The Beatles "Help" Parlophone ? PMC 1255 Mono UK 1st Press 2/2 1965 Variation A.
£
20
$
27
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Description
The Beatles ?"Help!" Parlophone ?– PMC 1255 UK 1st pressing.
Mono Vinyl, LP, released in 1965. First pressing. August 6, 1965. Black label with yellow logo and silver print. “The Gramophone Co. Ltd.” printed at the start perimeter print and “Sold in U.K. subject…” text.
The vinyl has several hairline marks which cause a bit of crackle in the run-ins and between tracks, but which didn't interfere with the music when I played the LP. Similarly, there are no hop, skips or jumps. The sleeve has some slight marks to the front and back, but generally shows minimal signs of wear. The spine is intact and totally legible. Matrix / Runout (Side 1, stamped): XEX 549-2 Matrix / Runout (Side 2, stamped): XEX 550-2
"Help!" is the Beatles' fifth studio album and the soundtrack from their film "Help!". Produced by George Martin, it contains fourteen songs in its original British form. Seven of these, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and took up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side contained seven other releases including the most-covered song ever written, "Yesterday".
The American release was a true soundtrack album, mixing the first seven songs with instrumental material from the film. Of the other seven songs that were on the British release, two were released on the US version of the next Beatles album, "Rubber Soul", two were back-to-back on the next US single and then appeared on "Yesterday and Today", and three had already been on "Beatles VI".
In 2012, "Help!" was voted 331st on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In September 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed their sales award rules, the album was declared as having gone platinum.
The album cover features the Beatles with their arms positioned to spell out a word in flag semaphore. According to cover photographer Robert Freeman, "I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters "HELP". But when we came to do the shot, the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn't look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms."
On the UK Parlophone release, the letters formed by the Beatles appear to be "NUJV", whilst the slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to feature the letters "NVUJ", with McCartney's left hand pointing to the Capitol logo.
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