THE BEATLES [AKA: THE WHITE ALBUM]

I always say that this is the best album of all times, not my favorite, but damn good!!! The Beatles reached their peak with this one. Lennon´s experimentation would bring the mini suite happyness is a warm gun, the weird Every has got something to hide except me and my monkey, the great lyrics of Revolution 1, the touching and simple Dear Prudence and the progressive blues of Yer Blues among others. Mccartney as always delivers some great pop songs like back in the USSR, Mother nature son, the excellent Blackbird and the proto heavy Helter Skelter. Harrison surprises with Long, Long,Long and the memorable While my guitar gently weeps. Even Ringo has a song of his own: Don´t pass me by. This album really shows how advanced the Beatles were for their time...it was 1968, noone was doing something like this!!! Floyd was still a psicodelyc pop band, Frank Zappa was going for it, but still wasn´t there, jethro Tull was more of a blues,folk band ...really the Beatles were miles ahead of every one...and in many ways still are.

Desert Island Material.

Finally! The Beatles on ProgArchives. And it's about freaking time, since this album has more progressive elements than many albums by Queen, Rush or even Yes. No serious prog collection is complete without 3 or 4 Beatles records. No kidding. The White Album could've made the most fantastic album of all-time...as a single album. Scrape off some 'filler' song (like Cry Baby Cry or Good Night and more, you'll see) and you'll discover the ultimate double album of all time, and probably the most successful.

Many pop moments (courtesy of McCarthney) are sweetening the whole pattern, but in the core, this leads to absolute genius experimentation with the little help from their friends (Clapton, Jagger, Richards). Too many classics on one album, this is too good to be true, I tell you.

Take Helter Skelter, the first 'heavy metal' tune as we know it; Rocky Raccoon and it's cool honky tonk atmosphere; Happiness is a Warm Gun as terribly destructive and double-edged; and the ultimate technological prodigy of the era: Revolution Number 9.

So much progressive goodies and the super popish and oh so catchy grooves that we all know and love is making me choose this as the ultimate Beatles experience.

Groovy, explosive, experimental and terribly addictive, period.

Effectively 4 solo albums (ok, 3 solo albums and a solo single), this is the work of a disintegrating unit. Ringo actually left the group at one point during the making of this double album, leaving McCartney to play the drums on a number of tracks including Back In The USSR.

Having said that, it is one of their best works, also possibly the least known by the general public. The Fabs went back to basics here, starting with the minimalist cover, and this album features the rawest rock they ever recorded (Helter Skelter). There is a dazzling array of styles here - from rock'n'roll to country to jazz to avant garde to bedtime lullaby.A number of these songs were written in India during their time with the Maharishi.

McCartney contributes some solo work (Blackbird, Martha My Dear, I Will, Mother Nature's Son) which is amongst his finest and also some bizarre ones (Wild Honey Pie, Why Don't We and the uncredited Can You Take Me Back?).

Lennon's work includes the biting Sexy Sadie, aimed at the Marahishi who apparently had an eye for the ladies, the multi-section Happiness is A Warm Gun which features the most time signature changes in a Beatles song, a number of stark rock'n'rollers (I'm So Tired, Everybody's got something to hide, Yer Blues) and Goodbye, sung by Ringo but written by John for Julian. Glass Onion was deliberately written for those who like to find hidden meanings in Beatle songs ("The Walrus was Paul").

Harrison contributes the classic While My Guitar Gently Weeps, with Clapton on slide guitar, the underrated Long, Long, Long, the average Savoy Truffle and the not so good Piggies. Starr's contribution is his first solo credit on a Beatles record - the country-tinged Don't Pass Me By, which he had been writing for the previous 5 years.

On top of all this lot (and George Martin begged them to make it a single LP) we get two of the three versions of Revolution (the Lennon/Ono avant garde one which is probably best forgotten and the acoustic version), Lennon's funniest line ("I'll have another cigarette and curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid git") and a hit for Siouxise and the Banshees (Dear Prudence). The best Beatles album? Possibly.

The quintessential Beatles album. If there was any of their reportoire that justified progressive labels then ' Double White' definitely fits the bill. Conceptual by nature, damn challenging and demanding at times. Listen to ' Revolution nine' it is really experimental. There is no doubt these guys lay down a lot of ground roots for the the real pioneers of progressive sounds but then again one always needs at least one band or personality to start the ball rolling. Elvis Presley was another liberator of expressionism.

Double White is a richly textured album which from host to post delivers excellent music. There is no point discussing the mastery of the musicians because they were never brilliant, what they were brilliant in was the mastery of experimentalism and two fingers up to the critics or unbelievers at the time. In terms of material there are too many good songs to mention and it would be far easier dissecting a Porcupine Tree album instead! However these ones shine out as the best from an overall masterpiece of it's genre. ' Back In The USSR', ' Helter Skelter", " Wild Honey Pie", " Happiness Is A Warm Gun" and the irrepressible " Rock Roccoon". Recommended to anyone who felt that the Beatles were below progressive music. Any Beatles fan would arguably have this and ' Revolver' at the top of their list.

