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The White Album at 40
The self-titled Beatles opus that became known as “The White Album” is either an eclectic masterpiece … or a beautiful mess. As the beloved double-album with the blank cover turns 40 this week, Zeth Lundy of culture site PopMatters.com joins us for a close-up look at one of rock music’s weirdest, best albums.
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on "The Messy Album"
Tell us: What does the White Album mean to you personally? Where does the White Album rank in the Beatles catalog?
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It definitely is not one of my favorites. Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul are for me much better albums, both in concept and listening pleasure. I also feel that multi-record sets have proven for most artists to be too self-indulgent messes, not just for The Beatles.
George Harrison has the show stopper on that one, with My Guitar Gentle weeps. He has a another lost gem called Long, Long, Long. A beautiful track. Still sounds great.
Dave
Most gay guys have some club song they associate with coming out. For me, it's Blackbird. May have saved my life.
Abbey Road though..... probably my favorite. Especially "I Want You (She's So Heavy)".
Agreed: Wasn't the White Album was patched together to comply with record contract requirements?
Abbey Road is a much better album.
Agreed: While My Guitar Gently Weeps stands out as perhaps the best Rock and Roll song The Beatles ever recorded...
is is noteworthy to mention that this album was used by dj dangermouse (gnarles barkley) mixed with jay-z's black album to make "the gray album?"
I was barely a teenager when the White Album came out, and kind of unsophisticated when it came to popular music, so never really listened to it much. Recently, someone deaccessioning his collection gave me the CDs of it. I have been listening to it nonstop on my ipod when I work out and am addicted. I constantly find something new each time I hear it. And it is oddly well-suited to lifting weights -- perhaps it is the variety of musical type, as you mention.
it is beyond doubt my favourite beatles work. in fact, in spite of criticism of it being fractured and symptomatic of the fracturing of the group, i prefer to think of it as one song. when, people ask me what is my favourite beatles song, i always say, "the white album, of course."
I also think the disparity in styles on the White Album has to do with the Beatles' trip to India. Many of these songs on this album were written there, and not collectively, but individually, and that reflects the very different experiences all four Beatles had in Rishikesh. It's inn my top three, after "Rubber Soul," and "Sgt Pepper's". Also vote for "Long Long Long," and I like "Good Night," too !
I've always thought that the White Album is the Beatles' most timeless and modern-sounding record. Sgt. Pepper's encapsulated and consumated psychedelia; Abbey Road invented progressive rock; but the White Album continues to shape all shapes and forms of avant-garde derived rock to the present day. Any record that references Stockhausen has to be good.
The White Album is one of the 10 albums I would take with me to a deserted island because it was a double album so it has twice the amount of Beatles music. It has such a wide range of styles and does showcase all of the members.
I personally liked The Black Album, by Spinal Tap.
Where does this record fit in relation to The Mothers of Invention work ?
white album is a smorgasbord, not a real meal. it falls to #5 in my book...
sgt pepper
beatles 65
revolver
rubber soul
white album
white album is three good pieces of herring, gravlax, a swedish meatball, and lujtfisk. the rest is shite.
"Sexy Sadie," "Cry Baby Cry, "Why Don't We Do it in the Road," "I'm So Tired" are some of the top Beatles songs ever, and recommend this album greatly.
An important aspect fo the White Album is that the Stones' beggar's banquet was releaed on the same day.
As a radio person at that time, we had no difficulty knowing what we were going to be playing for the next couple of months.
These two albums also salved the pain from the election of 'He who must not be named' a couple of weeks earlier.
I always was a bit scared by this album, connecting it to Charles Manson. It wasn't until I heard it performed live by the Fab Faux that I was able to let go of that connection and enjoy many fine songs. The Fab Faux are a gift to all beatles fans they have often given me a new outlook on different songs.
I love it AND dislike it...reminds me of a girlfriend from long ago. She had 'connections' at a record store and got the album for me the day it hit the shelves.
I don't dislike her...just parts of the album. She's long long gone BUT the LP remains! Photos too!!!
Paul McCartney included some of studio lead-in on his solo albums so it's obviously something he liked. I think it adds intimacy to an album.
As a founding member of the Manhattan Transfer, I know that a quarter of the eclecticism of that group's musical choices was heavily influenced by this album, which as a teenager I wore away to a mere thin glaze by repeated listenings.
