Hey Jude | ||||
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Compilation album by | ||||
Released | 26 February 1970 | |||
Recorded | 1964–1969 | |||
Studio | ||||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 33:17 | |||
Label | Apple | |||
Producer | George Martin | |||
The Beatles North American chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Christgau's Record Guide | A [2] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
The Rolling Stone Record Guide | [4] |
Hey Jude (original title: The Beatles Again) is a 1970 collection of non-album singles and B-sides by the Beatles. [5] Originally released in the United States and various other markets, but not in the United Kingdom, it consists of non-album singles and B-sides not previously issued on an American Beatles LP; this includes "I Should Have Known Better" and "Can't Buy Me Love", two singles released by Capitol Records whose only previous American album appearance had been on the A Hard Day's Night soundtrack album, which had been released by United Artists Records. The Hey Jude LP has been out of print since the late 1980s, although it remained available on cassette during the 1990s. The album was issued on CD for the first time in 2014, as an individual release and in a box set titled The U.S. Albums . It is named after the Beatles' longest-running No. 1 single "Hey Jude", itself the seventh track of the compilation.
The Hey Jude album was conceived by Allen Klein and Apple Records. Klein had negotiated a more lucrative contract for the Beatles with Capitol Records in 1969 which required one compilation album per year. [6] He directed Allan Steckler of ABKCO/Apple to work on one. Steckler chose songs that had not appeared on a Capitol album in the United States and that spanned the group's career. He also focused more on recent singles than on earlier material. The absence of the songs from a US Capitol album was partially due to the Beatles' unwillingness to include single releases on their contemporaneous albums. This was a consequence of their arrangement with United Artists in 1964 and due to the habit of Capitol Records of recompiling the Beatles' British releases for local markets until 1967. Steckler chose not to include the original Parlophone single version of "Love Me Do"; "A Hard Day's Night", which had been released as a single by Capitol and was available on the United Artists soundtrack album; "I'm Down", which was the B-side of "Help!"; and "The Inner Light", the B-side of "Lady Madonna". He also overlooked "From Me to You", "Misery", and "There's a Place", which were first issued in the US by Vee Jay Records but had not yet been issued on a Capitol album. "Sie Liebt Dich", a German-language version of "She Loves You", and the single version of "Get Back" were also passed over. (The single version of "Let It Be" and its B-side, "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", had yet to be released.)
Steckler and Apple had become disappointed with the Capitol Records release schedules and determined to promote the new album themselves. Steckler also took the tapes to Sam Feldman at Bell Sound Studios for mastering, rather than delivering them to Capitol. He would do this for several releases thereafter.
Originally, the album was to be called The Beatles Again. [7] Shortly before the record was released, however, the title was changed to Hey Jude in order to promote the inclusion of the top-selling song that led off side two. The title change occurred after the record labels were printed, and an untold number of copies of the LP were sold with labels with the title The Beatles Again. This was also true for cassette copies of the album, which retained the original title. Neither the front nor the back of the album jacket displayed the record's title (or the name of the band), but most copies were sold in a jacket whose spine read Hey Jude. In an attempt to clear up any confusion caused by the pre-printed labels, initial copies of the album displayed a sticker on the cover bearing the title Hey Jude. The edition of the album with "The Beatles Again" label bore catalogue number SO-385 on the label but not on the jacket. This is because of a similarly timed decision to reduce the price from $6.98 (SO- prefix) to $5.98 (SW- prefix). The record jacket was prepared late enough so that it lists the catalogue number as SW-385. The SW-385 catalogue number appears on the label of later pressings that bear the title Hey Jude on the label.
Klein authorized the release of the album as a sales buffer during post-production of the delayed Let It Be album. In 2007 Neil Aspinall claimed that the back cover was supposed to be the front cover and vice versa but that Klein had reversed them in error. [8] However, at least three prototype cover designs are known to exist, with the earliest of those showing the photos "reversed": John Kosh seemingly made the determination that the photo that now appears on the front cover was better suited for that purpose. The front and back cover pictures were taken at the last-ever Beatles photo session, on 22 August 1969, at John Lennon's home Tittenhurst Park by Ethan Russell.
