatles" and brought it back to Boston, MA, USA. They then brought it to a dinner party my parents threw, which essentially turned into a listening-party. My father was classically trained in piano and composition, and years later told me that he remembered that night, and his feeling that the world had changed...for the better. He'd grown up on 50's rock-n-roll, but these guys from England were doing something different. In 1970, when i was 6, I got my first record player, an early, affordable stereo setup, and among some folk records by acts like The Weavers and The Kingston Trio, and a handful of kids' albums...the copy of "Meet The Beatles" that my mom had run out to purchase when it became available, also wound up in my little "starter collection." I listened to those records going to sleep every night. That album was a real "friend" of mine, and has never let me down.

I have a original version from 1964. It is one of my most prized records. No scratches too.

I bought Meet the Beatles with my own money at 6 years old in Feb 1965. It was not long after that my mother got me my first acoustic guitar from Montgomery Wards. She taught me my first 3 chords and I was hooked for life. I think it was another 3 or 4 years before I bought my 2nd album, "Are You Experienced" by Jimi Hendrix. I got my first electric guitar with S&H Greenstamps.

This was literally how I met the Beatles. And I met them as a second generation fan. I was in fourth grade. My family moved into our new home, and someone had left behind a copy of meet the Beatles. I instantly fell in love with the album. I played it over and over again. it is ironic that I was introduced to the Beatles by the same album most Americans were. Just 10 or 12 years later. Had the same effect on me.

I appreciate that you say "I feel...", or "I think..." when discussing recordings. Too many on the internet present their opinions as facts. Every piece of music touches each person in an individual way, and a track that one person always skips is someone else's favorite.

It always warms my Canuck heart to see props given to Paul White and Capitol Canada. I've been a Beatles fan for 40 years, and yet never had a vinyl copy of Meet the Beatles since I had hand-me-down copies of the Canadian LPs, Twist & Shout, Beatlemania With the Beatles and Long Tall Sally (and I was more interested in the middle-to-late Beatles era anyway). But even after Meet the Beatles was issued in Canada, Beatlemania With the Beatles remained in print here until the early 1980s, and I didn't have a copy of MtB until that first box set with the U.S. albums on it, and playing it, it wasn't hard to imagine the impact that it had on American teens. Thanks for the insight into how the track rearrangement makes it a stronger album in many ways, although I still bristle at the policy of cutting songs and making new albums out of whole cloth with the leftovers. At least the Kinks didn't have to suffer that indignity after their first couple of albums, and they remained intact from Kontroversy onward.

My jaw dropped to the floor when I first heard IWTHYH on Past Masters. No reverb. You can actually hear the guitars clearly. I was raised in the L.A. area so Capital we’re the only versions I heard until the 70’s. I now feel we were ripped off

Ironically before you communicated the intention to address the 'Meet The Beatles ', I played it in its entirety for the first time in decades. I'd forgotten how fun it was to hear. Just yesterday, my Brother and I compared all the White Albums and concluded the Dutch was the best. Then for fun I played him the full stereo version 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' mixed in Australia. It's on the Beatles Number One album. It's rather an unique master. It was a delight to listen to it again!

Just found the Scranton pressing in my albums. When my grandmother passed I went thru her cabinet stereo and found the album. I remember asking her back in the 80’s if she remembered buying it. She said no!

In Britain we missed the single moment (Ed Sullivan) and single release (Meet The Beatles) that the Americans benefitted from. Meet The Beatles seems to crystallise all that excitement. Sunday Night at the London Palladium was important, but it felt like Britain had a building excitement over repeated releases rather than one big bang. Great video again, Andrew.

I still have the mono copy I brought in February 1964 (9 years 1 month old) after seeing them on Ed Sullivan. Has the number "5" on the lower-left, backside. I was mad during the Sullivan performance because the screaming girls interfered with my listening. My parents did not like the record but they never chastised me for playing it. No longer playable but I won't part with it. It is on the wall in my "Inner Sanctum". My record collection is an audio version of a photo album.

