Holiday Gift Guide Review: Captain Beefheart, “SUN ZOOM SPARK 1970 to 1972”

“Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.” So the late Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, is quoted on the cover of the fourth disc of Rhino’s new box set SUN ZOOM SPARK: 1970 to 1972. It’s appropriate and ironic that the aphorism is featured on the sleeve of that disc, a collection of never-before-heard outtakes from the Captain and his Magic Band. But the tracks are far from mistakes; instead, they offer a window onto the process with which Van Vliet created his unmistakable brand of art. In addition to that disc, SUN ZOOM SPARK presents long-overdue, beautifully-remastered versions of Beefheart’s three albums released during the titular time period: Lick My Decals Off, Baby; The Spotlight Kid; and Clear Spot. The resulting compendium is a must-have for diehard Magic fans, and a surprisingly solid introduction for the more casual fan looking for a solid place to explore Van Vliet’s discography beyond the twin cornerstones of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica.

1969’s Trout Mask, produced by Van Vliet’s lifelong frenemy and collaborator Frank Zappa, solidified his credentials as a true avant-garde pioneer with its highly experimental, frequently surreal blend of blues, free jazz, folk, rock and roll, and every other style that he could throw into a blender in pursuit of something new and something real. With Beefheart himself producing, Lick My Decals Off, Baby, recorded for Zappa’s Warner Bros.-distributed Straight label in summer 1970, continued in the avant-garde style of Trout Mask. It recalls elements of Ornette Coleman (reportedly a Beefheart inspiration), Tom Waits and of course, Zappa, but is too original to withstand many comparisons at all. Like Trout Mask, Decals was an unabashedly countercultural statement, but not in the traditional sense circa 1970. In fact, there’s nothing “traditional” at all about the record, which accounts for its out-of-time quality and ability to still confound and fascinate in equal measure. Van Vliet was unencumbered at this point by conventional notions of songcraft and determined to do it “his way,” and also managed to achieve a homemade sound despite recording the album for a major label in a major studio (Los Angeles’ United).

Regarded as one of the good Captain’s personal favorites of his recordings, the title of Decals reportedly referred to his desire to see objects for their merits rather than according to labels (or “decals”) placed upon them. For this LP featuring both instrumental and vocal tracks (most of which are quite short, with only two tracks exceeding three minutes), Beefheart – whose personal musical arsenal included clarinet, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone and chromatic harmonica – was joined by the Magic Band line-up of Bill Harkleroad on guitar, Mark Boston on bass, Art Tripp on percussion (including marimba, which adds vibrant color throughout), and John French on drums – all of whom utilized their considerable musical skills in service of Beefheart’s vision. The liner notes to this set fascinatingly detail Beefheart’s modus operandi. Onetime Magic Band member Bruce Fowler observes that “I knew too much [about music]. I was trapped in my practice. He’d pick up a sax and start wailing, and he could not play a scale or anything, so he’d just paint with the soprano.” The resulting music from Beefheart and his Magic Band often sounded improvised, but was in actuality, carefully planned and rehearsed. Though Beefheart wasn’t the trained musician Zappa was, they both pushed the boundaries of their art.

Decals shares with Trout Mask Replica a sense that the artist has rendered his vision with no compromise; its aural assault – of jagged rhythms, stuttering guitars, surreal, word-association lyrics (sometimes with an ecological bent, however hidden), growled, near-spoken vocals and clattering soundscapes – still jars today.  Some moments are more accessible here than others, if “accessible” is the right word, such as the happily goofy “I Love You, You Big Dummy” or the bizarrely catchy “Woe-is-uh-Me-Bop” and “The Smithsonian Institute Blues (or the Big Dig).” Those familiar with free jazz will likely be riveted by “Japan in a Dishpan,” or by the solo guitar piece “One Red Rose That I Mean” dazzlingly played by Harkleroad. “The Buggy Boogie Woogie” has one of Beefheart’s most vivid vocals, more like a beat-era monologue than a song with lyrics. There’s a peculiar, childlike quality to “The Clouds Are Full of Wine (Not Whiskey or Rye).” Lick My Decals Off, with its lack of conventional melodies, was – and is – doubtless a challenging record, but it set the stage for The Spotlight Kid.