The year 1968 was a very problematic year, not only for The Beatles. There were students riots around the world, including one of them in my country which was heavily repressed, ten days before the Olympic Games were celebrated in my city. I have vague memories of the riots and of the Olympic Games, being myself three years old at the time, but, believe or not, I still have some memories about them.

This album also was recorded during a tense period of three or four months in 1968, on which The Beatles had a hard time. Due to the tension, even George Martin and long time Recording Engineer Geoff Emerick went to their respective holidays during the recording of this album, leaving to then new Recording Engineer Chris Thomas the task of working with The Beatles for several days. Even Ringo Starr left the band for several days. Despite the tension, it is amazing that this album is still very good, even giving the impression of being recorded during "happy and funny times".

In this album, The Beatles left Psychedelia behind them. Some of the songs were recorded in different combinations of the members of the band, or even alone. For example, "Wild Honey Pie" was recorded by Paul alone, "Why Don`t We Do It in the Road?" was recorded by Paul and Ringo, "Julia" by John alone, etc. During Ringo`s absence, Paul recorded drums in "Back in the U.S.S.R." (with George and John also adding some drums parts in this song) and in "Dear Prudence". George Martin also did several very good orchestral arrangements for some songs. But the general impression was, IMO, that this album marked a "change" for the band in many ways.

My favourite songs from this album are: "Dear Prudence", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Martha My Dear", "I`m So Tired", "Piggies", "Julia", "Yer Blues", "Helter Skelter", "Long, Long, Long", "Honey Pie", "Cry Baby Cry" and "Good Night". There is also a very experimental piece of music called "Revolution 9" created and recorded by John, with some collaborations by Yoko Ono and George Harrison.

How do you follow up the most influential album of the 20th century? The answer is: You don't even try. And they didn't. The "White Album" is so drastically different from Sgt. Pepper's that it could be from a totally different group. Poor George Martin. He probably never had any idea who would show up and what shape they'd be in when they did. The Fab Four were going in four different directions and the music herein reflects that emphatically. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing but the "group effort" concept was not at the forefront. There are obvious jewels here that have stood the test of time but there's also some downright strangeness going on, as well. Progressively speaking, there are several standout cuts. "Dear Prudence," "Glass Onion," "Happiness," "Everybody's got something to hide," and "Helter Skelter" definitely pushed the envelope of normal tunesmithing. You might notice that most of these cuts were from the experimental and bohemian mind of John Lennon so he has to be singled out as the carrier of the prog torch on this collection of songs. When this came streaming through my ears the first time I felt it was a bit of a letdown after the brilliant LP that preceded it and I still have trouble warming up to it even now. It's a real hodge-podge of musical styles and production and never finds a singular identity throughout. Perhaps it is just a reflection of where the Beatles were headed at the time and, in that case, it shows that the end was just over the horizon.

The Beatles epic double album, simply titled The Beatles (but also knows as the White Album, mainly because of the bare cover) would prove to the world that the in the studio incarnation of the Beatles were still able to crank out a large amount of songs, and throughout the 30 songs on this album, a wide spectrum of moods are presented in varying forms, from the opening planes and rocking sections of Back in the USSR to the avant-garde sound collage Revolution 9, no idea is left out of this album, and for the most part this album is largely successful, but some parts are a bit drab and dry, as is the case with most double albums. A little history about the making of the album. During the start of the sessions, the tensions between the group rose so high that Ringo went off and quit the band for a rather short period of time (a week or so), leaving Paul to fill in the drum parts for the first few tracks on the album. Luckily, Ringo returned with a brand new drum set garnished with flowers and a sign that said Welcome Back on it. This marked the first time a member of the group actually quit the band. But enough about that and more about what this album has.

The first disc of the set features 17 of the total 30 tracks, and it has some real stand out numbers. Back In the USSR is the first track on the album, and it has a real old Beatle feel to it, with the falsetto harmonies and the standard structure. McCartney's drum performance is great (this is one of the two or three tracks on the album that doesn't feature Ringo) as well as Harrison's great guitar solo. Glass Onion is Lennon's throwback to old songs with lyrical references to Strawberry Fields, the Fool on the Hill, and the Walrus (who turned out to be Paul!). Anyway, the chord progression is rather nice and the snearing vocals from Lennon are great. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is a majestic piece that has some a genuine upbeat feel and some fine vocals from Paul. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill is a bit of a children's story piece from Lennon (Yoko does backing vocal on the track) and it has a great fun feel in the vein of Yellow Submarine. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is arguably the best song George Harrison ever wrote during his time with the Beatles. A great a melodic chord progression as well as some stellar vocals and a superb guitar solo from both Harrison and his longtime friend Eric Clapton (at that time of Cream).