The compilation was released in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela and most of South America. It was also available to other countries as an "export" from Britain (Parlophone/Apple CPCS-106) but was not at first issued in Britain, although it was a popular import to the UK. The first issue in New Zealand was on the gloss black Apple label with the catalogue number CPCS-106. The matrix numbers were identical to those on the UK "export" issue. Because of its popularity worldwide, EMI issued Hey Jude in Britain on the Parlophone label on 11 May 1979 (catalogue number PCS 7184). Until the release of 1967–1970 in 1973, Hey Jude was the only way to own the extremely popular "Hey Jude" single on LP or in a stereo mix. The songs "Rain", "Lady Madonna" and "Revolution" were also first mixed for stereo specifically for this album. Prior to the release of the "Get Back" single in the spring of 1969, all Beatles singles were issued in mono in the US. Several other countries adopted the original The Beatles Again title. Of these, the Spanish release omitted "The Ballad of John and Yoko", due to that song having been deemed offensive. (In addition to making repeated mention of Christ and crucifixion, the lyrics contain the line "Gibraltar near Spain" at a time when Spain's Franco administration was contending with the UK over the ownership of Gibraltar.)
On the reel-to-reel and cassette tape releases, sides one and two are reversed. Although it is clear on the vinyl version that "Hey Jude" opens side two, when compiling this issue for audio tape, some compilers (at Capitol and Ampex) thought to make the change, which resulted in "Hey Jude" leading off the album. This was done because side two was the longer side, and it was the practice in some tape formats to lead the album with the longer side to avoid a large gap in the "middle" of the tape. The four-track tape cartridge, prepared by Ampex along with the reel-to-reel tape, has the songs in the original, chronological order. (The eight-track tape was treated to the usual re-ordering that eight-tracks received.)
The Compact Disc era saw the standardization of the Beatles' discographies worldwide, and for many years the Hey Jude compilation was not available in the CD format. Although no longer in print on LP, the Hey Jude album was still available on cassette tape until the 1990s. In January 2014, Hey Jude was issued on CD both individually and in an American Beatles album compilation box set titled The U.S. Albums . [9]
All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.
No. | Title | Lead vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Can't Buy Me Love" (single, 1964; later included on A Hard Day's Night , 1964) | McCartney | 2:19 |
2. | "I Should Have Known Better" (from A Hard Day's Night , 1964; B-side, 1964) | Lennon | 2:44 |
3. | "Paperback Writer" (non-album single, 1966) | McCartney | 2:19 |
4. | "Rain" (B-side, 1966) | Lennon | 3:02 |
5. | "Lady Madonna" (non-album single, 1968) | McCartney | 2:19 |
6. | "Revolution" (B-side, 1968) | Lennon | 3:25 |
Total length: | 16:08 |
No. | Title | Lead vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|
7. | "Hey Jude" (non-album single, 1968) | McCartney | 7:10 |
8. | "Old Brown Shoe" (George Harrison; B-side, 1969) | Harrison | 3:21 |
9. | "Don't Let Me Down" (B-side, 1969) | Lennon | 3:36 |
10. | "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (non-album single, 1969) | Lennon | 3:02 |
Total length: | 17:09 |
The Beatles
Additional musicians
In the US, the album sold 2,321,769 copies by 31 December 1970 and 3,264,398 copies by the end of the decade. [10]
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Italy (FIMI) [16] sales since 2009 | Gold | 25,000‡ |
Canada (Music Canada) [17] | 4× Platinum | 400,000^ |
United States (RIAA) [18] | 3× Platinum | 3,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Please Please Me is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Produced by George Martin, it was released in the UK on EMI's Parlophone label on 22 March 1963. The album is 14 songs in length, and contains a mixture of cover songs and original material written by the partnership of band members John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964 by Parlophone, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film of the same name. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing that included selections from George Martin's film score. In contrast to the Beatles' first two albums, all 13 tracks on A Hard Day's Night were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, showcasing the development of their songwriting partnership.
