The 7 best Merseybeat tracks of all time
Merseybeat
Liverpool, 1962: dockside kids who had heard American records first because the ships brought them, playing rhythm and blues faster and tighter than the originals, in a city with three hundred working beat groups.
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The Beatles / She Loves You
The best-selling British single of the sixties, and structurally strange — it opens on the chorus and ends on a sixth chord George Martin thought was corny. Two years from Hamburg to this.
The Beatles / Please Please Me
Originally a Roy Orbison-style ballad, sped up at Martin's suggestion until it became something else. The harmonica and the shared vocal are the whole Merseybeat formula in two minutes.
Gerry and the Pacemakers / Ferry Cross the Mersey
The scene's sentimental heart, and the only one of these records that is actually about Liverpool. Gerry Marsden knew exactly what he was selling and it has outlasted the cynicism.
The Dave Clark Five / Do You Love Me
Tottenham rather than the Mersey, and included because the label stuck to anything with that beat. Drums recorded far louder than anyone else dared.
The Kinks / You Really Got Me
Dave Davies slit his amplifier speaker with a razor blade and invented a guitar sound. The point where beat music stops being cheerful and starts being a threat.
The Swinging Blue Jeans / Hippy Hippy Shake
A Chan Romero cover taken at a tempo that leaves the band audibly hanging on. The Cavern sound with none of the studio polish the Beatles were already getting.
The Beatles / Twist and Shout
Recorded last on the final take of a fourteen-hour day with Lennon's voice already gone. The damage is the performance, and it could not be repeated.