Recorded at Los Angeles’ Record Plant during the summer of 1971 and issued in early 1972 on Reprise with a self-mocking cover of Van Vliet in a Nudie suit, The Spotlight Kid is the only album credited solely to Captain Beefheart rather than as a collaboration with his Magic Band. It features Harkleroad, Boston, French and Tripp, plus Elliot Ingber on guitar and drummer Rhys Clark (on one track). Produced again by Van Vliet, this time in collaboration with engineer Phil Schier, the album features slower, simpler and more fluid compositions, as Beefheart was in pursuit of a (slightly) more commercial sound. (He was “aware of the need to, um, eat,” quips Rip Rense in the SUN ZOOM SPARK liner notes.) He largely achieved it, as The Spotlight Kid isn’t as in-your-face or confrontational as Lick My Decals.

Hit the jump for much more!

Release Round-Up: Week of November 17

 

Henry Mancini, The Classic Soundtrack Collection (RCA/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The Classic Soundtrack Collection features 18 of Mancini’s most memorable soundtrack albums for RCA, Columbia and Epic Records on nine CDs, spanning the period between 1960’s High Time and 1978’s Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, and adds bonus material from vocalists including Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams and, on a previously unreleased track, Julie Andrews.

Johnny Mathis, The Global Albums Collection (Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

A Columbia artist since 1956, Johnny Mathis departed his label home just once – recording some eleven albums (ten of which were released) under the imprimatur of his own Global Records production company between 1963 and 1967, at which time he returned to Columbia. Legacy’s new  box set collects all eleven LPs plus two discs of singles and previously unissued rarities, plus a booklet containing album-by-album notes from Mathis.

 

Bruce Springsteen, The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 (Columbia/Legacy)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Amazon MP3: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Collected here in one 8-CD or vinyl LP box set for the first time in newly-remastered editions are the artist and icon’s first seven albums.

David Bowie, Nothing Has Changed (Legacy)

3 CD DELUXE EDITION (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

2 CD EDITION (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The Thin White Duke looks back on his remarkable career with Nothing Has Changed from his newest single, the previously unissued “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),” all the way back to 1964 and “Liza Jane.”

Joni Mitchell, Love Has Many Faces (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. /Amazon U.K.)

The legendary Miss Mitchell has transformed a sequence of her songs originally intended for the ballet stage into a thematically-arranged four-CD box set which doubles as a highly personal career retrospective.

Captain Beefheart, SUN ZOOM SPARK: 1970-1972 (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

This new 4-CD box set revisits three albums from Don Van Vliet and his Magic Band – Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid, and Clear Spot– in freshly remastered editions, and adds a fourth disc containing fourteen previously unreleased outtakes and alternates from Beefheart and his musical cohorts.

Wilco,What’s Your 20 and Alpha Mike Foxtrot (Nonesuch)

What’s Your 20? Essential Tracks 1994-2014 (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rarities 1994-2014:

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Nonesuch has two new collections celebrating the 20th anniversary of Chicago alt-rock band Wilco in high style!  Alpha Mike Foxtrot, a new box set (4 CDs, 4 LPs or digital), brings together rare studio and live recordings culled from the band’s archives.  What’s Your 20, the first-ever compendium of Wilco’s previously released studio recordings, is also now available on 2 CDs or digital.

Rolling Stones, From the Vault: L.A. Forum – Live in 1975 (Eagle Rock)

CD/DVD: Amazon U.S.

Vinyl: Amazon U.S.

DVD: Amazon U.S. /Amazon U.K.

DVD + 3-LP: Amazon U.K.

The Stones continue to bring their digital archive to physical media with this campaign of releases dedicated to the band’s 1975 L.A. Forum show!

Peter Paul and Mary, Discovered: Live in Concert (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

This new release is drawn from the archive of the beloved trio and features 13 songs never before released on a PP&M album. Only one track has been previously issued: “Mi Caballo Blanco,” which was included on the 2004 box set Carry It On.

King Crimson, Elements of King Crimson (DGM) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

This new limited edition box from the prog legends houses a 24-page “tour booklet” and two CDs of extracts, elements from studio recordings, alternate takes, live tracks, rehearsals & finished recordings from 1969-2014 – many of which are previously unreleased on CD.