“I Saw Her Standing There” is true stereo

I remember my mother letting me stay up to watch Ed Sullivan on Sunday February 9, 1964, I was 8 years old. In my mind, things got off to a slow start with “All My Loving”, followed by “Till There was You”. Things got more interesting with “She Loves You” and by the second segment of “ I Saw her Standing There” and finishing with “ I want To Hold Your Hand” I was hooked. For the next two Sundays I was glued to the TV at 8pm. Thanks to my Mom lighting the fuse I became a lifelong Beatles fan. She remembered what she felt like when she saw Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan and she made sure I didn’t miss out. She went and bought “Meet The Beatles” for us the next day and let me have possession of that album to start my collection. It wasn’t long before “Introducing The Beatles” was added to our collection. I can’t remember if they were Mono or Stereo versions. It didn’t matter as they were played on a cheap record player with a nail instead of a needle. Another Capitol Records triumph.

You are so correct to say it hit on an emotional level! It did on a creative level too. It was NEW! In sound and energy. We kids in the US were knocked out! Great show again Andrew!! See ya next time!👍🎶💚!

It's hard to describe today how exciting it was in 64 when this album was released Beatlemania had begun and the world was never the same

I bought this album by myself when I was 7 years old in the Bronx, New York - I can still remember how exciting it was ! ! In the early 60s I got only the mono releases as we had only a mono system at the time. When "Yesterday... And Today" came out it was only released in stereo, and it was odd playing it on our mono system :-(! I wish I could´ve gotten an original buther cover, but I didn´t find out about it until 1982. But I did get the sticker of it in the Capitol CD box set :-)! I really enjoy your videos, to be able to discover so many things about The Beatles I had never known. The group is still so special to me - brings back so many great memories of my childhood ! ! Next year I'll be able to celebrate 60 years of following the group :-)!

Thank you. You certainly covered all aspects of this record. As a listener who was an impressionable 12 years old when the album first appeared, I attest to the powerful impact it had on me and many of my friends at the time. Keep up the good work.

Not being an American I was not aware of this US capitol record "Meet the Beatles" or any of the others they issued for the US market. It wasn't until I read that superb book "The Beatles forever" by Nicholas Schaffner in the late 70s did I know about these US versions. Even to this day there are probably millions of Beatles fans who still haven't heard of "Meet the Beatles" if your not American!

I was also seven. Recall the night clearly. The hair, suits, and Cuban heel boots were dynamite, a favorite expression at the time, or boss, and the music just blew everyone away. My jazz pianist father made no comment, nor did he when one day I asked him why he didn’t or couldn’t play like the Beatles. He just sat at the piano and played every song without hesitation, then walked away. Thus began my schizophrenic relationship with music.

Interesting factoid - Meet The Beatles was not introduced in Canada until February 1967, after it was decided to standardize the catalogue with the US version. Beatlemania! had already been deleted from the Canadian Catalogue. However, it was brought back in 1971, meaning both albums would be available in the catalogue until they stopped pressing Beatles vinyl in 1987.

Back in 1981 I was at some sort of a thrift store in Brooklyn NY and they had a record section. I came across a mono copy of "Meet the Beatles" with the black label and color band. Also a mono copy of "Beatles 65", same label and a mono copy of "A Hard Day's Night" with the black United Artist label.

Thanks so much for doing a video on this record Andrew! This was the first Beatles album (and first album period) that I owned. It was my 11th birthday present in July 1982 and I played it on my mom’s old suitcase record player and just played it endlessly. I didn’t skip over anything. I needed to buy another copy a few years later because I played it so much. This was and is an exciting listening experience. The liner notes on the back are a little corny but I suppose that was standard for the day. Nice to hear a little history on Vee Jay records. Bruce Spizer’s book on Vee Jay from 1998 is such a great source on the subject. Thanks again!

