Meet the Beatles!
With the massive popularity of "Meet the Beatles!" through the early part of 1964 and a desire for additional Beatles product, Capitol Records decided to compile a follow-up album as soon as possible. For this, a backlog of some 25 songs, issued by EMI in Britain and many other territories across the world from 1962 onwards, had yet to be issued by Capitol. "The Beatles' Second Album" was the first album of the group's work to be assembled by the company exclusively for the US market, "Meet the Beatles!" having been a reconfigured and shorter version of the band's second EMI LP, "With the Beatles". Despite its title, however, "Second Album" was in fact the third Beatles LP in the United States, since Vee-Jay Records had released "Introducing... The Beatles" in January 1964. Vee-Jay had been able to issue the latter LP – which comprised most of the Beatles' EMI debut, "Please Please Me" – due to Capitol's initial lack of interest in marketing the Beatles' music.