Feb. 15, 1964 - Hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart today is “Meet the Beatles!” The album was released by Capitol Records on Jan. 20 in both mono and stereo formats. The cover features Robert Freeman’s portrait of the Beatles used in the United Kingdom for “With the Beatles,” with a blue tint added to the original stark black-and-white photograph.
The first three tracks on the album include the December 1963 Capitol single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” along with the record’s B-sides both in the United States, “I Saw Her Standing There,” and in the U.K., “This Boy.” Neither “I Want to Hold Your Hand” nor “This Boy” have appeared on an album at this time in the U.K., while “I Saw Her Standing There” had been the lead-off track to band’s debut album, “Please Please me.” The other nine tracks on “Meet the Beatles!” are duplicated from its nearest U.K. counterpart album, “With the Beatles.”
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