The Beatles made their first impressions on the world by releasing albums about every other day. It can be a bit confusing to track their early progress.
“Meet the Beatles” was released on January 20, 1964. It was their second album after “Introducing the Beatles”, which released just ten days earlier! (I would have thought being “introduced” would be enough. But no, we apparently had to “meet” as well.) “Introducing” was on VeeJay records, “Meet” was their first of a long line of Capitol records.
To further complicate matters, “Meet the Beatles” came to America just two months after the U.K. release of “With the Beatles”, which was an almost identical album. The two records shared the same iconic black and white cover, and the track listings were very similar, with only a few variations.
“Meet the Beatles”, strategically released just a couple short weeks before their historic appearance on the “Ed Sullivan Show”, reached #1 on February 15. It remained there eleven weeks before being replaced by (wait for it) “The Beatles Second Album” (which was actually their third).
Wow.
Regardless, “Meet the Beatles” was the first Beatles album to catch this six year old’s attention, and I’ve been hopelessly hooked ever since. I’ve always thought of this album with the classic cover as my “introduction” to the band that changed the world. I’m so glad we “met”.
Hard to believe it invaded our lives 56 years ago today.