I was born in October 1963 and am the youngest of 10 kids. My older sibs all became Beatles fans when they played on the Ed Sullivan Show, February 9th, 1964. So, I grew up in a Beatlemania household. By the time I was around 6 years old, I started listening to my sibs Beatle albums, and becoming fascinated with them and music in general (a life-long passion). Meet The Beatles was my first Beatle "bonding" experience, and it really kicked in when I "discovered" girls (!!) around 1971. Tracks like "This Boy" and "If I Fell" (from the "Something New" album) were the soundtrack music of my ardor (passion, indeed). So I used to sit in the living room, in Dad's big leather chair (next to the stereo and bookcase) and listen to them for hours. I would read the liner notes and gaze upon my heroes! John Lennon was my first hero, but I loved all of them. I credit Ringo as my inspiration for becoming a drummer -- along with my brother Rick (coincidentally, the two Richards led me to drumming) -- and songs like their version of "Slow Down" just about made me want to climb the walls with excitement! God, that song is a barn-burner! Meet the Beatles launched my love of music, drumming, and art (I am a writer also). By the way, the Capitol album "The Beatles' Story" was also very instrumental in my early fandom. Just hearing the sound of the screaming Beatles fans -- in the first 3 minutes of the album -- blew my mind. Also, the interview with the two female fans, there in the early part of side 1, really made it real. I was just really interested in what was going on, because I was so young at this point and did not know much about the world or anything -- but I knew the Beatles rocked! Awesome album. Also, you should check out The Smithereens tribute album to Meet The Beatles, called "Meet The Smithereens"! They play all the songs from the album, on vintage instruments/equipment and it is amazing! I love that tribute album and that band! Great stuff!

Emotional level is exactly the right term to describe the impact Meet The Beatles had on me. I had the mono version and played it to worn. I would say it kicked-off a cultural change here in the States one that had been brewing for a year or so in music. It makes me shake my head that Beatles records ended-up with Vee Jay and Swan. Capitol treated Sinatra pretty shabby as well. Great video.

10:40 Fun fact, since in Chile With The Beatles was released first in 1964, Please Please Me when released later that year and the band still being a brand new group it was named "Otro de Los Beatles" (Another One From The Beatles) with a similar cover style with black and white pictures. The tracklist of all the albums were the same of the UK versions, only the first 4 having original names, the most remarkable was Beatles for Sale renamed as "Los Beatles Cantan para Usted" (The Beatles Sings for You). The only two original Capitol albums released here were the The Beatles Story and Hey Jude, but renamed as "Compatible" when released on cassette, because being one of the first Beatles albums released on stereo here, when it cmae out on vinyl neither the cover or the disc labels had the album name printed on them, however the cover only said "Mono-Stereo Compatible".

still have in my possession my mother's original of this purchased the week after their maiden sullivan appearance, it'll become a family heirloom long after my mother and I are gone.

The first album I ever bought. To say it changed my life is an understatement. It instantly made me a Beatlenut and created a music junkie.

Their appearance on Ed Sullivan and Meet The Beatles changed my life forever.

My parents bought me a cheap portable cassette player for Christmas 1975. At twelve years of age I hadn’t yet developed any musical preferences, so it took a little coaxing from my best friend to convince me to buy my first Beatles record. Totally unfamiliar with Beatles music I went to the record store and after looking through the Beatles bin decided to start with their first album. Not having my own record player, I bought the cassette version of Meet The Beatles. I rode my bike home and popped the tape in my player and was greeted with I Want To Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There. I was immediately hooked! Even though the music was playing through a small three inch speaker, the music was infectious and exciting. Meet The Beatles was my introduction to the Beatles and began a life long passion. Forty-seven years and hundreds of LP’s and 45’s later I am still a huge Beatles fan and never tire of listening to their music.

In 1974 my father bought me a used copy of meet the Beatles I was 10 during that year and I just recently got my turntable fixed from my stereo system and I fired up my turntable along with the meet the Beatles LP and it took me back to 1974 to this day I still have my copy of meet the Beatles that my father gave me during the year 74!!😊

Great summary! - my older sister bought this album right after it came out in early '64, and after a few spins she let me, just three and a half, play it TO DEATH on my little portable record player. I was hooked on the Beatles for life, and still own the beat-up copy, which crackles and pops all the way through from all those times with the harsh needle (and operator)! A minor note - our copy was purchased in the San Francisco area, with the "6" on the lower right corner indicating the LA plant source, as you point out, BUT the "BEATLES" lettering is tan, not dark green. I believe that dark green color came out on later copies of the album.

Fantastic presentation. Thanks so much.

I still have my mom's original US "Meet the Beatles" on vinyl. I listen to it because of the Beatles but also to remember my mom. Great video.

