With "A Hard Day's Night", the Beatles really start to build their legend. Leaving the well-trodden paths of the sixties rock'n'roll, they start to innovate, cumulating here the premieres.
It is indeed their first album without any cover version, the thirteen tracks being all co-signed by Lennon and McCartney. It is also the soundtrack of their first film directed by Richard Lester, who will also make Help. The script only describes the Beatlemania seen from the inside, three days in the life of the Fab'Four. Instrumentally, it's the first time George has used a twelve-string. Commercially, it is the first time that the Beatles will reach the first place in the American charts, and this is not without consequence: the beatlemania becomes worldwide, and the diffusion of the British groups in the USA will be greatly facilitated, allowing the arrival of groups like the Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Who...
Musically, the change is definite compared to the first two albums : 'If I Fell' or 'I'll Be Back' are different from the usual structures - no obvious chorus, sometimes two musical bridges. I'll Cry Instead' introduces the folk-rock trend. Paul starts to show his great talent for ballads with 'And I Love Her', which John will say is his first Yesterday. John broadens his fields of inspiration ('I Should Have Known Better' is very influenced by Bob Dylan). Even if some tracks still look back to the past ('When I Get Home', a tribute to the Shirelles, or the doo-wop 'Tell Me Why'), it is the future that is taking shape with this 'Hard Day's Night', the eponymous track, as well as 'Can't Buy Me Love' keeping an intact strength. We even feel in 'I'll Be Back' a forerunner of the work of "Rubber Soul", and the arrangements take on a very promising original tone ('Things We Said Today').
All the tracks on this album have not survived the decades. However, "A Hard Day's Night" is an essential turning point in the way the Beatles approach music: the legend is on its way!