Happiness is a Warm Gun was originally three different songs, but they decided to add them together, it has some great riffing in the beginning, a stellar middle section that was very heavy for the Beatles, and a great ending chorus with the phrase happiness is a warm gun repeated over and over again. Blackbird is an acoustic Paul McCartney tune that has some wonderful lyrics and a nice overall beat (he taps his foot to keep in time and it really comes off nicely). Piggies is the second Harrison song on the album, and it's a playful piece that contains a lyrical line from Harrison's mother (what they need's a damn good whacking). Rocky Raccoon is a honky tonk country piece with Paul McCartney doing his best doing some southern narrations between the ragtime piano section in the interludes. Don't Pass Me By would mark the first Ringo penned song since What Goes On (yet Lennon and McCartney both contributed to the piece). It's a nice rocking tune that has a bit of a country edge, similar to that of Rocky Raccoon.

The second disc is comprised of the final 13 tracks of the album and in my opinion has a lot less to offer than the first disc, but there are still some great tracks. Birthday has some nice unison riffing from the guitars and the bass, and the insistent vocal really comes off well. Yer Blues is a nice blues number that has some great riffing and some searing leads from Harrison. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey is a rocker like Birthday, with some stellar riffing in the beginning, and some truly nonsensical lyrics from Lennon, but it's a fantastic piece in the end. Helter Skelter can be considered as the first hard rock piece ever. Originally conceived as a 25 minute jam, they cut it down to five and allowed for a lot of instrumental breaks. It's a superb track with great guitar work overall, and Ringo's famous phrase at the end (I got blisters on me fingers) really ends it well. Revolution 1 is a nice acoustic waltzy piece, but I think it gets better represented as the heavy and distorted single it became, Revolution. Savoy Truffle is another Harrison penned track about Eric Clapton's sweet tooth, and the harmony vocals and the main theme is spectacular. Revolution 9 is the most controversial Beatles piece, it's also their most avant-garde. What it is mainly is a sound collage of random effects and noises, and for the most part I'm not too fond of it, but it shows the true experimental nature of John Lennon and his willingness to try something like atonal composers Edgar Varese. Good Night is a lullaby John wrote for his son Julian and is sang by Ringo accompanied by a full orchestra and really ends the album on a majestic and somber note.

In the end, The White Album is a controversial album that has a lot of stellar tracks, and some good filler in between. Mind you not all the tracks are great, but they have this aura about them that make them all far from terrible. If you're looking for a progressive Beatles record, then look no further, you're reading about one right here. It's an excellent album that I think no fan of early or avant-garde progressive rock should go without. 4/5.

This is a very controversial album. There is very little middle of the road opinion on this one. Like any true Beatle freak, I love it. Honestly, I believe I would even if this was not my favorite band. This is highly successful experimentation. The success is even more impressive, when considering the tension within the band. This actually could have something to do with why it works. Each song is a mostly individual work, with the other guys as session men.

All the stops are pulled out, and anything is fair game. There are rockers, ballads, Vaudeville, reggae, folk, and performance art. There is even a genuine prog piece (silly as it may be) in "Happiness is a Warm Gun." There are other proggy moments, but none as obvious. All this may seem disjointed, and unsettling, but that works for me. I rarely want to hear just part of it. It is a cohesive album. How this happened, I have no idea.

This is a landmark album for The Beatles, and rock music. Once again they showed that there are no boundaries. As always, pulling it off beautifully. The White Album is a rite of passage for any true rock (or modern) music lover. It doesn't have to become a favorite to be appreciated. Check it out. You will be better for it. You can tell me you hate it, but at least you will have heard it.

It may not be the proggiest, but it is a masterpiece, and is essential for a complete collection.

H.T. Riekels

Okay The Beatles White Album huh? The general consensus claims it to be the first ever double LP! Well too bad its not, "Freak Out!" By the Mothers Of Invention is, but thats a horse of a different color. This is probably the Beatles' most eclectic piece of music as it is a mix of about 10 different genres. How about a review now?

