The first Beatles entry.... the Beatles are going to come up a lot so I'll get my rant out of the way now: I love the Beatles, I was into them as a kid listening to my parents' early era Beatles stuff. Then, when I saw the Beatles anthology back in 91 or 93 (whenever it screened) I 'discovered' them for myself. Their later era music gelled nicely with the oddities of my own musical tastes.
These early albums were obviously strong 'hit em and quit em' albums. The Beatles would get into the studio with songs they'd chucked together and some cover songs and they'd churn out an album in a matter of days and then be back out on the road playing shows and promoting themselves.
'With the Beatles' starts with a bang, much like Little Richard yelling "wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom" John's "IT WON'T BE LONG" provides a startling intro to the album. The Beatles then show that, even though they were on a tight schedule, it didn't limit them creatively. Already fighting against the confines of the 'rock band' and the beat sound that they were being championed under, there are elements of soul, RnB and light balladry. Some of the riffage in "hold me tight" sounds one distortion pedal away from hard rock/metal in places... diffused though by the tight vocal harmonies over the top of it. The vocal harmonies are pretty great all round.
This band was just a great combo, Ringo was often cited as the weak link, but it's surprising just how often he is doing some relatively fiddly and interesting stuff; it just fits in so well with the music that you kind of don't notice. Though I wouldn't put Ringo at the same skill level, I'd say that a good modern drumming comparison would be Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) he does all kinds of tricky and interesting parts but they just sit so comfortably in the song, that much of the time you don't even really pick up on exactly how much he's doing.
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