Abbey Road remains my favorite, because I love to sing along with the B side, but really, every Beatle album is my favorite from time to time.
And if these guys were just filling time, who ever filled it better, before or since?
I'm terrible at the 5 albums on a desert island game, but my first instinct is always to say the white album because i feel like i'd get the most bang for my buck, so to speak. there's a song for every mood, every genre, and what I appreciate most is the sense of humor in this album. To me, it lacks a lot of pretension--I get the sense that the band is poking fun at itself at times and at others, poking fun at the listener. I don't love each piece but as a whole I appreciate the moments of sincerity and the moments of levity and sardonic humor that sit side by side on this album.
Will you nostalgic baby boomers quit it with the Beatles already? There are so many other great musicians, bands, albums and songs out there, yet you people cannot seem to get over the idols of your salad days. Every year we get subjected to another bombardment of repackaged Beatles stuff, all to the detriment of other music just as worthy of attention, if not moreso. You want to hear a beautiful mess from the '60s? How about Captain Beefheart, for one. Enough boring Beatles!!!
I find the complete two album set to be incredibly comtemptuous of their fans. Wild Honey Pie?!?!? Really?!?!?!
It's easy to see where George Martin could have turned these 30 tracks into one of the best single albums of all times, but as a double album, it's got a LOT of crap on it.
The white album was most astonishing to me in that it had the most extremes in contrasting styles of any of their albums. It includes major league rock 'n roll, the softest of their soft ballads, arcane lyrics, a "live" feeling to many of the songs, and lots of new experimental sounds. It was a real shocker to me back in the day.
I like the White Album - well the first 1/2
the second disk is a diffrent story - itsnot bad, but i need something very high grade to get me to enjoy it. VERY!! but there is one tuth from that album:
Everyone has something to hide, except for me and my monkey.
Why do we need to compare this to the other albums???
Everyone will have personal taste as in anything-
This was a radical departure celebrating artistic freedom by brilliant artists: refreshing, interesting, fun, enjoyable, riske, mysterious... and the proclaimed "warts" by critics expecting it to be like any typical album is such a bore, please.
Artristic freedom
I love the White album don't get me wrong, but I have to wonder would people appreciate (or even care about) the perfect imperfections and nooks and cranies of this album if the artists as individuals hadn't already established themselves as the artistic geniuses they are?
The White Album is the culminating moment of the band, in the sense that it represents the best individual writing efforts of Lennon and Mac as individuals up to that point, and in the sense that it was in effect a set of solo albums marking the beginning of the end of the band. I can't understand the "mess" comments. Julia, Me and My Monkey, Yer Blues, Revolution, Cry Baby Cry, Glass Onion, the Lennon tunes alone represent one of the best rock albums of the era. As for, Mac, it was his finest work, down hill from there.
To the guy recommending Captain Beefheart over the Beatles: sing me one Beefheart tune. You couldn't even do Abba Zabba, you dorkus erectus. The Beatles were as boring as the atom bomb.
NEVER agreed w/ the idea that the White Album would've/should've been edited into a fine single LP instead of an interesting 2xLP -- NO!
G. Martin was wrong. All worth hearing as presented ... then again, I am a maximalist of sorts -- sometimes MORE IS MORE! And I maintain that we are similarly lucky that the Clash pushed thru !Sandinista! to the record-buying public as a discounted if shambolic (yet fascinating) triple-disc; catching such unique, mind-blowingly great -- and relatively short-lived -- bands operating in their time, putting rich material out as intended, is something we are fortunate to have, period.
Note: I also learned the White Album material from the inside, learning/covering many trax w/musician friends in an ad-hoc combo called Los PARANOIAS, performing on a San Diego rooftop on the 30th anniv. of the Beatles live perf finale (1-30-1999); later opening for the Plastic People of the Universe; etc. ...
I think McCartney is quoted as saying," it's the Beatles, it's fine as a double album, it's great.
The album showcases the lads at a more mature and stripped down serving that is more straight forward Sgt Pepper's. Although it is pretty much like a solo LP for each artists, it's pretty prime material. Actually McCartney in some ways dominates the LP, put I'm fine with it. I like it as a double LP, as it's much more rich that way. If released as a single one, true it would be a very strong LP format wise, to rival their other great servings, but time has showed that it's still much appreciated as is, and because it's so rich, I would take it on a desert Island with me if only allowed one Beatles album.