Jimmy Somerville, Bronski Beat and the Communards, Dance and Desire: Rarities and Videos (Edsel) (Amazon U.S. TBD / Amazon U.K. )

On 2 CDs and 1 DVD, Edsel compiles rare remixes, B-sides, and 24 promo videos for Jimmy Somerville, Bronski Beat and the Communards!

Old 97s, Hitchhike to Rhone (Omnivore)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 

Omnivore’s new 2-CD version of Old 97’s’ 1994 debut  Hitchhike To Rhome contains the original landmark alt-country album, plus a second disc of 12 rare and unreleased tracks, many mixed from the original multi-tracks for the first time by longtime Old 97’s engineer Rip Rowan. The double LP (limited edition first pressing on translucent orange vinyl) features the LP on 3 sides with 6 of the bonus tracks on the 4th. The download card included has the complete 2-CD program. Both formats include rare photos, memorabilia and new liner notes!

 

Various Artists, The Art of McCartney (Kobalt)

2-CD: Amazon U.S.  / Amazon U.K.

2-CD/1-DVD: Amazon U.S.  / Amazon U.K.

3-LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Jeff Lynne, Brian Wilson, Cat Stevens, Harry Connick Jr. and Barry Gibb are just a few of the artists who have assembled to celebrate the music of Paul McCartney on this new 2-CD collection.  Amazon U.S. and U.K. have two exclusive editions with bonus material on CD and DVD.

Rhino Makes Magic: New Box Set Features Remastered and Expanded Albums From Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

On November 11, Rhino Records will celebrate the music of avant-garde iconoclast Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, with a new four-CD box set.  SUN ZOOM SPARK: 1970 to1972 focuses on the period following the release of his career-defining 1969 album Trout Mask Replica.  During that creatively fertile patch, Beefheart released three albums that have long lingered in the shadow of Trout Mask and even of Beefheart’s Richard Perry-produced debut Safe as Milk.  SUN ZOOM SPARK revisits these three albums – Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid, and Clear Spot– in freshly remastered editions, and adds a fourth disc containing fourteen previously unreleased outtakes and alternates from Beefheart and his Magic Band cohorts.  The limited edition box set will be available in CD, vinyl and digital formats.

Recorded in summer 1970 for frequent Beefheart collaborator and sparring partner Frank Zappa’s Straight label in summer 1970, Lick My Decals Off, Baby was released later that year.  Regarded as one of the good Captain’s personal favorites of his recordings, the title referred to his desire to see objects for their merits rather than according to labels (or “decals”) placed upon them.  Beefheart was joined by Bill Harkleroad on guitar, Mark Boston on bass, Art Tripp on percussion, and John French on drums.  Decals continued on Beefheart’s experimental path fusing psychedelia, blues, rock and jazz-style freeform improvisation.

Decals was followed by The Spotlight Kid, which was recorded at Los Angeles’ Record Plant during the summer of 1971 and issued in early 1972 on Reprise. The only album credited solely to Captain Beefheart rather than with his Magic Band, it features Harkleroad, Boston, French and Tripp, plus Elliot Ingber on guitar and drummer Rhys Clark (on one track).  Produced again by Van Vliet, this time in collaboration with Phil Schier, the album featured slower, simpler compositions, perhaps in pursuit of a (slightly) more commercial blues-rock sound.

The third album in this collection, Clear Spot, was recorded in summer 1972 and released that autumn.  Produced by Van Vliet with Ted Templeman (Harpers Bizarre, The Doobie Brothers), Clear Spot might have been his most accessible album yet with succinct and even somewhat conventional tracks including love songs (to a fashion), soulful ballads and driving rock and roll.  Harkleroad, Boston and Tripp all played on the album along with onetime Mother of Invention and Little Feat founding member Roy Estrada.

The fourth and final disc in SUN ZOOM SPARK premieres 14 previously unreleased tracks drawn from the sessions for The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot.   It traces the evolution of the recordings, with the press release noting among the highlights a sung version of “I Can’t Do This Unless I Can Do This/Seam Crooked Sam,” which became a spoken-word performance on 1978’s Bat Chain Puller; an early version of “Dirty Blue Gene” that pointed the way to the final version on 1980’s Doc at the Radar Station; and an embryonic instrumental rehearsal of “The Witch Doctor Life,” completed for 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow.

