 "Still a worthy upfollower to A HARD DAY`S NIGHT" | 2008-07-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: AEMO7FDHBHTEG |
This album is often regarded as a step down after the classic A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. It is a bit unfair comparison though. First of all, on AHDN the singles ("Can't buy me love" and the title track with their respective B-sides) were included on the album. Second of all, AHDN only has 13 tracks while FOR SALE has 14. If you remove the 2 or 3 weakest tracks on FOR SALE and instead include "I feel fine" and "She's a woman" you would have a more even album for sure.
And when judging Beatles' albums one often misses the obvious fact that the fab 4 more or less rushed out their music during their whole career. They released 1 or 2 albums every year PLUS a lot of hit-singles that never were included on an album. Who could compete with that today? |
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 "Really great album" | 2008-07-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1N69F7WVWJDLM |
| This starts out with "No Reply", a barn burner of a sweet song. A great version of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love". Who can forget "Babys In Black". The album is heavy on cover songs, which always had me wondering why when The Beatles were the best songwriters then and have not yet been matched. |
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 "Half A Great Album" | 2008-06-08 |
| - Reviewed By jaything |
| The boys look weary from their success on this album cover. It's their second album for 1964 and it's known for being another rush job. It suffers from the fact that the rapidly growing songwriting talents of John & Paul were stifled in the need to get product out as quickly as possible. For me, the weakest songs on the album are the covers. Even as a kid I was especially bored by "Rock And Roll Music" and the two Carl Perkins songs though I do like Buddy Holly's "Words Of Love". Three of the best songs begin the album. Referred to as the "Lennon trilogy", "No Reply", "I'm A Loser" and "Baby's In Black" are songs that share the darkness in the souls of lovers and show John becoming increasingly self-aware in his lyrical content. Paul's "I'll Follow The Sun" has a lovely and melancholy feel to it. "Every Little Thing" and "What You're Doing" are sweet throwbacks to the love songs the Fabs got famous for in the first place. "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" is another Lennon song in which the narrator resigns himself to losing love. My favourite song from this album is smack in the middle- "Eight Days A Week". From it's soaring guitar line to the glorious harmonies to the catchy handclaps between 'Hold me,love me! Hold me,love me!', it's pure pop heaven. Get it for the great original songs. |
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| "yeah, yeah, yeah!!!" | 2008-06-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: AUQOF5304VFX2 |
| Absolutely loved it and I highly recommend that you purchase this CD, especially if you are a BEATLE lover like me!! |
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| "The Best Beatles Album...Cover..." | 2008-05-29 |
| - Reviewed By tashcrash |
First, the album cover itself is probably my favorite image of the Beatles. Very impressionistic, it reveals the first concentrated inkling of maturity. Image-wise, it's as big a leap from the A HARD DAY'S NIGHT album cover as the WHITE ALBUM'S "blankness" was from the density of the more iconic SGT. PEPPER cover.
This is important, given the image-consciousness of the Beatles. They really were making a definitive statement of what it meant to be a Beatle, a year or so into full-blown Beatlemania. It was their first declarative turn away from the youthful vigor of their first mass-marketed image. Pretty daring.
The originally-penned songs on the album sonically express the exhaustion and disillusionment displayed visually. Both Lennon's and McCartney's songs are profoundly confessional, in a way I think that matches the similar subjects and sensibilities of RUBBER SOUL a year later. One of the major revelations regarding the depth of the Beatles I've ever had was when I discovered just how dark an album RUBBER SOUL truly is (nearly every song is pessimistic about romance and relationships), while the second great revelation was to discover just how dark BEATLES FOR SALE is. Critics tend to position the Beatles as naive idealists (especially McCartney...get over it..wrong!), but these two albums reveal otherwise (okay, "Eight Days A Week" is relatively cheery).
Perhaps the one minor drawback is the reliance on cover versions, of which there are several. Nothing wrong with them, but the original tunes would make for an exceptional 9-song EP on their own (if EPs could run that long). Is "Mr. Moonlight" a joke? I've been listening for 30 years, and I still can't tell, which is at least partially what makes it so interesting.