I collect unreleased recordings of Dylan, as well as the Beatles. I can tell you this much, if the Beatles White album was only released asa single LP, all those unreleased tracks would be highly sought after, and would rival Dylan's basement tapes.
Further more, as a double LP, we are blessed with more accessible material.
Well I was 11 when this album came out and I remember it well. It really was an album of it's time. We were not aware of all this inner tension in the group. It fit very well in the context of other things that were going on. I am thinking about The Moody Blues, Syd Barret the early Pink Floyd, The Nice. This was a time of innovation and experiment in the culture at large.. Well at least in London where I lived. And we continued to listen to this album in the ensuing years. How many of us as teenagers learned the guitar playing the intro from Blackbird.
I think it fits a comfy niche, not a towering masterpiece but always aa place to revisit now and again.
John and Friends--
If the White Album is a mess, it's a mess the way in the way that a place like the Met Museum is a mess: a catalogue of competing styles in conversation with one another.
I'm risking sounding all-too-pompous, I know, but the White Album is an encyclopedia of pop music of the late 20th-century. Punk, 40s ballads, singer-songwriter, rock, electronica -- who else could do this? Who else thought of doing this in 1968?
There's also an undercurrent of spiritual and personal wrestle and struggle even under the "happy" songs -- the same effect that Led Zeppelin's better work conjures. I'm hardly surprised that it affected Manson the way it did. The album is spooky, and spooked. I fell in love with the Beatles as a 9-year-old, after Lennon was shot, and this album used to scare the crap out of me.
When I listen alone to "Long, Long, Long" or "Helter Skelter," it still does. Something mysteriously special happened on this album.
Great album, no doubt some filler, but it all needed to be heard one way or another, why not as an epic double album. Always thought of it as a parody album, even of themselves, I Will is a Paul parody of Paul.
Marked them jumping off the edge of experimentalism and digressing into a sloppy garage band, as they became more and more primative until the end.
They evolved in reverse, starting out with sophisticate harmonies (vocal and otherwise) and becoming more and more punk/garage band though Let it Be.
My favorite Beatles album, with favorite Harrison song (Long, Long, Long) and one of my top-5 album of all time.
Along with London Calling and Wild, the Innocent always stands to me as one of the the benchmarks for making a song-based album
I think that the White Album is fantastic.
"Happiness is a warm gun" and "yer blues" were both outstanding Lennon`s songs.
Definetely it seems to me that the album would have been better if the Beatles would have rehearsed more. It is evident that they were
exhausted at this time.
It is one of my favourites albums and I hear it unless completely two times by year with my young son.
For me, "The White Album", "Revolver", and "Abbey Road" will always remain the Beatles' standouts. But, "The White Album" was where the 4 let loose to produce the most interesting/diverse sounds in their catalog. Play and experimentation results in some of the best music ever written. And nobody (well, there's always a somebody) wants to hear an album's worth of tunes that all sound alike. "The White Album", even as drug-addled as it might be, is the most creative and stimulating Beatles album.
I really like the white album but i think that yellow submarine is my favorite.
George Harrison's Savoy Truffle!!! I lost my hearing from that guitar solo. It's Fantastic. "What did you say?"
.
The Beatles White Album was the first Beatles album which had the "modern sound". Part of that reason, is this was the first recording on 8 tracks. Prior to this their recordings were all from 4 tracks. By "modern sound" I think this album could have been released today as it still sounds fresh. Prior to this recording, their music was really dated to the times. The early pop-bubblegum, middle period jingle-jangle, and the psycheldelic summer of love all are reminiscent of the sixties. The White Album, Let It Be, and Abbey Road all have that timeless sound to them.
You can have Guitar Gently Weeps,
give me Dear Prudence - you can
have Martha My Dear, Obla-Di and
I Will, give me Glass Onion, Bun-
galow Bill and Long, Long Long -
you can have Julia, give me Back
in the USSR - etc etc etc...I do
agree with previous comments
about Rubber Soul and Revolver
being unequalled; guess I don't care
much for Abbey Road or either
version of Let It Be, come to think
of it...
