Something New--A Record Company Defiles Artistic Freedom

Something New was an album by The Beatles released by Capitol Records in a blatant (and successful) effort to generate profits. I had really forgotten all about this album until a couple of days ago when I discovered my old original acetate version stored in a box in my attic, but after reading the liner notes (which were pretty few in 1964), all my memories about this album came flooding back to me. In 1964, I can recall eagerly awaiting every new release by The Beatles, and at the time, I was too unsophisticated to really see the difference in the British releases and the American releases. I've since learned the difference, and believe me when I say that the British releases are superior and much more in keeping with what The Beatles were trying to accomplish as a band.

The British releases were the albums that The Beatles recorded where they had total artistic freedom. The American releases were simply albums put together by the record company--songs from two or three different albums, singles, instrumentals and even songs sung in German made up the American albums. There was no real structure--the order of the songs that The Beatles envisioned for their British releases were completely thrown to the wind by the record company. For example, on the album A Hard Day's Night the ear yearns for Tell Me Why after Paul's beautiful ballad, And I Love Her, much like the listener expects I'm Happy Just To Dance With You after the restrained elegance of If I Fell. To me, these songs, thrown together haphazardly on Something New, represent the worst side of record companies--making profits at the expense of artistic freedom.

But that's not to say that Something New is not an interesting collection of songs--after all, it's The Beatles we're talking about here. Most of these tunes come off of A Hard Day's Night, one of my favorite albums, and there are also some curious diversions here that tell you a lot about the greatest rock 'n roll band of all time.

The Beatles pay tribute to the old masters--their cover of Carl Perkins' Matchbox features a non-assuming, self-deprecating Ringo Starr on lead vocals, while John Lennon emulates one of his idols from the 1950's by covering Slowdown, by the manic Larry Williams. If I Fell features lovely two part harmonies that make it almost impossible to determine which one is the melody, and And I Love Her is Paul's moody ballad that allows George Harrison to show off his classical guitar skills.

I'll Cry Instead is an acoustic rockabilly tune that has blues overtones, and Tell Me Why makes an energetic statement with Lennon's choppy rhythm guitar and the taunting background vocals. When I Get Home is simply rollicking good fun, and it belies the urgency and insecurities expressed by Lennon in Anytime At All. George Harrison sings the painfully adolescent I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, and Paul McCartney show his flair for melodic folk music with Things We Said Today. The lowlight (not highlight!) of this collection is Komm, Gib Mir Diene Hand, which is I Want To Hold Your Hand in German--that's okay for those of you who speak German, but I couldn't understand a single word of it. The Beatles had a huge following in Germany from their Hamburg days, so I can understand why they recorded this song, and a few others, in the German language.

Should you buy this album? That depends--if you've got all of the British releases by The Beatles, I think you have all these tunes, maybe with the exception of the German language song. While all of the music on Something New is good, the album lacks the "feel" of a British release, where the songs seem to fit in a logical progression.

But it's still The Beatles.

Thanks for reading.