Best song? "I'll Follow the Sun." Second best? "No Reply." |
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| "Best ever" | 2008-04-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2JSG5NSAL5SRP |
| This album is the best ever in my opinion. Wonderful to sing along to in the car...All my Beatle Albums are played over and over again.... |
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| "Beatles for Sale" | 2008-03-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A25Y36YW7FGVU7 |
| This is an album I first bought when it came out in 1964. Today it again shows the fine musicianship and arrangements of the songs, and shows what a great band the Beatles were. Tracks like No Reply, Every Little Thing, Eight Days a Week are rarely featured songs in Beatles flashbacks, but are worthy of any reprise. This is a very good album indeed. |
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| "Remakes and Musical Progression, AWESOME!" | 2008-03-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1NOXDKW6DNKQ1 |
Most do not like this one as much because it is mostly remakes but the beatles always did the best remakes and this album is amazing because they did that and because johns trio at the beginning is such a leap in his musical style and they are so good and paul also has some really good songs on here too. One of my favorites from them .
Highlights
No Reply
I'm a Loser
Rock 'n' Roll Music
I'll Follow the Sun
Mr. Moonlight
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| "All Good" | 2008-02-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1YS5QST2JD5RQ |
| Ok, this may not be the best Beatles album but it is still better than 90 percent of what was out there then and now. Filled with great songs, maybe a weak point or two. The problem with judging Beatles albums is that they set their own bar so high that it is almost imposible to get over it. I will say this about "For Sale"...it has got to be one of the best album covers ever with about the only rival being the Stones "Between the Buttons". |
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| "Weak, but only by their standards" | 2008-01-14 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1VOG9L387U016 |
By this point, it honestly didn't matter what the Beatles put out to the public. They had the world's entire teenage girl population behind them at the end of 1964 and the album and ensuing world tour was sure to be a smash. Course, you wouldn't be able to HEAR any of the ensuing world tour, but for those who attended, it was a minor detail. But, as is evidenced by the not-so-sprightly looking boys on the cover, they were having an awful hard time keeping up with Beatlemania and the music suffers accordingly. I hate calling this the weakest Beatle album (well, I also don't really consider Yellow Submarine a Beatle album) because it's better than a lot from the epoch, but you know, they never really made anything worse than this. Shame too, cause it was quite possibly their commercial peak. What am I saying? The Beatles didn't HAVE a commercial peak.
Ah, but to say this album is useless is a horrible nasty misnomer - no, this is far from useless, it just has more weak tracks than A Hard Day's Night and Help!, the two albums that bookend this one. In this case here, "Mr. Moonlight," the "Kansas City" medley, "Honey Don't", and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" are serious disappointments, and one thing all four songs have in common is that they're covers, which is even more disappointing, because the songwriting talent of Lennon and McCartney was already top notch (not a single Harrisong here, for that matter......but there wasn't one on A Hard Day's Night so that's not really a valid gripe.) I mean, I know the boys were incredibly busy at this point, but they managed to fill A Hard Day's Night with originals. Heck, Paul only has 3 songs on here, and one of those had apparently been written long before 1964 ("I'll Follow the Sun.") Wonder what Paul was doing in the 3 months between A Hard Day's Night and this album....oh, right. Touring.
Yeah, you can blame most of the troubles on this album for that. But they're performed very well. "No Reply," "I'm a Loser," and "Baby's in Black" are incredible Lennon songs that were really quite far ahead of their time, and "Eight Days a Week" and "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" on side two aren't much worse. First examples of the negative John vibe that would come up again many times later ("It's getting better all the time - can't get much worse!") As for Paul, "I'll Follow the Sun" is pretty good, if a bit repetitive, and "Every Little Thing" and its crashing piano chords always intrigued me. "What You're Doing" is a bit slight, but it has a decent riff. Paul would write much better than all three though. And as for the covers, "Honey Don't" is the obligatory Ringo tune, and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" was a very appropriate choice for a cover and sung by George. I was never big on "Rock and Roll Music" as a cover, although it does rock, with a great John vocal. "Kansas City" always bored me, and you'll hear a lot of bad things said about "Mr. Moonlight" but it really isn't THAT bad. Well, by the Beatles standards, maybe it is a bit.
The lack of originals is understandable but still disappointing, and some of the covers are just bland. It makes for a very good 1964 album but a weak Beatles album. Still some very worthwhile moments around here. But a bit slight. |
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