Every-time i hear Long, Long, Long and Sexy Sadie, they feel the most modern of any of the songs on the album. I've heard elements of those songs in the works of Radiohead and Jet, just to name 2. Even The Offspring ripped-off Obla-Di, Obla-Da. I find it interesting that so many people hate on this album, even though, so many popular bands borrow from it.
There's no denying the quality dips a little on disc 2 (and I have to say I now reach for the skip button EVERY time 'Revolution 9' comes on) but in the age of the iPod I don't think an album of continual quality matters so much in 2008. I often listen to music on random/shuffle so any track off the White Album always seems refreshing.
I have, of course, listened to the album in correct sequence many times, and while there is an argument that maybe one disc would've made it stronger, I think the freedom and ideas that can be spread over a double album make for a far more interesting listen and it's so nice to see a mainstream popular band taking risks, experimenting and being so diverse.
I ask you, what modern bands in 2008 would dare to make such an eclectic album? People say Radiohead are daring, but they're no so diverse. There's probably only one current band I can think of who can freely move from punk to reggae to soul to pop to blues to rock to country to lounge to psychedelia to vaudeville/music hall to metal and beyond. They are Ween. Any other modern-day suggestions?
The White Album is definitely my favorite, because it is so diverse. My favorite song on it is I WLL, possibly the BEST Beatles ballad, ever. I also love MARTHA MY DEAR, BACK IN THE USSR, WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS, SEXY SADIE and LONG LONG LONG. The album is great rock and roll, great ballads and great orchestrated music. It's sad that The Beatles were breaking apart during the recording sessions.
I also love SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, ABBEY ROAD and MEET THE BEATLES.
I'm a late baby boomer- totally missed the Beatles, but found them in my 20's. I am still amazed by their body of work. To think they started as a boy boy band! It's really a silly argument- the White Album, because even the out takes would be better than most of the pop music produced over the last 40 years.
Compaed to such things as PET SOUNDS, ABBY ROAD, TOMMY; sure it is a mis-mosh. But, compared to typical non-concept Rock & Roll albums, now ot then, is is a collection of super tunes.
"Favoite Death Songs"
And, I couldn't find how to comment about "Favoite Death Songs," but my vote is, of course, UNTIL I DIE, by Brian Wilson / Beach Boys. It is pathetic in a mystical sense. Play it.
The White Album - It doesn't feel like George Martin is being listened to at this point, and when added the fact that they were working independently rather than collaboratively, this means quality control has left the room. At it's worst, it's willfully wayward, indulgent, pretentious, and certainly uneven. But at its undeniable, glorious best, it's as sublime as ever they got on record. All of which explains why it's the most debated piece in the canon, and all of which is why I'm not going to say which parts for me are the best and which the worst....
Soon enough, I'll be 40 myself, but I was born after The Beatles broke up. I've always known who they were. And they were ubiquitous. The radio station my guardian listened to used Beatles songs for everything: traffic and weather reports, April 15, school lunch menu announcements...
But when I was 12, in the heyday of Duran Duran and Motley Crüe, I started *really* listening to The Beatles. I have been awed at the sophistication and complexity in these 3 minute pop songs coming from some seriously young people. George was 26 when they broke up. 26!
Over the years, my favorite albums have changed. The White Album is not my favorite (that would be Abbey Road), but there are some songs that really resonate with me for one reason or another, like Glass Onion, EGSTHEFMAMM, and Revolution (I've come to like the original better than the re-recording).
I can't imagine pop music today without these guys, those I think they were more early adopters and synthesists more than actual innovators, but it's all good. Someone had to make it all come together. Why not them, especially since they did it so well?
The White Album is by far the most eclectic collection of music in the planned Beatles repertoire. I have always found it to be the most unthematic of all the Beatles albums. However, it is, in fact, emblematic of the socio-historical times. I think that the White Album, with its chaotic array of music and themes, is indicative of America in the late 1960s. It is an anthem to the historical uncertainty of 1968 in general, and of the late 60s countercultural perspective in particular. It is both exhiliariting and preplexive at the same time. On a personal note, I absolutely love the end of the album, which concludes with Ringo Starr singing "Good Night." As with all of the album that preceeded it, "Good Night" is out of place thematically, yet ends the album with such a sweetness that only Ringo on vocals and The Beatles can give, a filling quality that makes this album a must for any Beatles fan or anyone else for that matter.
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