A difficult album to judge
The reason this is a difficult album to judge is because it's almost like two different albums: the originals and the covers.

The cover songs - which account for 6 of the 14 tracks - are the weak links. It's not that they're bad - even "Mr. Moonlight" (often derided as the "worst song the Beatles ever recorded") is very listenable - it's just not up to the quality of the Beatles' original songs. But, as it's been said, this album was sort of a rush job, so you can't blame them. Plus, "Beatles for Sale" has the difficult task of following up the hugely popular 100% Lennon/McCartney genius of "A Hard Days Night."

The 8 original songs are what make this album. Uncharactaristically melancholy, almost all of the originals (excluding only "Eight Days a Week" and "Every Little Thing") are about the bad side of relationships. The first three songs are goose-bump raisingly negative, and show a growing maturity in Lennon/McCartney's song-writing, both lyrically and musically. The cluster of origianals at the end of the album are very musically interesting, showing a preview of the sound of their future releases of '65-'66.

I think that the 8 originals on "Beatles for Sale" surpassed anything the Beatles had produced up to that point, and are even a little better than the music on "Help!" ("Help!" seems to be alot more commercial, due to it being written for the movie, but that's another story). Unfortunately, the rush in which this album was recorded prevented it from being as good as it could have been. Instead of a really solid knock-out album, we get a half-baked album, with 8 astounding original songs and 6 so-so covers.

I recommend this album because it has some of the Beatle's best original tunes. But don't expect a consistent album.

Still a worthy upfollower to A HARD DAY`S NIGHT
This album is often regarded as a step down after the classic A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. It is a bit unfair comparison though. First of all, on AHDN the singles ("Can't buy me love" and the title track with their respective B-sides) were included on the album. Second of all, AHDN only has 13 tracks while FOR SALE has 14. If you remove the 2 or 3 weakest tracks on FOR SALE and instead include "I feel fine" and "She's a woman" you would have a more even album for sure.
And when judging Beatles' albums one often misses the obvious fact that the fab 4 more or less rushed out their music during their whole career. They released 1 or 2 albums every year PLUS a lot of hit-singles that never were included on an album. Who could compete with that today?

Really great album
This starts out with "No Reply", a barn burner of a sweet song. A great version of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love". Who can forget "Babys In Black". The album is heavy on cover songs, which always had me wondering why when The Beatles were the best songwriters then and have not yet been matched.

Half A Great Album
The boys look weary from their success on this album cover. It's their second album for 1964 and it's known for being another rush job. It suffers from the fact that the rapidly growing songwriting talents of John & Paul were stifled in the need to get product out as quickly as possible. For me, the weakest songs on the album are the covers. Even as a kid I was especially bored by "Rock And Roll Music" and the two Carl Perkins songs though I do like Buddy Holly's "Words Of Love". Three of the best songs begin the album. Referred to as the "Lennon trilogy", "No Reply", "I'm A Loser" and "Baby's In Black" are songs that share the darkness in the souls of lovers and show John becoming increasingly self-aware in his lyrical content. Paul's "I'll Follow The Sun" has a lovely and melancholy feel to it. "Every Little Thing" and "What You're Doing" are sweet throwbacks to the love songs the Fabs got famous for in the first place. "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" is another Lennon song in which the narrator resigns himself to losing love. My favourite song from this album is smack in the middle- "Eight Days A Week". From it's soaring guitar line to the glorious harmonies to the catchy handclaps between 'Hold me,love me! Hold me,love me!', it's pure pop heaven. Get it for the great original songs.

yeah, yeah, yeah!!!
Absolutely loved it and I highly recommend that you purchase this CD, especially if you are a BEATLE lover like me!!