Something New

After watching the United Artists' release of A Hard Day's Night go quickly towards platinum in the US, Capitol responded by releasing Something New on July 20, 1964. It eventually went to 2x platinum in the US and to gold in Canada. It did not rise to number 1 in the charts, as it could not displace A Hard Day's Night as released by UA.

Like Capitol's earlier releases of Beatles records, Something New included tracks from previous records. Eight of the songs are from A Hard Day's Night, and two came from the UK EP, Long Tall Sally. They are Slow Down and Matchbox. I Want to Hold Her Hand was included, derived from the way the song was distributed in Germany. The fact that all of the songs had been previously released renders the album title especially ironic. Critics have speculated that the music tastes at the top level of Capitol did not always parallel those of the public, explaining why Capitol held back tracks from the UK albums until later, more in response to demand than in anticipation of it. American disc jockeys, aware of the slow reaction of Capitol to the UK releases, started importing discs from England, to the point that imported singles sometimes broke into the charts in the US before Capitol released them on LP in the US. Clearly the inclusion of all the songs from A Hard Day's Night was an effort to compete with United Artists' soundtrack.