I purchased this the day after the Ed Sullivan Show...my favorite Beatles album!!!

That was one terrific dissertation on the album. Well done! I bought it as a 14 year old in 1964 and never looked back thereafter. Talk about fabulous music memories ‼️

I became a Beatles fan at age 14, when the CDs were coming out in 1987. So I’m from that second generation of US fans that grew up with the standardized UK catalog. I sort of looked at the US catalog with disdain. But in the years since, I appreciate just how great this record is and how impactful it was. Meet the Beatles and the US Rubber Soul are records I turn to often.

Thanks for another great video, Andrew! My older siblings had "Meet The Beatles," "Something New," "Early Beatles," and "Yesterday and Today," and I played those all the time when I was a kid. I can tell you that your theory about the "parent-pleasing" track listing held true, at least in my house: I remember my parents and grandparents saying "Oh, isn't that nice?" when "Til There Was You" came on. When I started buying albums, I decided to go in Capitol-chronological order, starting with "Meet The Beatles" which came on an Apple label in the 1970s. That album always held a special place in my musical development, and when the CDs were released in 2004 it was like the return of a favorite book or movie. I eventually ran across a terrible bootleg of "Introducing" in the 1980s, and it just didn't compare to "Meet." Thanks again!

I was in 6th grade 1964 went to a boy girl party and one of the girls put on meet the Beatles on the record player I was amazed how good the songs were even the ones I never heard at that time. Most albums of that time had one or two good songs

New Jersey band, The Smithereens, often played Beatles tunes for encores. It was suggested at one point that they should do an album of Beatles covers. In 2006, 7 years after their last original album (with no interest by labels in producing a new album), lead singer Pat DiNizio, after reading an article about the historical impact t of MTB, considered a faithful remake of the MTB album, and approached Koch records, who gave them an enthusiastic “yes”. The album was recorded in 5 days (“the second took even longer…”), and was a massive success, leading to more projects : “B-Sides The Beatles”, covering the b-sides of 1964 Beatlemania including Capitol, Vee-Jay, MGM Sheridan singles, and “Some Other Guy” for good measure in 2008 (**drummer Andy White reprised his role on “P.S. I Love You”), followed by a recreation of the Tollie “Love Me Do” single in 2010, and last (to date), a simulation of the Washington D.C. show in 2014 for digital release. These guys know their stuff, and knocked it out of the park every time.

I remember! My older brother had ordered a copy because there was a waiting list at the one store in our rural area that sold albums. It was not to his taste so he gave it to his much younger sister - me - as I had just received a small, portable record player made of all plastic and very bad sound for Christmas that year. I was seven years old and thought these were the greatest sounds I had ever heard! It was my first album and I still have it, It is in terrible condition, but it represents a great deal to me personally.

Another great video Andrew. Well done. One minor point - and Paul White would be cross with me if I didn't point this out to your followers. A December 2, 1963 release date for Canada's Beatlemania! Lp is often cited (incorrectly), but that is not the actual release date for the first Beatles Canada LP. Dec 2/63 was actually Capitol of Canada's "vault date" .. that was the date the EMI master tape was returned to Capitol's tape vault from the mastering company, RCA Victor. The Lp was officially released in Canada, and available in record shops, one week before, on Monday, November 25, 1963. This release date was just one business day after the UK Parlophone release date for With The Beatles. In the 1990s, I visited the EMI tape vault in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada and I carefully checked the tape vault logs versus the release dates. Capitol's Meet The Beatles finally got a Canadian release in Canada in 1967, and it was initially sold through the Capitol of Canada record club in both mono and stereo editions.

Great video! I got my first copy of Meet The Beatles in 1979 when I was 10 years old. A school friend's mom gave it to me because she thought it was cute that a 10-year-old in 1979 could be so obsessed with the Beatles! It was a first pressing, the same copy she had had since 1964. I was over the moon when she said I could take it home and keep it. To me it was a priceless treasure from another era, to her as an adult I suppose it was just a fifteen-year-old album that she didn't mind giving away. I'll never forget taking it home and playing it over and over, flipping from side one to side two and back again countless times. It's still my favorite record, and my pick for most exciting album of all time. A perfect crystallization of the euphoria of Beatlemania, and a perfect way for America to meet the Beatles.

