The UK release
A Hard Day's Night was released in the United Kingdom on 10 July 1964, as Parlophone PMC 1230 (mono) and PCS 3058 (stereo). It was also available on 4" reel-to-reel tape, in mono only, as TA-PMC 1230.
The album was first released on compact disc on 26 February 1987, along with Please Please Me, With The Beatles and Beatles For Sale.
Although it was The Beatles' first album to be recorded entirely on four-track machines, offering greater flexibility for stereo separation between instruments and vocals, until 2009 the compact disc version was available only in mono. The remastered version released on 9 September 2009 was the album's first stereo appearance on CD.
Several of the songs were issued in stereo as part of the 2004 box set The Capitol Albums Vol 1, on the album Something New, and three of the songs - A Hard Day's Night, Can't Buy Me Love and And I Love Her - appeared in stereo on the 1962-1966 compilation.
The US edition
In the United States, A Hard Day's Night was released on 26 June 1964, two weeks before its UK release. As the distributors of the movie, United Artists owned the rights to the soundtrack. It was issued as United Artists UA 6366 (mono) and UAS 6366 (stereo) with different artwork, although once again the photography was by Robert Freeman.
United Artists had discovered in autumn 1963 that EMI had failed to cover film soundtracks in the contract with The Beatles. Despite The Beatles not having become popular in America at the time, the company realised they could capitalise on their phenomenal fame in Britain, and negotiated the rights to make a feature film about the group. Producer Walter Shenson's brief from UA was simple: "We need a film for the express purpose of getting a soundtrack album," he was told. "Just make sure there are enough new songs for a soundtrack album and don't go over budget."
As with most of The Beatles' US releases, the tracklisting was different from the UK version: it contained just the songs featured in the film, with four orchestral pieces performed by The George Martin Orchestra. The non-film songs included on the UK version were eventually released on the Capitol LP Something New in July 1964.
The tracklisting for the a-side of the US version of A Hard Day's Night was: A Hard Day's Night, Tell Me Why, I'll Cry Instead, I Should Have Known Better (orchestral instrumental), I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, And I Love Her (orchestral instrumental). The b-side contained I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, And I Love Her, Ringo's Theme (This Boy) (orchestral instrumental), Can't Buy Me Love and A Hard Day's Night (orchestral instrumental).
Although it was written for the film, I'll Cry Instead was dropped at the last minute, although the song appeared nonetheless on the US soundtrack. There were also misspellings on some of the label pressings, with Tell Me Why renamed as Tell Me Who, and I'll Cry Instead becoming I Cry Instead.
Chart success
A Hard Day's Night had advance orders of over 250,000 in the United Kingdom. By the end of 1964 A Hard Day's Night sold 600,000 copies. It spent 21 consecutive weeks at number one in the UK from 25 July 1964, and remained in the charts for 38 weeks.
More than a million advance orders were placed in the United States before its release. Within three months it had sold another million copies, making it one of the fastest-selling albums of all time. It topped the US Billboard album chart for 14 weeks, the longest run for any album that year.
The Beatles made chart history in the week of 5 August 1964, by topping the US and UK single and album charts simultaneously with releases all titled A Hard Day's Night. This is the only time such a feat has occurred.
Related articles:
- US LP release: A Hard Day's Night
- Mixing: A Hard Day's Night, Things We Said Today
- Mixing: A Hard Day's Night
- Mixing: I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, Tell Me Why, And I Love Her, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, I Call Your Name
- UK single and LP release: A Hard Day's Night
This was the first of the remasters that I purchased as I had yet to hear most of the songs in stereo.
The remaster did not disappoint. This is clearly the best of their pre-Rubber Soul albums. And not just because it's all originals and no covers, but in spite of that fact. The Beatles weren't exactly going through the motions when they did covers but most of the material on this album was as good or better than any cover version they had recorded to date...
Quite a thrill finally hearing that opening chord in stereo for the first time!
haha john keeps on hogging the writing, being credited for all songs except two
Interesting that their only (pre-Pepper) album without a Ringo spotlight is also their only LP with 13 songs instead of 14. Maybe they eventually decided against including Ringo's "Matchbox" cover for the sake of preserving the all-original Lennon-McCartney purity?
They probably dropped matchbox to keep it all original
However the day Ringo got tonsillitis they were going to record a fourteeth track
Wow, I didn't know that! Too bad they hadn't recorded "Matchbox" a year earlier: If so, then they could've used it on WTB in place of "I Wanna Be Your Man"; and reserved THAT one for AHDN. Result = 14 MacLen originals, including one each for George & Ringo. Or, hmmm, maybe they could've taken "I Call Your Name" from the 4-song "Long Tall Sally" EP and added the two German songs in its place, thereby turning a 4-song EP and 13-song album into a 5-song EP and 14-song album - albeit one without a Ringo vocal...
UNLESS...John relinquished "I'll Cry Instead" for Ringo to sing, which I'm sure he would've done quite nicely! It's got that C&W/rockabilly feel, and of course that was Ringo's specialty.
Yeah, I'd say you're right.
John really wanted this to be totally original.
This album proved that they didn't need the covers that filled in the first two efforts. Also, it shows the competitive nature of Lennon & McCartney with each other to top the other's effort, with "A Hard Day's Night" being put out to no doubt match what Paul had did just before it with "Cant Buy Me Love".
However, the album as a whole is John at his best across an entire Beatle album. "If I Fell" is one of his strongest efforts & "You Can't Do That" could have easily been another #1 if released as a single. Add in "Ill Be Back" and you have John's voice & songwriting flow at it's very best in his pure rock singer phase of the early Beatle work.
This is John's album. Sgt pepper is Paul's
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that one, Liam. On AHDN, Lennon sang lead vocals on 9 of the 13 tracks. On Pepper, Lennon sings lead or has a major vocal contribution to 7 of the 13 songs, Paul 8. The two best songs on the album (arguably, of course) are Lennon's: "Lucy..." and "A Day in the life." Hence, Lennon is all over Pepper, even on Paul's songs: superb vocals on "Sgt. Pepper," co-writer of "With a Little Help," middle-eight of Getting Better, co-writer and beautiful vocals on "She's leaving home." Given that, it might be somewhat accurate to call AHDN
John's but Pepper is definitely not `Paul's.' AHDH is a great album.