Disc 1 of 2 starts off with "Back In The USSR", a spoof of the Americanism presnted in "Back In The USA". Its a nice tune, but not very Beatle-esque and I prefer their other works to it. "Dear Prudence" is a ballad that can get quite repetitive at times, but it always btings a smile to my face it it just has the feeling of a happy atmosphere surrounding it. "Glass Onion" starts out with a referance to "Strawberry Fields" and that's the only hit it'll score with Beatles fans. Very trite and boring. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La- Da" is nother sweeter-than sugar song that I don't particularly like, but can't help to smile at. The lyrics tell of a couple who get married and grow up together, and it's just very refreshing and crisp. "Wild Honey Pie" is a very quirky piece, it is just a few strings being played with a weird growling voice singing the title. Not much, but a nice touch. Next is "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill", which is a childish track and lacks substance. Alot of people mention it as a favorite, but if you asked me I would tell you to just skip it. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" takes the cake as my favorite Beatles song of all time. One of the greatest songs ever, and it just demands a listen. The lyrics are intensely melancholy, yet the guitar lines are deep and beautiful all together. Just awesome! "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" is another excellent song, more melancholy but a tad more upbeat with the guitar. these two songs flow very nicely together and they are my favorites on the album. "Martha My Dear" features an excellent piano introduction, and it is onemore of those happy little love songs that makes you think of your loved ones and nod and smile. Very catchy, an excellent song as well. "I'm So Tired" is yet another great song, but unlike the previous three this takes a little bit of time to appreciate the musicianship and the way they fuse the blues with softer melodies. "Blackbird" breaks the chain a little bit as the music isn't really "all there", but McCartney's vocals shine brightly in a musically-lacking piece. "Piggies" equals filler. Please do yourself a fovr and skip this track, your body will thank you! "Rocky Raccoon" is not a very good song, but it is very interesting to look at the honky-tonk atmosphere the Beatles show here, which stray away from their normal sounds. "Don't Pass Me By" starts with a great percussion introduction but quickly slips downhill when the scratchy vocals and annoying chords come into the song. "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" is another short quirky number that you can help but play over and over again. Sheer addictiveness right here! "I Will" is a nice little ballad, you should paly it to that special some-one and it'll bring a smile upon their face. "Julia" ends the first disc of this album, and it jsut so happens to be one of Kurt Cobain's favorite songs of all time. "not mine though, I don't recommend a listen to it.

Okay now we are onto Disc 2. It kicks off with "Birthday", the song everybody just loves to hate. The song itself has reached an iconic status in just about everywhere, as when it is your birthday you just need to hear it! Great riffs, very catchy, a nice little tune. "Yer Blues" is next, and it is just the title suggests, a throw-back to the gritty American Delta blues writers with some gravelly vocals. "Mother Nature's Son" is an acoustic ballad that has some nice work on the horns, but not much substance other than that. "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey" is a quirky little number that seem to enjoy alot. The sound is crisp and clean, and the lyrics make no sense what-so-ever and that always appeals to me when a singer can take nonsense and give it meaning. "Sexy Sadie" is classic Beatles-type filler. It is still enjoyable, but it makes no impact and the album would still be the same without it. "Helter Skelter" is far and away the best song on this side of the album, and one of my favorite Beatles tunes ever. A song about a playground slide, George and Paul craft it and shape it into an almost heavy-metal tune. The Beatles never have sounded this heavy, and they never would again in their career. The next song is "Long, Long, Long" and it has a touch act to follow. As expected, the soft, mellow balld type song fails to keep any attention to the album after following "Helter Skelter". But on the bright side, "Revolution 1" follows after, and it is the complete anthem to America with it's cultured lyrics, catchy hooks, and just all around enjoyable atmosphere. Excellent tune. "Honey Pie" and "Savoy Truffle" are songs about an actress and a box of candies respectively, and they both need to be burned and never listened to by human ears again. Seriously. "Cry Baby Cry", "Revolution 9" and "Good Night" are all exteremly uneventful tracks, and I usually end the album at "Revolution 1", but I had to warn you about those other two tracks. Utterly terrible, and they take away fromt he overall album's rating as well.

So in conclusion to my longest review yet, this album was an incredible mix of different genres including heavy metal, acoustic balladry, pop, blues, blue-grass and more. Would get a 5 star from me, but three or four utterly horrible filler tracks knock it down to a 4. The good music definately outweighs the bad though!

They had to make it a double album because Lennon, McCartney and Harrison insisted on having their songs on the record. They had three studios operating at the same time and of course the above mentioned trio were at times in their own studio doing their own thing. Ringo was so frustrated he quit for a short time, causing McCartney to play drums on the recording of one song. Yes, at this point it was every man for himself.

For me the first disc is far superior to the second disc. From the surprisingly good guitar on "Back In The USSR" to the fun songs like "Ob-la-di,ob-la-da" , "Piggies" and "The Continuing Story Of Bungalo Bill" which features mellotron. To my favourite BEATLES song of all time "My Guitar Gently Weeps". I love the psychedelic "Dear Prudence" as well as "Martha My Dear" and "Blackbird". "Rocky Racoon" is just a great song that tells a story. If they had just released disc one alone it would be a 5 star rating, but I have to give it 4 stars overall. In my list of BEATLES records I would put this behind "Magical Mystery Tour" , "Sgt.Pepper's..." and "Abbey Road".

This record reminds me in a way of LED ZEPPELIN's "Physical Graffiti", not musically of course but in that they were both double albums that were released late in their careers.

GOSH!

After an album like "Pepper's", the Fab Four need some more time to release their next studio album. It was also a difficult period for the band. Each member working more on an individual basis and the feeling of a "band" being less valid than earlier.