I'm an American who was kid in the late-70s/early-80s but was somehow able to grow up on the UK releases due to some crazy anomaly of a small town yard sale. When I first saw the US versions I was astonished and disgusted (particularly by Revolver). But The Beatles are still The Beatles even when they're missing songs and getting drowned in reverb.

My uncle gave his copy of Meet The Beatles in 1976, along with the Hey Jude LP. Once I heard the opening notes of I Want To Hold Your Hand... I was hooked! What an AWESOME album and is one of the important and historic albums of the 20th century. Highlighting all original songs but one, it's so strong and doesn't sound cheap.

CBS really cross promoted Beatlemania heavily. They produced a Beatles tribute band, The Ladybugs from the three Petticoat Junction girls and Sally James aka Shelia Kuehl (Zelda on Dobie Gillis (Velma)). They appeared on Ed Sullivan as an act a month after the Beatles in March 1964, then on an episode of Petticoat a couple nights later singing "I Saw 'Him' Standing There". CBS really promoted the Beatles heavily and to both kids and parents. They went with the Bye Bye Birdie angle in screaming crowds and parents coming around, TV having learned a lesson with Elvis to soft peddle Beatlemania so as to avoid early controversy. Capitol, as you said, included a few Hit Parade and mellow tunes for them so the parents would not protest. Petticoat Junction was full of "good girls" so if they were OK then it must be OK. This might be the first TV spin-off BeatleBand leading up to The Mosquitos, The Honeybees and finally The Monkees.

Wow. I came here from the link on the With The Beatles video. I had no idea there would be so many surprises and facts I was unaware of. Really great work here on a subject that seems to have a never-ending wellspring of info.

After we saw The Beatles on the Sullivan Show, my mother bought me the Swan She Loves You single, and the mono Capitol Meet The Beatles album (East Coast pressing). My favorite tracks became Don’t Bother Me and I Wanna Be Your Man. My father got a 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand, played by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops! He would introduce it for classical music-loving visitors as “Symphony in B”.

If this channel has taught me something, that is: Dave Dexter Jr. = Bad 😠 Harry Moss = Good 😊 An overlooked pair of villain and hero in the Beatles canon. On a side note. This was the first Beatles piece of vinyl I got. In november 2010 I bought a 1970 mexican edition (because I live in Mexico) of this album when I was just getting in to the beatlemania. It was a very worn record and not in the best condition but for me it was like a milestone in my life as a beatles fan and the beginning of 13+ years collecting records.

This was the second vinyl album I bought when i was starting to collect vinyl records! I got it back in 2013 when I was 14, and it is one of my most cherished albums. I have listened to it for 10 years, and it never gets old!

There was also a way to tell which coast the record itself came from by the numeral one on the label. One had just a "stick" while the other had a left sided "flag" on the top of the "stick". Mine is an east coast copy with the brown lettering on the front cover and the "stick" number one on the label.

I noticed that when "Meet The Beatles" reached Number One on the charts, after the first Ed Sullivan appearance, that "Introducing The Beatles", by VeeJay, was Number Three, following "The Singing Nun". I remember all of these records, being thirteen at the time.

Excellent production and presentation as always. Brilliant job, Andrew.

The Please Please Me album was being played out of dorm windows at Sam Houston State in spring '63.One of the frat brothers went to England and brought it back.

Meet The Beatles and Beatles 65 are incredibly nostalgic albums of my life. They are the only Beatles albums I remember listening to before getting myself a copy of Beatles 1 on CD in 2009 and becoming a Beatles fan for life. I was born in 1996, so I’m very late to the game, but my Dad was born February 9th 1960 and remembers seeing The Beatles Ed Sullivan on tv on his 4th Birthday. My grandfather(who passed away nearly a year ago) had Beatles 65 on vinyl back in the day(not that he was a big fan of groups like Beatles and others, but he was really into Elvis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, etc…), and the record itself somehow still managed to stay in his possession when I was going through his old records many years back. My Dad worked for a bit in the family cement business, the company truck had a cassette player, I remember my dad playing Meet The Beatles and Beatles 65 on cassette when I was younger. I can still remember hearing I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There, and I Wanna Be Your Man in slightly higher pitch from the player and looking at the cassette cover(like the one in this video). I have those 2 same cassettes from my dad in my collection today and they still play good. My Dad is a Rock and Metal guy, but when it comes to The Beatles he easily prefers tracks from their early career(UK releases Please Please Me to Rubber Soul). He can never get into the later stuff no matter how much I tried, even the rocking stuff from The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be. lol

I just want to give a shout out to Capitol Records’ “The Beatles Songbook” by the Hollyridge Strings which came out on the rainbow label sometime just after “Meet The Beatles”, it sounds really nice, even for what it is.

