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.

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 of 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.

"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.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.