Ringo left the recording sessions for two weeks. Paul did play drums on two tracks (the first two of the album). On "Back In The USSR" George and John also participated in the drumming on the stereo version. It is now famous that during an interview John was asked : "Do you think Ringo is the best rock drummer in the world?" His answer was : "He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles!"

When you listen to the opener, "Back In The USSR", the band took up with their debut and rock'n'roll style. The link with the "Beach Boys" is also very obvious. Both bands were respectful of one another and George Martin said that "Pet Sound" (recorded in 66 by the Californian band) was the MAJOR source of inspiration for "Pepper's".

A song like "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" has never been a fave of mine. It is said to be an homage to the growing Jamaican community in the UK and their music (reggae of course). Apart this original fact (the first "white" reggae song?), there is nothing to write home about this.

As on almost each double albums (except "Quadrophenia" IMO) there will be several fillers on this album. Too much on this one. "Wild Honey Pie" is the first of them. The next ones are : "Martha My Dear", the pastoral "Blackbird", "Rocky Racoon" and its Western style, the traditional Ringo one "Don't Pass Me By" (an old song that Ringo wanted to propose as early as 1964). Neither John nor George are featured on this track. And side two goes on on the same mood : "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" is pretty dull as well.

On the second disc, the bluesy "Yer Blues" is unbearable to my ears. Heavy and extremely difficult to digest. Press next. Except of being the longest title of a Fab Four song "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" has little to offer. Another weak rock'n'roll song.

The list is frankly long (almost half the tracks actually) and goes on with "Honey Pie" and "Savoy Truffle". I really wonder what's all this fuss about this album? I have some difficulties with "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill". A song based on a personal experience while the band was in India. Very good verse, but awful (really) chorus.

One of my all-time fave from the band comes next. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". A wonderful song written by George. Each time I listen to it (not mentioning when I see it played on video/DVD)I am either on the verge of tears or I just simply cry, like now.

George did invite Clapton for the phenomenal guitar solo, and during his presence in the studio, the tensions were kind of left aside and it were the best times the band experienced. It is also my absolute fave from this album (but that's not difficult).

"Happiness is a Warm Gun" is a mini-opera on its own (in the vein of what "The Who" had done with "A Quick One, While He's Away" in 1966). But this song is only three minutes long and features lots of theme changes; which is not frequent in such a short song.

Another very good song is "I'm SoTired" written by John at three AM while he was in India, during a "meditation" experience. "Piggies" is a weird song. Not a great one. Only saved by its lyrics which are a vitriol critics of some social classes (comparing them to pigs). I quote : "Have you seen the bigger piggies in their starched white shirts? You will find the bigger piggies, stirring up the dirt. Always have clean shirts to play around in". !

"I Will" is the first song Paul wrote for Linda. It is a charming but short ballad, full of tranquillity. Not great, but after so many weak songs, it comes as a breath of fresh air. The closing number of the first LP is very much on the same mood. Another peaceful ballad which features only Lennon playing acoustic guitar and sing. It is the only Fab Four song to feature John only .

IMO, if you except "Weeps", the second side of "The Beatles" is by far the weakest side of an album the Fab Four ever recorded.

The second LP starts with another rock'n'roll song (just like the first one). But "Birthday" is just average. Vocals (!) particularly are far from being enjoyable.

"The Beatles" was very much influenced with their Indian "philosophical" experience developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who founded and developed the "Transcendental Meditation". It seems that "Mother Natures Son" was inspired by one of its lecture. An unreleased song called "Child Of Nature" was not considered for this album. It will turn out to be "Jealous Guy". They would have been inspired to have that one inserted in this album.

While the second half of the band was leaving India (Paul and Ringo had already left the "master" before the end of the "initiation") John will get to know that the "transcendental guru" made use of his influence to get some sex affair with a disciple. He composed "Sexy Sadie" based on this experience.

Side three is definitely their rockiest one ever. Since there were lots of criticism about McCartney's songwriting (he could "only" write ballads), the noisy "Helter Skelter" is flirting with the metal sound. Not my cup of tea to be honest.

To compensate this, the following song is a sweet ballad written by George. At least a decent song (but no masterpiece, let's be clear). It was the closing track of the third side of this double album. As weak (or even weaker) than side two. The Fab Four are definitely lacking inspiration.

The last side of this album features over twelve minutes dedicated to "Revolution" in two formats. These are the two best moments from this side. The closing "Good Night" which features Ringo on the vocals accompanied by an orchestra is also pleasant. The rest ? Well, forgetable.

My feelings are that it is the most overrated Fab Four album. IMO, it is a collection of sub, sub par "Beatles" songs of which VERY FEW are memorable. Still, it is the best-selling album from the band. This just leaves me speechless. As all the high ratings on PA. I would like to know from where the "too many classics" come from.

This album has of course little to do with prog, whatsoever. George Martin was so P.O. that he left the recording sessions and went on holidays...

