Originally Posted by Gavin B.

Until the late Eighties when Apple began uniformly issuing universal compact disc editions of Beatles albums, the amount of album filler on the American edition of Help! was even worse.

Track Listing for the 1965 American Edition of Help!

Side One

1. Help – 2:39

2. The Night Before – 2:36

3. From Me to You Fantasy (Ken Thorne instrumental) – 2:08

4 You've Got to Hide Your Love Away – 2:12

5 I Need You (Harrison) – 2:31

6. In the Tyrol (Ken Thorne instrumental) – 2:26

Side Two

1. Another Girl– 2:08

2. Another Hard Day's Night (Ken Thorne instrumental) – 2:31

3. Ticket to Ride – 3:07

4. You Can't Do That (Ken Thorne instrumental) – 2:26

5. You're Gonna Lose That Girl – 2:19

6. The Chase (Ken Thorne instrumental)– 2:31

More than half the content of the American edition of Help! was instrumental music from the soundtrack score of Help! composed by Ken Thorne. The songs were run-of-the-mill, mediocre orchestral soundtrack arrangements of mostly of older Beatles songs.

On the original American issue of Help!, fans only got 7 actual Beatles songs that clocked in at a miserable total of 19 minutes. The remaining 12 minutes of the American edition of Help! consisted of elevator music by Ken Thorne who wasn't even a very good soundtrack composer. By comparison UK buyers of Help! got the full content of 14 Beatles songs...twice as much content as the American edition of Help!. The "filler" content of the UK Parlophone release of Help! consisted of 7 orphan Beatles A or B side singles: Yesterday, Act Naturally, I've Just Seen A Face, It's Only Love, You Like Me Too Much, Tell Me What You See and Dizzy Miss Lizzy. The Brits made out well compared to their Yankee counterparts across the pond.

For years, American fans of the Beatles got short changed on American issues of Beatles albums by Capitol Records, the Beatles American label. The Beatles were unhappy with the Capitol's practice of releasing American editions with less content but couldn't do anything about it... it was a deal that Brian Epstein negotiated with Capitol in 1963, prior to the Beatles tremendous popularity in the United States.

Epstein had a paternalistic management relationship with the Beatles and Epstein secured the Capitol recording contract without any regard to the creative vision of the group he was managing. Music industry entertainment managers and recording labels had a "put up or shut up" attitude toward musicians in those days and called all of the creative shots on behalf their clients.

Elvis had it even worse under the management of Col. Tom Parker. Parker forced Elvis to sign off on a contract in which Parker retained 50% of all royalties (10% was the industry standard). By all accounts, Parker forced a reluctant Presley into a movie career he didn't need or want. As a final blow, Parker reshaped Elvis' career makeover as grotesque Vegas style cabaret clown that transformed him into a pathetic parody of his early persona as a rock and roll rebel. All of these decisions were made by Parker to keep the lucrative Elvis income stream flowing. It made no difference to Parker that Elvis was turning into a self hating, drug abusing Vegas clown-boy in XXXXL white jumpsuits.

By comparison, the Beatles managed keep Brian Epstein out of the loop, when his paternalism became an obstacle to their creative development. From the earliest days of the Beatles, John Lennon was keenly aware of Col. Tom Parker's ruthless exploitation of Elvis and vowed that Epstein would never have never have that kind of unconditional control over the creative vision or the career path of the Beatles. Lennon was fond of saying Elvis really died when he joined the Army. The "Elvis Joins the Army" campaign was yet another Col. Tom Parker publicity stunt to clean up Elvis' bad boy rock and roll image to Elvis palatable to a lucrative middle class audience. The Beatles never had to fire Brian Epstein because he died in 1967. At the time of Epstein's death a chilly relationship between the manager and his band had developed. Had Epstein lived another year, it's pretty certain the Beatles would have bought out Epstein's management contract or fired him.

One of Lennon's primary grievances with Epstein at the time of his death was the American recording contract Epstein signed on behalf of the band with Capitol Records. Lennon understood the long term creative interests of the Beatles were better served by having albums that had uniform content in the USA and the UK... especially since the Beatles were about to embark upon a career path where the concept album was about the become the central artistic statement of the band. For all his management talents, Epstein failed to understand creative end of the music business in the same intuitive manner of producer George Martin, the Beatles other primary career mentor.

The Beatles finally began issuing identical American and UK editions of their albums when their own company, Apple Corp., finally got creative control over album content in 1968. The so called "white album" was the first Beatles album in which the band had creative control of the content of both the UK and American editions of their albums.

The notable exception was Capitol's agreement to release the full content of Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band which was a concept album. It should be said that by 1967 the Beatles had enough artistic leverage over Capitol to get the full album content released of Sgt. Pepper's in the USA.

Since the Beatles didn't own the licensing rights to any of their American albums issued between 1963 and 1967, none of their American albums had the full content of their UK issued albums on the Parlophone label until 1987. If you wanted the full content of the British edition of a Beatles album you'd have to buy the imported UK edition at $20 per album.

The American buyer of Beatles albums was forced to buy 5 additional Capitol issued albums in order to get the full content of the 11 Beatles UK albums issued by their British record label, Parlophone, between 1963 and 1967.

American Beatles fans had to wait until 1987 for the first compact disc reissue of Beatles back catalog to get the full, unredacted content of the original Parlophone UK issues of the first 11 Beatles albums. To add insult to injury all of the Capitol albums had an inferior quality sound mix.

Most Americans didn't even realize they'd been short changed by Capitol Records wholesale butchery of the Beatles UK catalog, until the 1987 compact disc editions of the Beatles UK albums came out.

Capitol's Records' ongoing album release campaign for the American releases of the Beatles albums was based on pure corporate greed. The marketing strategy allowed Capitol Records to milk the Beatles catalog by chopping up the musical content of the Beatles UK albums to create a reservoir of recorded music, from which they pieced together an additional 5 additional Beatles albums to sell to unsuspecting American public.

Originally Posted by ThePhanastasio

Nice review, but I'll have to say that a 9/10 is a bit generous for an album that is at least half filler.

The album is enjoyable, but it's nowhere near as unique and praise-worthy as the later albums by the band; for all intents and purposes, The Beatles were still very much a pop act with this album, albeit a far above average pop act.

Originally Posted by The Ice Plant

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Ringo Starr's contributions are usually of the "whatever" variety, and Act Naturally is no exception, although his lyrics are more amusing than normal.

Originally Posted by Stu

In my view, Help! is the perfect pop album.