I consider With The Beatles the worst album by the Fab Four (though it does sport the second most-famous of their album covers). Now, admittedly, saying “this is the worst Beatles album” is kind of like saying “this is the worst nude photo of Eva Mendes.” But I’m big on lists, so there you have it.
The album’s best-known song is ‘All My Loving,’ which is a great song indeed. Their excellent take on ‘You Really Got a Hold On Me’ is another classic, while Paul’s take on the showtune ‘Till There Was You’ is a little corny for my taste. The rest is a mix of cover tunes and simple Beatles rockers.
My favorite track is ‘All I’ve Got to Do,’ which is two minutes of a soulful John Lennon doing his best Smokey Robinson. This is a very straight-forward love song that boils down to “You’re always there for me and, in return, I am always there for you.” Not much in the way of conflict or resolution, and the song’s hummed fade-out underscores its easy-going contentment.
Meet Me In Montauk 
Agreed that this is perhaps their weakest album. See my comments on yesterday’s post for the rest of my commentary on these first few albums. (Sorry to be short, but I must go be a pollwatcher:)
so great to see them in their early years– and I love the cover–they were so cute 🙂
The worst nude photo of Eva Mendes 🙂 – very funny. When did she find herself at the top of your celebrity girlfriend list? I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know these early albums as albums; I only know the songs that made it to “Greatest Hits’ status from later collections. So I can’t begin to rank the albums, but I do tend to agree with Dana that my favorite songs would likely come from later albums. Still, “All My Loving” is fabulous, and I certainly enjoyed today’s song of the day. All in all, I’d have to agree that the worst Beatles album is like the worst photo (clothed or un) of Viggo Mortensen. Just fantastic.