When I discovered this album in 1973, I could absolutely not enter into it. When I tried again some twenty-five years later, the same feeling applied. And time hasn't changed my mind now. It is still a MAJOR deception. Two stars. Can't go higher. I am just astonished thatI could wrote such a long review about an album I don't like. Even if it is considered as rubbish for most of you (my review I mean).

It was quite odd for me personally because I knew this album for the first time not directly interacted with this release. But, I was at that time having a cassette titled "A Concert for Bangladesh" whereby one of the performers was George Harrison. What interested me was actually one song in that cassette, i.e. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Wow! The song blew me away at first listen and I was not aware at all that the song was originally published in The Beatles "White" album. But that cassette, I always repeated when the "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" played wonderfully from my cassette deck. Later, I knew that there was The Beatles album released in 1968 which people usually called it as "White" album. I was really happy knowing that the song was actually one of excellent songs from the album.

Another thing that surprised me as well was "Sexy Sadie" where I found it also appeared in a compilation by local radio station Prambors. So when I knew this album contained this song as well. I was happy as well. This song remained great even after decades of knowing it.

In addition to those two memorable songs, this album is an excellent release by the band. The straight rocker "Back In The U.S.S.R." (2:43) opens the album beautifully with its pondering guitar sounds and eerie vocal harmonies. Right after this rocker, the music moves into break with an acoustic "Dear Prudence" (3:56). ""Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (3:08) was very popular in the 70s and it has popular chorus line that made the song was a major hit. The other interesting aspect after "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (4:45) is the follow-up song "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" (2:43) which has uplifting mood. Really cool! The music flows naturally to a ballad "Martha My Dear" (2:28) followed wonderfully with "I'm So Tired" (2:03). "Blackbird" (2:18) is a great track with wonderful melody and great guitar work.

Other tracks in Disc Two are also excellent, in addition to "Sexy Saddie". "Yer Blues" is a great track that has been covered by some blues musicians like Jeff Hailey. "Helter Skelter" is a great rocker.

Overall, this is an excellent addition to any rock music collection.

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Sexy maharishis and flaming ashtrays

I've never been much of a Beatles fan. I always found them to be excellent pop songwriters, but at times inconsistent and not really producers of masterpieces. Even their apparent breakthroughs in music never seemed to impress me as much, in comparison to what the Beach Boys were doing. Plus I couldn't get past all of that cheesy pop they put out every once in a while. And yet, after the personally disappointing beat-psychedelic pop of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band seemed to get in touch with raw emotions for the first time, perhaps as a result of their retreat in India, but most likely because of growing dissention in the band. It is amusing, however, that coming from India the band got back to work with a bag of musical ideas. from the States. That's right, there is not a bloody sitar in sight, only electric and acoustic guitars aplenty, and inspirations from 30's dance-hall music, John Cage, the blues and The Beach Boys.

In fact, the boys who gave us such great pop music are honoured in the album opener, Back In The U.S.S.R., along with obvious not to Chuck Berry. The groove and harmonies are typical BB, but the Beatles rock a bit more, featuring some great electric guitar work, a feature that goes into the following song, Dear Prudence, a groovy ballad also featuring a great drum and bass line. The grooviness is also captured in the third track, Glass Onion, a Beatles song mocking the Beatles. Features the use of orchestral instrumentation in the background, lurking behind the dominating guitar, bass and drums that drive the song forward. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is quite a shift from the more rocking style with which the album opened. It sounds almost like a carnival soundtrack, very merry but with the potential to be quite annoying in case of overexposure. It does not, however, reach the annoying levels of early 20's sounding country song Wild Honey Pie, a small piece that serves as an intro to The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill - featuring (quite discernible) vocals from Yoko Ono, on a track that would not sound out of place in a sing-along- on-the-bus-as-we-make-way-for-a-camping-trip-kind-of-song. Just as all the clapping near the end is beginning to annoy, the song is swiftly cut to make way for the next one. After a whole bunch of Lennon and/or McCartney songs, we are treated to the first Harrison-penned song of the album - and what a contribution it is! While My Guitar Gently Weeps is probably one of the most memorable songs from this album, and rightly so. George's fledging vocals and guest star Eric Clapton's fingers in the guitar give this song an aura of warm despair and immortality. And it rocks, too. Just as much as the grim Lennon song that follows, Happiness Is A Warm Gun - Lennon would soon find that out for himself. History apart, it is an excellent track, moody and dark, and immensely rich in rhythm changes, from folk ballad to blues to psychedelia all in just under 2 minutes and 44 seconds. After the depressing note that ended Side One we are forced too seek comfort - no one knows who really is Martha My Dear, but she is well remembered in this lovely song which begins as another take on 30's music-hall to then turn into a pop with a classical twist song, featuring the use of a brass ensemble. I'm So Tired is a return to the melancholic rock of Lennon which really drenches this album. Then there is the classic McCartney acoustic ballad Blackbird. We are then once more presented with a genius contribution from Harrison, this time in the form of the two minute baroque-sounding social satire Piggies. Rocky Raccoon is a wild western-flavoured song, both in theme and music. Next up we get Ringo's first writing credit - and it is, surprisingly, a very good one: Don't Pass Me By features excellent vocals and violin playing, in a sort of folkish jig song. Why Don't We Do It In The Road is a small piano-driven blues by Paul, pretty standard, but amusing all the same, courtesy of McCartney's raucous vocals - so different from his next track, the romantic ballad I Will.The first disc ends in this mellow tone, with John Lennon's elegy to his mother, Julia, another small (as most of the songs on this album) acoustic ballad.