After the jump, check out pre-order links and the complete track listing for all of the magic you’ll find on SUN ZOOM SPARK!

Release Round-Up: Week of September 24

Nirvana, In Utero: 20th Anniversary Edition (DGC/UMe)

The grunge icon’s final album is greatly expanded in numerous formats for its two-decade mark, with B-sides, a new mix of the album and the band’s Live and Loud concert feature from MTV on CD and DVD. Check the post above to figure out which one suits you best!

1CD Standard remaster: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
1CD Expanded remaster: Target (U.S.)
2CD Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
3CD/1DVD Super Deluxe Box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Live and Loud DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The Waitresses, Just Desserts: The Complete Waitresses (Omnivore)

We know what boys (and girls) like: two discs of the Akron, Ohio-based rock band, including both their LPs for Polydor and nine non-LP bonus tracks. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Virgin/UMe)

The singer/songwriter/guitarist’s third hit album is expanded as a double-disc set with B-sides and unreleased demos. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Safe as Milk: Mono Edition / The Mamas and the Papas, The Mamas and the Papas: Mono Edition / Deliver: Stereo Edition (Sundazed)

Sundazed releases these new masters of The Mamas and The Papas’ second and third albums, along with Captain Beefheart’s debut, on CD and vinyl for the first time in years.

Safe As Milk: Amazon U.S. – LP / CD; Amazon U.K. – LP / CD
The Mamas and The Papas: Amazon U.S. – LP / CD; Amazon U.K. – LP / CD
Deliver: Amazon U.S. – LP / CD; Amazon U.K. – LP / CD

The Band, The Last Waltz (Warner Bros./Rhino) / Various Artists, Woodstock: 40 Years On (Atlantic/Rhino)

These two Rhino box sets, originally released in 2002 and 2009, respectively, get reissued as budget-packaged editions in smaller boxes.

The Last Waltz: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Woodstock: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Black Friday 2012: Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa Lead Off Packed Slate of RSD Exclusives

Here in the U. S. of A., Black Friday is almost upon us: that unusual date following the prior day of giving thanks, in which consumers make a mad dash to the local big-box store, mall or shopping center to procure bargains for the holiday season ahead.  Retailers are controversially beginning Black Friday “festivities” even earlier than usual this year, with many sales starting on Thanksgiving Day itself and not even at midnight but in the early part of the evening.  For a number of recent years, music buyers have had our own Black Friday, that day in April known as Record Store Day in which the aisles of our independent retailers are filled with hunters of collectible vinyl and CD releases.  Record Store Day has in the past sponsored a mini-RSD event on Black Friday, but this year, the titles on offer are as enticing and nearly as plentiful as those on the main RSD itself.  For some, this will be a source of frustration, for others, excitement.

This year’s line-up for Record Store Day – Black Friday brings titles from some of the biggest names in rock including The Beach Boys, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Nirvana, plus cult favorites like Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood and Frank Zappa, and country-and-western legends such as Wanda Jackson and Buck Owens.

After the jump and without further ado, we’ll fill you in on the crème of the reissued crop come this Black Friday!  Just click for your full list of the catalogue releases to watch!

A Whole Lot Better: Sundazed Announces Singles Slate for Record Store Day

Sundazed Records, one of our favorite independent catalogue labels, has announced their exclusive titles for Record Store Day.

This year, the label has prepped some killer cuts from some of the best ’60s folk and garage-rock ensembles – including a few rare tracks making vinyl debuts and even some unreleased treasures.

The late, great Gene Clark is the standout artist in the batch, with a three appearances on Record Store Day – one with Doug Dillard (in which two non-LP A-sides are released on one vinyl platter) and two with The Byrds (a single with two alternate takes from the Mr. Tambourine Man sessions, and one, credited as a solo single, featuring two tracks cut with the band in 1970 before the band officially reunited three years later.)

Elsewhere, outtakes and rarities from Paul Revere & The Raiders, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Blues Magoos, Chocolate Watch Band and The Blues Project make appearances on vinyl singles.

