Meet The Beatles!

Meet the Beatles! is the second Beatles' album released in the United States, despite the "first album" claim on its cover. Released on 20 January 1964, it was the first Capitol Records Beatles album, issued in both mono and stereo. Capitol is a sister company to Parlophone, the Beatles' British label, and both are subsidiaries of EMI. Meet the Beatles! reached the number one spot on Billboard album charts starting on 15 February 1964. It remained at number one for an impressive 11 weeks before being replaced by The Beatles' Second Album; the first time that an artist replaced itself at the number one album position.

Ten days prior to the release of Meet the Beatles!, Chicago's Vee-Jay Records released The Beatles' first album, Introducing... The Beatles, which had been delayed for release from the previous summer. Perhaps as a result of the Vee-Jay release, Liberty Music Shops advertised in The New York Times on 12 January 1964 that Meet the Beatles! was available for purchase, an ad not authorised by Capitol. The cover featured Robert Freeman's portrait that was used for the UK With The Beatles release with a tinted blue hue added to the original, stark black-and-white photograph.

In 2004, the album was released on CD in stereo and mono as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 box set with the catalogue number CDP 7243 8 66875 2 4.

In 2012, Meet the Beatles! was voted 53rd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".