The Beatles (No. 1)

The Beatles (No. 1) is an extended play on Parlophone (catalogue GEP 8883), released 1 November 1963. Compiles four further Please Please Me LP tracks.

Recorded during the band's Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, produced by George Martin with Norman Smith engineering. The tracks were committed to tape at EMI Studios, Abbey Road on Twin-track BTR-2 (1962); Studer J37 four-track from late-1963 via the REDD.37 / REDD.51 valve consoles.

The Beatles (No. 1) is a Beatles EP issued in the United Kingdom on 1 November 1963 by Parlophone under catalogue number GEP 8883. It sits in the band's Beatlemania (1962–1964) period. The release followed the parent LP Please Please Me by roughly 7 months.

Sessions were produced by George Martin with Norman Smith engineering, working at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. The signal chain ran through the Twin-track BTR-2 (1962); Studer J37 four-track from late-1963 • REDD.37 / REDD.51 valve consoles, with vocals captured on Neumann U47, U48. This combination of room, tape format and outboard chain is the same one heard across the band's other releases from the era — meaning the release shares its sonic identity with its parent LP rather than departing from it.

The EP collects 2 tracks — I Saw Her Standing There, Misery — drawn from contemporaneous LP and single sessions. Each individual song entry preserves its full session history and pattern analysis, which the EP-level page references rather than duplicates.

Documented alternate masters and remaster passes can be found via the linked entries above; the editorial position throughout Beatles Answers is that the original UK mono master is the canonical point of reference for any EP from this era, with the 2009 and 50th-anniversary stereo remasters treated as documented variations rather than replacements. Catalogue numbers, label copy and matrix data are taken from EMI/Parlophone primary documentation and cross-checked against Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (1988).

Each track on this EP carries its own session history on the dedicated entry. The summary below pulls the most distinctive editorial detail from each:

• I Saw Her Standing There — The track was compiled from an edit of takes 9 and 12, a relatively sophisticated assembly for 1963 pop recording, requiring George Martin's team to splice the best vocal and instrumental sections.
• Misery — The song was mixed for both mono and stereo formats from take 16 during the album mastering sessions. The recording demonstrates Lennon's controlled vocal delivery in a more introspective register, contrasting with his harmonica-driven work on other Beatlemania tracks.

• The Beatles' Hits
• Twist and Shout