In true collectible fashion, each single features a period-accurate label (from A&M, Verve Folkways, Tower and Columbia Records). Additionally, the Byrds and Raiders singles will be colored vinyl releases.

Hit the jump to check out the Sundazed slate, and as always, keep it here for more Record Store Day news!

Release Round-Up: Week of February 14

Barry White, Let the Music Play: Expanded Edition (Hip-o Select/Mercury)

What’s Valentine’s Day without a little satin soul? Numerous bonus tracks abound on a new pressing of this underrated gem of an album.

Captain Beefheart, Bat Chain Puller (Zappa)

The original, intended edition of the Captain’s lost album.

Cotton Mather, Kontiki: Deluxe Edition (The Star Apple Kingdom)

An underrated work of ’90s power-pop, expanded with a bonus disc of rarities and unreleased materials that was funded entirely through Kickstarter!

Pulp, It / Freaks / Separations: Deluxe Editions (Fire)

Before they signed to Island and caught a Britpop wave, Jarvis Cocker and company released these three albums, all newly expanded with rare and unreleased tracks.

Bryan Adams, Cuts Like a Knife / Dio, Holy Diver (Audio Fidelity)

Two classics of the ’80s newly mastered on 24KT gold CDs.

Phoebe Snow, Phoebe Snow / Joe Walsh, But Seriously, Folks… (Friday Music)

The latest audiophile vinyl offerings from our friends at Friday Music.

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds (Mobile Fidelity)

The first MoFi/SACD pressing of a most classic of albums.

Not Pulling Your Chain: Captain Beefheart’s Unreleased “Bat Chain Puller” Coming From Zappa Records

Though Frank Zappa had much to say as a musician and a social commentator throughout his lifetime, the keepers of the flame over at Zappa.com are a little more understated.  But the team led by Zappa’s widow, Gail, continues to offer a number of exciting projects relating to the Zappa legacy.  One of the most unusual is on the way: the first-ever release of avant-garde wizard Captain Beefheart’s original Bat Chain Puller.  A lost 1976 album produced by Zappa, portions were re-recorded in later years, but the original LP has never materialized, until now.  Accepting pre-orders for the CD to arrive the week of January 15, the official Zappa store only says this, in typically succinct fashion: “Here’s to the Good Captain.  We rest our case.”  For those who’d like the case stated just a little bit more, though, read on.

The album entitled Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was the tenth and third-to-last studio album of Captain Beefheart (a.k.a. Don Van Vliet) and the Magic Band, released in 1978 on the Warner Bros. label.  But that effort (lauded by Ned Raggett of Allmusic.com as “manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way [on the albums that preceded it]”) wasn’t the album originally intended to bear the Bat Chain Puller name.

The original circa-1976 album was recorded by Beefheart with the 1975 touring Magic Band line-up, minus Elliot Ingber and Bruce Fowler: John French (drums), John Thomas (keyboards), Moris Tepper (guitar) and Denny Walley (guitar).  Intended for Frank Zappa’s Warner-distributed DiscReet label in the U.S., a rough mix was provided to Virgin Records’ U.K. offices, reportedly to solicit interest in the album for release abroad.  When a legal conflict between album producer (and on-again, off-again Beefheart associate) Zappa and his controversial manager Herb Cohen reached boiling point, Beefheart’s tapes got lost in the shuffle.  The Captain retooled and re-recorded some of the tracks for the 1978 Shiny Beast, and indeed, for his next two albums.  But the Shiny Beast re-recordings utilized a different band, and were produced by Captain Beefheart with Pete Johnson.  The original Zappa-produced recordings became much-bootlegged, thanks to the leak of the early mix.  At least five unique bootleg versions of the LP are catalogued at the Captain Beefheart Radar Station.

Tracks from the original Bat Chain Puller on Shiny Beast include “The Floppy Boot Stomp”, “Harry Irene”, “Bat Chain Puller”, “Owed t’Alex” and “Apes-Ma.”  1980’s Doc at the Radar Station offered “A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond”, “Brickbats” and “Flavor Bud Living,” while Beefheart’s 1982 swansong Ice Cream for Crow presented “’81’ Poop Hatch” and “The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole.”  At least three songs possibly planned for the original LP, “Seam Crooked Sam,” “Odd Jobs,” and “Hobo-Ism,” hadn’t been released in any form in Beefheart’s lifetime.