GREAT video! Told me so much I didn’t know. Thanks so much!

Yet another wonderful, well researched presentation! I have a 1970s Japan Apple reissue LP of Meet the Beatles which has all their previous UK singles in genuine stereo (except for "She Loves You" & "Love me Do" which are mono) with the red Beatles! & Obi on the cover but no color vinyl. This particular configuration of the LP really generates a lot of fun and positive energy.

I owned "Meet the Beatles!" on vinyl back when I was a young glob of hemoglobin, but I more recently purchased the U.K. albums on CD. Not long ago, I decided to put together my own version of "Meet the Beatles!" as a playlist on my smartphone. Since I thought a natural opener was the opening count on "I Saw Her Standing There" (as it was on Britain's "Please Please Me" LP), I picked that as the first song. I thought I'd build up to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as the third track, so I put "All I Got to Do" as the second track to create a slightly different sound between them. I followed these three songs with "This Boy" to cool down from "Hand's" high energy. I left the rest of the album pretty much intact, but I swapped "It Won't Be Long" on the first side with "Little Child" on the second side because I wanted a stronger track after "Don't Bother Me," while the less-than-excellent quality of "Little Child" made a good lead-in for the always excellent "All My Loving," a great side closer. And so, my own track listing for "Meet the Beatles!" was born. Aren't playlists on smartphones nifty?

I can still remember how exotic the UK With the Beatles looked to me as a kid when I encountered it for the first time. Like a lot of Beatles fans in the US, in the early 70s, I grew up with the Capital LPs and was completely unaware of the UK versions. That changed one day when a local record store started featuring an "import" section for their Beatles records. Flipping through I was completely taken with the sleek and simple look of "With the Beatles", especially when compared to Capital's Meet the Beatles. On that day I purchased "With the Beatles" with the money I had been given as an Easter present. I think it must've been around 1972 or so. So, while I agree with your assessment of "Meet the Beatles" as having a more commercially vibrant packaging, it's the sleek, understated, and IMHO more artistically pleasing B&W "With the Beatles" that gets my vote.

Great video Andrew. Thanks for posting. I enjoy the Meet the Beatles album much. Your videos and rundown on your opinion on albums is very enjoyable and informative. I hope you continue to post many more videos and look forward to seeing more.👍

Fun one, Andrew. Hope you give The Beatles' Second Album the same treatment. I confess that I'm fond of the duophonic "She Loves You" on it.

Thanks Andrew! This was my very first Beatles album that was given to me. I actually still have that same copy and it is not going anywhere, it has tremendous sentimental value. I absolutely love this album. I may be a 3rd gen Beatles fan but it has a lot of nostalgia. Thanks again. I think I'm going to go put this album on.

Your insight into the special nature of this early Beatles album is spot on! After a lifetime of loving the Beatles, last year, I re-discovered the joy and energy of this album, and proceeded to listen to it. No less than 250 times in a space of less than six months. That is, I could not tired of it. Well, actually, it was with the Beatles that I was listening to which I guess is close enough! I love the covers and please Mr. postman is my absolute favorite.