"Hey Jude" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in August 1968. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The single was the Beatles' first release on their Apple record label and one of the "First Four" singles by Apple's roster of artists, marking the label's public launch. "Hey Jude" was a number-one hit in many countries around the world and became the year's top-selling single in the UK, the US, Australia and Canada. Its nine-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 tied the all-time record in 1968 for the longest run at the top of the US charts, a record it held for nine years. It has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on music critics' lists of the greatest songs of all time.
The Beatles' bootleg recordings are recordings of performances by the Beatles that have attained some level of public circulation without being available as a legal release. The term most often refers to audio recordings, but also includes video performances. Starting with vinyl releases in the 1970s, through CD issues in the late 1980s, and continuing with digital downloads starting in the mid 1990s, the Beatles have been, and continue to be, among the most bootlegged artists.
Apple Records is a British record label founded by the Beatles in 1968 as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger and Billy Preston. In practice, the roster had become dominated by the mid-1970s with releases of the former Beatles as solo artists. Allen Klein managed the label from 1969 to 1973, then it was managed by Neil Aspinall on behalf of the Beatles and their heirs. Aspinall retired in 2007 and was replaced by Jeff Jones.
Worldwide, the British rock band the Beatles released 12 studio albums, 5 live albums, 51 compilation albums, 36 extended plays (EPs), 63 singles, 17 box sets, 22 video albums and 53 music videos. In their native United Kingdom, during their active existence as a band, they released 12 studio albums, 1 compilation album, 13 EPs, and 22 singles. The early albums and singles released from 1962 to March 1968 were originally on Parlophone, and their albums and singles from August 1968 to 1970 were on their subsidiary label Apple. Their output also includes vault items, remixed mash-ups and anniversary box-sets.
This is the discography of Apple Records, a record label formed by the Beatles in 1968. During its early years, the label enjoyed a fair degree of commercial success, most notably with Mary Hopkin and Badfinger, as well as discovering acts such as James Taylor and Billy Preston who would go on to greater success with other labels. However, by the mid-1970s, Apple had become little more than an outlet for the Beatles' solo recordings. After EMI's contract with the Beatles ended in 1976, the Apple label was finally wound up. The label was reactivated in the 1990s with many of the original Apple albums being reissued on compact disc, and the company now oversees new Beatles releases such as the Anthology and 1 albums as well as the 2009 Beatles remastering programme. In 2010, Apple set about remastering and reissuing its back catalogue for a second time.
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The Early Beatles is the Beatles' sixth album released on Capitol Records, and their eighth album overall for the American market. All of the tracks on this album had previously been available on the Vee-Jay Records release Introducing... The Beatles, issued in January, 1964. The front cover photo for this album features the same back cover photo for the British LP Beatles for Sale.
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16 Greatest Hits is a compilation album by Steppenwolf, released in 1973. It features some of their most famous songs, including "Born to Be Wild", "The Pusher", and "Magic Carpet Ride", and "Hey Lawdy Mama." The album consisted of the 11 tracks from the previous Gold: Their Great Hits album, in the same order as on the two sides of that earlier album, with the addition of the final two tracks on side 1, and the final three tracks on side 2.
Stay with the Hollies, also known by its American release title Here I Go Again, is the debut album by the British rock band the Hollies and was released in January 1964 on Parlophone Records. In Canada, it was released on Capitol in July 1964, with a different track listing. In the US, Imperial Records issued the album under the title Here I Go Again in June 1964 to capitalize on the moderate success of the singles "Here I Go Again" and "Just One Look". It also features covers of well-known R&B songs, not unusual for Beat groups of the day.
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