Meet The Beatles! by The Beatles

Meet the Beatles! was Capitol's first Beatles album, issued on 20 January 1964 in mono and stereo, though it was actually the band's second LP in the States. Capitol built it from the British With the Beatles, dropping five tracks and bolting on "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "I Saw Her Standing There" and "This Boy", and borrowed Robert Freeman's portrait of the four for the cover, tinted blue for the occasion.

Inside is George Martin's Abbey Road production of a band at full gallop: John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison swapping lead vocals, Ringo Starr driving the beat, and the harmonies ringing like a fire bell. It landed just as Beatlemania came ashore and the British Invasion got under way, hit the top of the chart on 15 February 1964 and sat there for eleven weeks, until The Beatles' Second Album bumped it off.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.