People today cannot fully appreciate the impact this album made at the time. I was 16 and in a high school band playing surf music and 3-chord classics like "Louie, Louie" when our girlfriends began to "Meet the Beatles." The lads were so bizarre-looking, it was as if aliens from the Planet Rock 'n Roll had landed. At first, we mocked them, with their soup bowl hairdos, as being too effeminate compared to the macho music we were used to blasting out. But then as we began to listen to the music on this album and realize that these were, in fact, brilliant original compositions, our attitudes grew duly respectful. And by that time, A Hard Day's Night and In His Own Write were released, and we understood that these cheeky, clever Brits were extraordinarily talented and very, very cool. We put away our Hurachi sandals and invested in Beatle boots. Looking back, there were many components to the phenomenon known as Beatlemania: Their Astrid Kirchner art school hair styles, their witty irreverent antics, their intellectual appeal, Ringo's puppy dog eyes, and so on. But had that been all of it, they would have flashed on the scene and faded when the next trendy pop thingy came along. No, what ignited Beatlemania was the same thing that is responsible for the fact that 60 years on, they are still regarded as the greatest popular artists in history: The exquisite quality of their original songs. A quality that only grew over the forthcoming decade and reached its pinnacle on the Abbey Road medley that sadly marked The End. Thank you for the love you made.

WILL ALWAYS BE THE GREATEST MUSICAL DEBUT IN HISTORY ALONG WITH INTRODUCING ON VEE JAY!...❤ GRATITUDE

This was truly the first LP that I got introduced to by my aunt. She was a young woman in 1964 when she bought an original olive mono vinyl copy. When I went to visit her as a kid around 1980, I was fascinated by not only the cover but the print copy itself. I read it and re-read it every chance I had. By the time I got to play it, it had been "well loved" but no matter, I truly enjoyed every track. I believe I even made a cassette copy which I promptly wore out. 🤣As you said, it was not about the quality but the music itself. I will always have those fond memories.

Great video and info!!

Great video, Andrew! I feel happy every time you show a brazilian version of the beatles' albums! It's really nice, indeed! Thanks Andrew!

Thank you for the background information, especially the VJ issue. Also intrigued by the effect of Capitol having cut out all the covers except one from Meet the Beatles. I still have my copies of them as well as all the other Beatles albums. When Meet the Beatles was released, a friend and I went to a neighborhood record store to look at it. We were astounded by the photograph, the likes of which we'd never seen before. I wasn't able to buy it until February 29, 1964, when my great aunt sent me a birthday check. I scandalized my mother by rushing downtown with my hair in curlers to buy it.

I watched this video for the second time and, for me,it's getting better all the time. Thank you, Andrew!

That was the first album I ever bought. It was about 1972, I was 11, and I was hooked.

Meet The Beatles is the Greatest Rock and Roll Album of all time!!!! ....that Cover is Iconic!!!

Outstanding job, Andrew! Wonderful subject and wonderful presentation by you. 👏👏👏

I was in high school at the time. Wow! What a sound! Never forgot it.

Another great video! However, I will add that the early west coast copies have the brown Beatles font, and olive green seems to be late 64- early 65. I have the earliest stereo issue west coast pressing with the brown font on the cover. Also, the cassette of Meet The Beatles stayed in print until at least 1995. I was working in a record store at the time and the cassette remained a steady seller.

An absolute milestone in my life as an adolescent, I was fourteen years of age and nothing would ever be the same again!!!!!

Another great video, thanks Andrew!

Great video! This album was introduced to me by my older sisters in 1964 (I'm three years older than this LP!) so it has a special place in my heart. I found out a few new bits of information that I didn't know before, thank you for doing this.

Brilliant as always ... thank you, Andrew!

As always great content.. new info and insight to the FAB FOUR

I grew up with the UK releases. But I’m not one to dismiss the US albums. To me they are novel and a great way to listen to the songs we love in a different context. Reverb included.

1:04-1:19! It’s little stuff like this that I love about this channel, archived record production footage that I never thought I’d see

This album was a masterpiece! Great video, thanks for sharing.

My aunt gave me a copy of this album for my 12th birthday which was near the end of 1969. I knew the Beatles from their cartoons, which I was a fan of, but this was the first record in my collection. I loved it and I still think it is better than With the Beatles.

Our family had an original of this album. So old that “phenomenal pop combo” seem like cool and cutting edge lingo.

Found a mono somewhere in NM, one of my favorite finds.

Great Video Andrew! I have 1978 repressing of Meet The Beatles on the purple Captiol label. Form Mono I have the 1964 rainbow Captiol I was a 2nd generation Beatles fan 1974 but as a kid everyone I knew loved the Beatles!!