A Hard Day's Night (album) - North American Release

North American Release

The American version of the album was released on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records in both mono and stereo, the fourth Beatles album in the United States. The album went to number one on the Billboard album chart, spending 14 weeks there, the longest run of any album that year.

All seven songs from the film, the first side of the UK album, were featured along with "I'll Cry Instead", which, although written for the film, was cut at the last minute. The American version also included four easy listening-styled instrumental versions of Lennon and McCartney songs arranged by George Martin conducting an orchestra of studio musicians: "I Should Have Known Better," "And I Love Her," "Ringo's Theme," and "A Hard Day's Night." As with the Vee-Jay and Capitol albums issued during 1964, there are different label variations of the United Artists album, as well. Some of the labels misspell the titles of two of the songs: "Tell Me Why" appears as "Tell Me Who", and "I'll Cry Instead" as "I Cry Instead". After EMI acquired United Artists Records, this album was reissued on 17 August 1980 on the Capitol label, catalogue SW-11921.

While the stereo version of the album included the instrumental tracks in true stereo, the Beatles' own recordings appeared as electronically rechannelled stereo recordings made from the mono releases. The 1980 Capitol Records release used the same master tape as the original United Artists stereo release, despite the availability of several tracks with official stereo remixes by that time. True stereo versions of most of the songs appeared on the Capitol Records album Something New, released in July 1964. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" finally appeared in stereo versions on the Apple Records compilation Hey Jude in 1970. The song "A Hard Day's Night" did not appear in a stereo version in the US until the LP Reel Music in March 1982. In 2004, unauthorized copies of the United Artists album began appearing in foreign countries in a 40th anniversary edition on compact disc. This version features the same twelve songs in the same running order, but with all of the tracks appearing in true stereo together for the very first time - including the eight Beatles songs. This marks the first time that the full-length, true stereo version of "I'll Cry Instead" was released, since its original issue on the 1980 "Casualties" LP. The American version of "A Hard Day's Night" has yet to be released officially on compact disc in the United States.