The Beatles – Please Please Me

Please Please Me is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Produced by George Martin, it was released on EMI’s Parlophone label on 22 March 1963 in the United Kingdom, following the success of the band’s first two singles “Love Me Do”, which reached number 17 on the Record Retailer Chart, and “Please Please Me”, which reached number one on the NME and Melody Maker charts. The album topped Record Retailer‘s LP chart for 30 weeks, an unprecedented achievement for a pop album at that time.

First conceived as a live album by Martin in November 1962, the recording was moved to the studio but intended to capture the sound and repertoire of the Beatles’ live performances in places like the Liverpool Cavern Club.

Aside from their already released singles, the Beatles recorded the majority of Please Please Me in one long recording session at EMI Studios on 11 February 1963, with Martin adding overdubs to “Misery” and “Baby It’s You” nine days later. Of the album’s 14 songs, eight were written by the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney (originally credited “McCartney–Lennon”). Rolling Stone magazine later cited these original compositions as early evidence of the Beatles’ “[invention of] the idea of the self-contained rock band, writing their own hits and playing their own instruments”. Please Please Me was voted 39th on Rolling Stone‘s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” (2012), and number 622 in the third edition of Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).