Tea break. Damn, this is one long Beatles album - but oh so fun! Movin'on.

Birthday opens Side 3 in the same way as the album opener - a fast paced Rock n'Roll track, featuring some heavy guitar riffs and excellent drumming. The heavy intro does not stop here as it's followed by the heavy blues track Yer Blues, another Lennon track where he should be more careful about what he said. Four minutes of pretty standard anger-drenched blues-rock. It is followed by Blackbird part 2. Sorry, I mean Mother Nature's Son, another folky ballad by Macca. Rock n'Roll returns to scene, again by the hand of Lennon, in the form of Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey. John pens another one with Sexy Sadie, a soft rockin' groovy track with a nice beat and lush arrangements. Next up is Paul trying to be funny, and failing miserably - Helter Skelter has been immensely praised over the years, but the image I get from hearing it is of small boys with big guns. Paul can hardly sing in tone, with all the effort he makes to simply be loud. The drums are completely out of place, beating in such a slow rhythm as opposite to the guitar riff. There are indeed some good electric guitar licks and interesting vocal harmonies. But overall it's just too cacophonic and disorderly, a kind of music that the Beatles simply weren't cut out to produce. Best moment? Ringo's hilarious line I've got blisters on my fingers!. I am thus grateful for the peace that ensues in the form of Long Long Long, Side 3 closer by George Harrison. Some see it as perfectly superfluous, others as one of the most underrated Beatles track - I fall somewhere in the middle, finding it an excellent ballad and a good balance for the previous track, but something easily topped by the Beatles and Harrison himself. Flipping the record we are greeted by a call for change - Revolution 1 opens Side 4 with a typical blues electric guitar lick and sound effects. John sings calmly in-between occasional power chords and orchestral bursts. Honey Pie is another Paul trip into early 20th century music, in a very well executed music-hall jazz kind of song. Harrison's final songwriting credit of the album is Savoy Truffle, a personal favourite, a crazy piece of music, groovy, orchestral, jazzy and bluesy all at the same time, featuring excellent vocals, electric guitar, saxophones and electric piano. Cry Baby Cry is another mid-tempo soft-rock track, ending 2 and a half minutes into it for an non-credited Macca song. After Paul failed attempt at hard-rock , we are treated to John failed attempt at experimental music - rather than a real composition, Revolution 9 is more of a long collage of pre-recorded sounds - orchestras, crowds, movies, studio chatter and other random and assorted recordings, all glued together with no apparent order. I'm not so keen on the track by itself, but it's simply a great weird piece to include in the album, especially towards the ending, and especially before the closing lullaby Good Night, penned by Lennon, sung by Ringo, and featuring extremely lush orchestral arrangements courtesy of George Martin. I simply love the way the chaos of Revolution 9 flows into this lovely and orderly piece, and I just can't imagine them ever played apart.

So, why is this the best Beatles album? First off, its more of a rock album than anything they did before, which for my taste is an important feature. John Lennon's song are especially noteworthy in that aspect, in the same way Paul McCartney excels in his ballads and songs his granny would enjoy, but not so much on his rockers. Harrison pens four songs, and all four are among the best of the album (makes me wish he had even more). Even Ringo has a memorable contribution. Being the longest Beatles album, it could also have a lot of space taken by useless filler - and yet it doesn't: not all songs are brilliant (some are far from it), but there is not a single one I would like to see scratched from the album. It's a big, ridiculously diverse album, but at the same time quite consistent, which is quite remarkable given its structure and all the ill-feeling among the members of the band (in fact, among the entire Beatles machine) at the time. It's their most honest and down-to-earth album, and that is probably the reason for why it shines among their entire discography.

"The Beatles" (known better as the "The White Album", which is how I will refer to it) is the 9th full-length studio album by UK pop/rock act The Beatles. The album was originally released as a double vinyl release featuring thirty tracks. The recording of the album, which took place at Abbey Road Studios in London with producer George Martin, was mared by the ego clashes of especially John Lennon and Paul McCartney (and to a lesser extent George Harrison). The atmosphere got so bad that Ringo Starr even left the band for a short period of time. After reconsidering his decision he did return though.

