Originally scheduled for a July 1963 release, the LP came out on 10 January 1964, on Vee-Jay Records, ten days before Capitol's Meet the Beatles!

It was the subject of much legal wrangling, but ultimately, Vee-Jay was permitted to sell the album until late 1964, by which time it had sold more than 1.3 million copies.

116 on the Billboard Hot 100, Vee-Jay planned to release the Please Please Me album in the US, and received copies of the mono and stereo master tapes in late April or early May 1963.

A surviving acetate made by Universal Recording Corporation of Chicago, probably in May 1963, contains all 14 songs in the same order as on the UK album, with the title still listed as Please Please Me.

[8] Also, the engineer at Universal in Chicago thought that Paul McCartney's count-in at the start of "I Saw Her Standing There" was extraneous rather than intentionally placed there, so he snipped the "one, two, three" (leaving the "four") from Vee-Jay's mono and stereo masters.

[10] Preparations for the LP's release continued in late June and early July 1963, including the manufacturing of masters and metal parts and the printing of 6,000 front covers.

[15] A management shake-up at Vee-Jay, which included the resignation of the label's president Ewart Abner after he used company money to cover personal gambling debts,[16] resulted in the cancellation of the release of Introducing...

On 14 December 1963, Billboard magazine mentioned that Capitol Records planned an all-out promotional campaign for the Beatles in the United States.

[19] On 7 January 1964, Vee-Jay's board of directors met for the first time since the single was released, and it discussed the Beatles' material it had in the vault.

[18] Metal parts were already at Vee-Jay's three primary pressing plants, and 6,000 front covers were already printed.

Finally, third editions contain Vee-Jay's official back cover, with Introducing The Beatles near the top and the song titles in two columns underneath.

I Love You" and replaced them with the previously omitted "Ask Me Why" and "Please Please Me", though some pressings of the album did not alter the track list.

[25] The rereleased single "Please Please Me" rose to number three on the Hot 100, Cash Box and Record World.

Also a Beatles EP titled Souvenir of Their Visit to America was released by Vee-Jay on 23 March, featuring "Misery", "A Taste of Honey", "Ask Me Why", and "Anna".

[26] Even with the replacement of the two Beechwood Music songs, Vee-Jay and Capitol battled in court throughout the early part of 1964.

Vee-Jay was granted a license giving it the right to issue the 16 Beatles' songs it controlled, in any way it saw fit, until 15 October 1964.

I Love You" rose to become the Beatles' fourth number one single on Billboard and their fifth on both Cash Box and Record World.

The cover artwork for this version was later parodied for the bootleg release The Beatles vs the Third Reich, featuring the band's 1962 Star-Club recordings.

Though Vee-Jay could not manufacture or distribute any Beatles product after 15 October 1964, it took a long time for the records to vanish from retail stores.

[36] From the start of Beatlemania in the United States until the October 1964 expiration of its rights to Beatles music, Vee-Jay issued four LP albums, four singles, and an EP out of the 16 tracks it gained from its 1963 license period.

[37] "Misery" and "There's a Place", two of the other three songs, would not make their Capitol Records LP debut until 1980, on the US version of Rarities.

There is a difference between the two tracks in that Paul's count-off is cut short on the Vee-Jay release by three numbers leaving only "four!"

Some of the more common variations include: Nearly all fakes claim to be in stereo (though the actual sound of the record is often in mono).

[38] These counterfeits often omit "Stories" from the album title, since they are circulated without the gatefold cover and the text inside, renaming it Songs and Pictures of the Fabulous Beatles.