This is probably the album that shaped me the most, above all others.I've always been entranced by the vocal sounds on the title track (possibly my favorite song by The Beatles). How could you NOT be amazed by every sonic nuance of this song?
I spent the majority of my teenage years indulging my "faster, louder, more complex = better" musical tastes. Prog rock and instrumental guitar virtuosos were almost all I was subjecting myself to.
My junior year in high school, I began swapping album recommendations with a friend in my Advertising Design class, (Headless Phil - still a great friend of mine) and when I threw the newest Dream Theater release into the ring, he would counter with... Beatles albums?! But this isn't impressive, is it? Everybody's heard The Beatles. It's Oldies... it's simple... easy... basic... and... wait a minute... freaking brilliant.
Many of Phil's introductions are still faves of mine (Harry Nilsson, Blur's Parklife & The Great Escape albums, Marion), though I don't think it went both ways. It's a safe bet he doesn't have any Galactic Cowboys or Dream Theater albums littering his illustrious collection.
At some point after hearing "I am the Walrus", I started falling in love. I bought the double-disk "red" CD collection of Beatles hits and completely rebooted my musical direction. It didn't take long for me to become somewhat of a fanatic.
Not long after, I was recording some demos with my great friend/engineer/drummer Mark Keefer. At the end of our sessions, we met up at a local burger joint in Tulsa and he gave me this CD, knowing I was interested to hear a proper full Beatles "album".
I plugged it in on my drive home and when "The Night Before" came on, I lost it. This was the coolest thing I had heard in as long as I could remember. I played that track over and over for hours, driving nowhere, just listening to this work of art.
Even though many of the songs on this disk were major singles, I was astounded at how solid each song is. This CD was still on repeat in my player months later. Also adding to my fervor over this album were my circumstances at the time. I had just gone through a heart-wrenching relationship fiasco and every single track on Help! seemed to directly apply to some situation or feeling I was experiencing as a result.
Due to my aforementioned prog-addiction, it was a little difficult to get past the poor timing of George's guitar volume-pedal on "I Need You", but the strength of the songs lifted me past the production and engineering shortcomings (not yet knowing what innovators they were in this department or the limited resources they had to work with). If they released it today, it would probably be labeled as "alt-country" or something, but in my mind it's one of the best rock albums ever made.
The drum part on "Ticket to Ride" is absolute genius, "Act Naturally" is one of the most fun songs ever recorded, "You Like Me Too Much" is one of George's best, "Yesterday" is a classic heartbreaker, and if "The Night Before" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" don't get your pulse racing, you are DEAD.
Don't have it yet?
Buy it here:
