This year's Beatles catalogue title will showcase the albums that introduced American audiences to the sound of the Fab Four.

1964 U.S. Albums in Mono will include new vinyl remasters of six albums distributed by Capitol Records within the first year of the British band's arrival in New York City. Uniquely drawn from the first four Beatles albums in the U.K. and other single and EP material, these albums will be pressed on 180-gram vinyl and housed in faithful reproductions of their original jackets and inner sleeves, with the addition of a four-panel insert featuring an in-depth essay on each record by historian Bruce Spizer. While all six albums will be available individually, the box set includes a further exclusive: a re-pressing of that year's double-album audio documentary The Beatles' Story, which included snippets of interviews, press conferences and songs with voiceover narration. The box set and individual albums will all be available November 22.

"These albums were cut for vinyl from the original master tapes using a completely analog signal path and with constant reference to first generation pressings of the original albums," an official statement reads. "They were made using a Studer A80 master recorder with analog preview & program paths, and a Neumann VMS70 cutting lathe originally installed in Capitol Studios in 1971. This specific all-analog cutting technique allows faithful representation of the full musical range and dynamics present on the original tapes." Kevin Reeves has cut the lacquers for the new pressings at East Iris Studios in Nashville.

Incredibly, while The Beatles' early works sparked a groundswell of interest on the U.K. charts in 1963 and a windfall for their record company EMI, the staff at EMI's American counterpart Capitol weren't initially sure what to make of these four mop-topped lads and their modern rock sound. This hesitation may have ultimately helped usher in the British invasion: when American audiences were finally craving music from the group, EMI had already made several licensing deals with a number of labels. Indeed, in Billboard's infamous April 4, 1964 issue - where the group occupied the first five spots of the Hot 100 survey - only two of those singles were distributed by Capitol, with the rest issued by the respective labels Tollie, Swan and Vee Jay.

Vee Jay was, in fact, the first to make a move on The Beatles, and prepped an LP, Introducing...The Beatles! for a 1963 release. It wouldn't be issued until the winter of '64, 10 days before Capitol put out their debut, Meet The Beatles! Utilizing the same iconic photo that appeared on the band's second U.K. album With The Beatles, Meet included nine of that album's tracks, including "All My Loving," plus "I Saw Her Standing There" (the opener of U.K. debut Please Please Me) and both sides of their 1963 single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy." ("Hold Your Hand" would become the band's first chart-topper in America, sitting at No. 1 for seven weeks in the winter of '64.)

Beatlemania was a certified phenomenon as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" reigned over the singles survey: the band touched down in New York City on February 7, 1964 and performed live on The Ed Sullivan Show two days later. (Two more sets of performances, one of which was taped the same night as the first, would air on the program through the month.) Capitol wasted little time in issuing a follow-up. The Beatles' Second Album, issued in April, focused mostly on leftovers from With The Beatles, many of which were covers ("Roll Over Beethoven," "Money (That's What I Want)," "You Really Got a Hold on Me," or even the Little Richard-penned title track to their U.K. EP Long Tall Sally). The album did feature one particularly notable original from the by-now unstoppable songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney: "She Loves You," which took up the top spot on the Hot 100 as soon as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had run its course.

Capitol was by then the de facto name in all things Beatles, but there was still another player on the scene. The film studio United Artists signed a deal with the group to make movies, starting with the dazzling blockbuster A Hard Day's Night. It was UA who released the film's soundtrack in the States; while it was perhaps the closest analogue to a Parlophone-distributed LP, it's also in some ways the most unique, featuring eight of that album's tracks plus four unique orchestral versions of songs heard in the film, arranged and conducted by the group's longtime producer George Martin. The album's "Can't Buy Me Love" became the third Beatles chart-topper in America, replacing "She Loves You" after only two weeks and staying put for another five; the title track would also reach the top of the charts in the summer of that year.

As Capitol had no commitments to A Hard Day's Night, their next LP arrived only a month after that soundtrack did. Something New featured eight tracks from A Hard Day's Night, including five from the United Artists album ("I'll Cry Instead," "Tell Me Why," "And I Love Her," "If I Fell," "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"); plus two more from the Long Tall Sally EP and even a German-language version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand." It was the first American Beatles album not to top the album charts, settling for a "mere" No. 2. Beatles '65 was a similarly sequenced potpourri, this time offering the bulk of the group's then-newest U.K. album Beatles for Sale and another non-album single in England, "I Feel Fine." Released in time for the Christmas season but clearly looking ahead to the new year, Beatles '65 spent nine weeks atop the Billboard 200 in the winter of the new year, while "I Feel Fine" topped 1964's last and 1965's first two Hot 100s.

When Vee Jay's license on Beatles material came to an end in the fall of 1964, Capitol wasted little time getting that repertoire into their discography, issuing 11 of the 14 tracks from Please Please Me as The Early Beatles in the spring of '65. Despite including favorites like the title track, "Do You Want to Know a Secret," their raucous cover of "Twist and Shout" and even "Love Me Do" (which had become the band's fourth of six No. 1s that previous spring), The Early Beatles was a comparative dud, charting at only No. 43 on the Billboard 200. (This was doubtlessly because most fans had acquired this material on Introducing...The Beatles, which landed at No. 2.)

1964 U.S. Albums in Mono features one last U.S. Beatles release from this period. So hungry were record fans for anything from John, Paul, George and Ringo that fans took to buying collections of radio interviews, both sanctioned (the Vee Jay release Hear The Beatles Tell All, featuring interview snippets overdubbed with crowd noise and percussion supplied by Hal Blaine and produced by Lou Adler) and not (a trio of LPs from the Radio Pulse Beat label). Capitol recruited Gary Usher (who'd later produce several albums by The Byrds) and Roger Christian (a radio DJ turned lyricist for one of Capitol's other major rock acts, The Beach Boys) to assemble The Beatles' Story, a 2LP audio documentary using press conferences, interviews, mini-profiles of not only each of the members but producer Martin and manager Brian Epstein, and even a little music - notably, easy listening versions of Beatles singles by The Hollyridge Strings and even a brief snippet of a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl earmarked for release but ultimately nixed by the band. (It was later released in 1977 and reissued alongside the Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years documentary in 2016.) Despite the "anything-for-a-release" nature of this set, Beatlemania was still peaking high enough to make The Beatles' Story a Top 10 album in America and an eventual gold record seller.

The 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono box and its six breakout titles can all be pre-ordered below. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

1964 U.S. Albums in Mono (Apple/Capitol/UMe, 2024) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

LP 1: Meet The Beatles! (originally released as Capitol T-2047 (U.S.), 1964) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. I Want to Hold Your Hand
2. I Saw Her Standing There
3. This Boy
4. It Won't Be Long
5. All I've Got to Do
6. All My Loving
7. Don't Bother Me
8. Little Child
9. Till There Was You
10. Hold Me Tight
11. I Wanna Be Your Man
12. Not a Second Time

Tracks 1 and 3 released as Parlophone U.K. single R-5084, 1963
Track 2 released on Please Please Me - Parlophone PMC 1202 (U.K.), 1963
Tracks 4-12 released on With The Beatles - Parlophone PMC 1206 (U.K.), 1963

LP 2: The Beatles' Second Album (originally released as Capitol T-2080 (U.S.), 1964) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. Roll Over Beethoven
2. Thank You Girl
3. You Really Got a Hold on Me
4. Devil in Her Heart
5. Money (That's What I Want)
6. You Can't Do That
7. Long Tall Sally
8. I Call Your Name
9. Please Mr. Postman
10. I'll Get You
11. She Loves You

Tracks 1, 3-5 and 9 released on With The Beatles - Parlophone PMC 1206/PCS 3045 (U.K.), 1963
Track 2 released on "From Me to You" single - Parlophone R-5015 (U.K.), 1963
Track 6 released on A Hard Day's Night - Parlophone PMC 1230 (U.K.), 1964
Tracks 7-8 released on Long Tall Sally EP - Parlophone GEP 8913 (U.K.), 1964
Tracks 10-11 released as Parlophone U.K. single R-5055, 1963

LP 3: A Hard Day's Night (Original Motion Picture Sound Track) (originally released as United Artists UAL 6366 (U.S.), 1964) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. A Hard Day's Night
2. Tell Me Why
3. I'll Cry Instead
4. I Should Have Known Better *
5. I'm Happy Just to Dance with You
6. And I Love Her *
7. I Should Have Known Better
8. If I Fell
9. And I Love Her
10. Ringo's Theme (This Boy) *
11. Can't Buy Me Love
12. A Hard Day's Night *

* instrumental performed by the George Martin Orchestra
Tracks 1-3, 5, 7-9 and 11 released on A Hard Day's Night - Parlophone PMC 1230 (U.K.), 1964

LP 4-5: The Beatles' Story (originally released as Capitol TBO-2222 (U.S.), 1964)

1. On Stage with The Beatles
2. How Beatlemania Began
3. Beatlemania in Action
4. Man Behind The Beatles - Brian Epstein
5. John Lennon
6. Who's a Millionaire?
7. Beatles Will Be Beatles
8. Man Behind the Music - George Martin
9. George Harrison

1. A Hard Day's Night - Their First Movie
2. Paul McCartney
3. Sneaky Haircuts and More About Paul
4. The Beatles Look At Life
5. "Victims" of Beatlemania
6. Beatle Medley
7. Ringo Starr
8. Liverpool and All the World

LP 6: Something New (originally released as Capitol T-2108 (U.S.), 1964) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. I'll Cry Instead
2. Things We Said Today
3. Any Time At All
4. When I Get Home
5. Slow Down
6. Matchbox
7. Tell Me Why
8. And I Love Her
9. I'm Happy Just to Dance with You
10. If I Fell
11. Komm, gib mir deine hand

Tracks 1-4 and 7-10 released on A Hard Day's Night - Parlophone PMC 1230 (U.K.), 1964
Tracks 5-6 released on Long Tall Sally EP - Parlophone GEP 8913 (U.K.), 1964
Track 11 released on Odeon German single O 22-671, 1964

LP 7: Beatles '65 (originally released as Capitol T-2228 (U.S.), 1964) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. No Reply
2. I'm a Loser
3. Baby's in Black
4. Rock and Roll Music
5. I'll Follow the Sun
6. Mr. Moonlight
7. Honey Don't
8. I'll Be Back
9. She's a Woman
10. I Feel Fine
11. Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby

Tracks 1-7 and 11 released on Beatles for Sale - Parlophone PMC 1240 (U.K.), 1964
Track 8 released on A Hard Day's Night - Parlophone PMC 1230 (U.K.), 1964
Tracks 9-10 released as Parlophone U.K. single R-5200, 1964

LP 8: The Early Beatles (originally released as Capitol T-2309 (U.S.), 1965) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. Love Me Do
2. Twist and Shout
3. Anna (Go to Him)
4. Chains
5. Boys
6. Ask Me Why
7. Please Please Me
8. P.S. I Love You
9. Baby It's You
10. A Taste of Honey
11. Do You Want to Know a Secret

All tracks released on Please Please Me - Parlophone PMC 1202 (U.K.), 1963