Hit the jump for more, including the track listing and pre-order link!

The Second Disc Buyers Guide: The 100 Greatest Reissues of All Time, Part 9 (#60-55)

We’re nearing the halfway point of our list of all the reissues of Rolling Stone‘s list of the 100 greatest albums of all time. How many do you have? What are your favorites? Which ones need reissues? Don’t be afraid to sound off! Today’s installment has a few of my own favorite albums, and all-around classics to boot.

60. Sly & The Family Stone, Greatest Hits (Epic, 1970)

Including tracks from Dance to the Music, Life and Stand! – three excellent ’60s funk albums – was impressive enough. But Sly and The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits added not one, not two, but three extra tracks, taken from singles in the summer of ’69, that were every bit as good as every single they’d released before. “Hot Fun in the Summertime” was a No. 2 pop hit and one of the season’s best feel-good grooves. But the highlight of the new material was easily the chart-topping double A-side “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Everybody is a Star,” the former of which included a sound that had rarely been heard in pop music: the slap bass. Pioneered by both Graham and bassist Louis Johnson, this percussive style of playing the bass guitar – with the middle of the thumb striking the strings and the other fingers plucking them hard – became a cornerstone of the burgeoning funk style of music that Sly & The Family Stone were pioneering.

Though there were no bonus cuts on either the original CD release of the compilation (Epic EK 30325, 1990) or its Vic Anesini-remastered edition in 2007 (Epic/Legacy 82876 75910-2),  there was likely meant to have been. Legacy: Music for the Next Generation, a 1990 promotional CD heralding the start of the Legacy label, featured a version of “Thank You” that was a good minute-and-a-half longer than the original version. It’s also worth pointing out that CD versions of Greatest Hits mark the first time any of the three new tracks were heard in true stereo; LP copies used fake stereo versions rechanneled from the original mono single versions. There was, however, two quadraphonic mixes of the album (a commercially released one and an earlier test mix) that remain unreleased on CD…

59. The Beatles, Meet The Beatles! (Capitol, 1964)

Meet The Beatles! is hailed on the sleeve as “the first album by England’s phenomenal pop combo.” And while that isn’t technically true on either side of the Atlantic (Parlophone debut Please Please Me came out in England in March 1963, ten months before Meet hit the U.S., and the troubled Vee-Jay label released a cut-down version of that disc, Introducing…The Beatles, ten days before Meet), this 12-track, 27-minute disc was indeed, for many, the first opportunity to hear John, Paul, George and Ringo in the studio.

Culled from the sessions that yielded Please Please Me and follow-up With The Beatles (with which this album shared a striking front cover), Meet is certainly an intriguing album by virtue of its focus almost entirely on Lennon-McCartney compositions, rather than the mix of originals and rock and R&B covers from the first two British albums. While that’s sort of betraying the understanding of the band’s roots you get with the “official” albums, it’s hard to argue with the greatness on display here.

Meet The Beatles!, along with all the major American albums prior to 1966’s Revolver (the first album where the band’s Stateside output was more or less parallel with what Parlophone was putting out in the U.K.), was roundly ignored on CD for nearly two decades after The Fab Four made their debut on compact disc in 1987. (The equivalent worldwide albums, Please Please Me and With The Beatles, were released on CD in mono only at the time.) It wasn’t until 2004 – a good five years before the exalted release of Beatles remasters across the globe – that the release of The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 (Apple/Capitol CDP 72438 66878 2 1) gave new and old fans a chance to experience those American LPs on compact disc. The four-disc set featured Meet The Beatles, The Beatles’ Second Album, Something New and Beatles ’65 in both mono and stereo, marking the first time songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “All My Loving” were heard on CD through two channels. Between this box and its 2006 sequel, audiences had a decent placeholder until the big catalogue guns came out in 2009. (The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 exists in two editions on CD. The other, Apple/Capitol CDP 72438 75656 2 3, is packaged as a standard-sized “brick” rather than in a longbox.)

Things get strange and soulful after the jump!