The Beatles FIRST official E.P. (although it's catalogue number is greater than the second release)
This E.P. contained four tracks all taken from the first L.P. "Please Please Me".
At the time of release the L.P. had been
at the top of the charts for 10 weeks (TEN !), which makes it quite odd that this E.P. then sold over 800,000 copies and
remained in the E.P. charts a record 64 weeks ! ... In fact this E.P. turned out to be the fourth biggest seller of 1963,
behind three singles ... She Loves You (almost 1 and 1/2 million copies), I Want To Hold Your Hand (1 and 1/4
million copies) and third was the Dave Clark Five's Glad All Over selling almost a million.
Still the biggest selling E.P. in British pop history, it was (like most of the others) ONLY released in glorious
MONO.
"Twist And Shout" was also the highest placed E.P. ever in the singles chart, where it actually reached No.2 ! ... in fact,
both the press and public treated this 45rpm outing as a new single, and even though Brian Poole and The Tremeloes cover
version of the title song was almost half the cost, being a normal single release, The Beatles held them off to No.4.
During the first six months of 1963 there were 2.5 million records sold by Liverpool groups, and these were just seven
titles ! ... All seven were produced by George Martin.
Beatles own compositions on this release were credited to "McCartney - Lennon".
The E.P. was released in a picture sleeve, and of course, they all were ... so I won't mention this again !
The front cover picture was not taken by Dezo Hoffman as is widely reported, but was taken by Fiona Adams
when she was working for Picture Story Publications of Soho. The Beatles arrived at their studio and Ms Adams took them
in a taxi to a former bomb site at the rear of Euston Station.
The sleeve notes were by Tony Barrow.
Finally, how do you spot original pressings ? ....
The typeface on more recent issues is both more modern and smaller than on the originals, while the actual catalogue number
was actually BIGGER on originals.
Around the edge of the label, the words stating the rights of the publishers started with "The Parlophone Co. Ltd."
The date on the label is shown as "Recording First Published 1963".
The disc has a push-out centre with an embossed "KT" tax code visible on the side 1 record label.
The sleeve is a laminated flipback sleeve with curved edges.
Post 1965 pressings have across the press-out centres the words, "sold in U.K. subject to resale price conditions, see
price lists", the rights start with "The Gramophone Co. Ltd.", and the date is not preceded with
"Recording First Published", but instead has a circled "P".
Re-pressings were also made in the 1970's, these do NOT have across the press-out centres the words,
"sold in U.K. subject to resale price conditions, see price lists".
For examples of what I mean, see ... The Beatles Hits E.P..
The sleeve also has marked differences. For starters (surprisingly !) the quality of new editions is worse, which suggests
that EMI copied old sleeves rather than the actual photos ! ... I could demonstrate this with my copy of "A Hard Days Night",
I have an original and a newer edition, and it is astonishing how much worse the newer one is !
Next, look out for the edges of the fold of the front cover onto the back. The edges of the fold used to be curved, now they
are sharp, straight.
Finally, the fold itself is no longer laminated, and the cover itself feels thinner than before.
Digital Downloads
In 2010 iTunes (a digital download agency) were given access to The Beatles product, which now meant each track was available to download to internet connected devices.
These downloads had to be paid for and the number of sales were permitted to be counted for chart purposes (although JPGR doesn't concur with this process).
21st November 2010 - Twist And Shout was the 3rd placed Beatles listing in the singles chart at number 48.
28th November 2010 - the listing dropped twenty-one places for it's last chart mention at number 69.
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