Many of the tracks featured on the album were almost recorded as little solo projects and there were fierce discussions as to which tracks were to be included on the album. The great variation in style and sound between tracks made the album a bit incoherent, and while it was generally well received some listeners found the album a bit confusing. There is for example a long way from the rather silly Caribbean music influenced "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" to the 8:22 minutes long experimental sound collage of "Revolution 9".

The album contains some of the strongest material The Beatles ever released though. It features some psychadelic and rather weird tracks like "Glass Onion", "Wild Honey Pie", "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill" and "Piggie"s, which are all really strong compositions, but tracks like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Back In The U.S.S.R.", "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", "Dear Prudence", "Helter Skelter" (which to my ears is borderline heavy rock), and the beautiful closing track "Good Night" are also high quality tracks.

"The White Album" is upon conclusion a very ambitious project by The Beatles that features a few flaws (some fillers and a couple of sub par tracks. An example of the latter is the folky Ringo Starr led "Don't Pass Me By") but mostly excels in brilliant songwriting, an extremely well sounding production, and overall high level musicianship. The memorable and well written melodies are as always second to none. Untouchable...a 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Beatles White Album

Innovative, compelling, psychedelic, quintessential, brilliant!

What can be said of this that has not been said before? It is THE most talked about Beatles album outside of Sgt Pepper. It features some of the greatest most well known tracks of the huge Beatles catalogue such as Back in the USSR, Birthday, While my Guitar Gently Weeps, Dear Prudence, and Obladioblada. But for me it's the lesser known tracks that spark interest. The likes of Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey, Helter Skelter, Piggies, Yer Blues, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Glass Onion, Rocky Raccoon, Savoy Truffle and Revolution 9 are the Beatles at their most progressive and experimental.

Happiness is a warm gun for example is kind of like 3 different songs within a song, the time sig changes are well ahead of their time and it is chillingly prophetic now that we know how Lennnon actually died.

Helter Skelter is a grand romp into excess with scorching raw guitar and screeching vocals. The end is iconic 'I got blisters on my fingers!'

Rocky Raccoon is a very nice country flavor pastiche on the murder ballad with Paul at his best.

Savoy Truffle is Harrison having a stab at food, and life.

Glass Onion is the tongue in cheek Lennon telling a tall tale of Strawberry Fields, Fool on the Hill and the Walrus ? a dig at their own psychedelic lyrics.

But the one that everyone was spouting off about, and still to this day discuss at length is of course the legendary revolution 9. To describe the track as a song is wrong for a start. It is not a song but something undefined and unreliable. When you think it will go in a particular direction it shifts into new territory. Hated, adored and confusing, it is impossible to ignore. It is one of those moments that worked on many intellectual levels with critics but the reality is the track is really a collage of sounds spliced from a range of sources randomly without making sense as a result. It is not comfortable to listen to and it is impossible not to be moved emotionally in some way when listening to it. Some despise it at rubbish or indulgent nonsense, others think it a work of genius. I must admit I usually avoid it and skip straight to Good Night but in the right frame of mood the track is quite compelling in an artistic way.

The conclusion for this album is it is groundbreaking and one of the milestones of music history. One of the first double albums, one of the most inventive, with the weirdest track, so bold and so compelling on each track, It is far too good and important for anything less than 5 stars. Masterpieces like this come rarely. The Beatles were never more innovative.

The hangover from 1967

1967 was an amazing year for the Fab with two acid infused classics on their hands. In spring 1968 they flew to India to spend some time expanding their consciousness with the Maharishi. He made an impression on them initially but Lennon would see through the charade in time. During this vacation they amassed a fair amount of material and recorded from May through October 1968. The White Album is probably The Beatles least coherent overall, seemingly loose and occasionally sloppy. Which is probably exactly what some of them wanted. After being constrained a bit by Paul's thematic ideas for Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, one gets the feeling that White Album was John and George saying "stay the hell out of the way." There is some serious experimentation happening throughout, both in styles and in sounds. John would comment that the album was a special treat for fans because it "has a lot of stuff on it." This is absolutely true, it is an album for fans which gives them additional insight into the personalities of the band. But judged as an album on its own accord, well, it has some issues. There are plenty of tracks here not up to the usual standards.

The great stuff here is pretty varied with John contributing the pleasant "Dear Prudence" and the fantastic "I'm so tired" where you can literally hear the weariness and anger just below the surface. "Revolution 9" is an interesting sound collage that is probably The Beatles most radical piece, but unfortunately it's not something you'll want to hear more than once per decade. Paul has plenty of great character pieces, ballads, and story-songs. "Martha My Dear" showcases Paul's love for that slightly dated feel which I find so appealing, these days such songwriting style would be so refreshing. "Blackbird" is drop dead gorgeous acoustic bliss and "Mother Nature's Son" may be the highlight. "Helter Skelter" is a fan favorite with Paul pushing his vocals to the extreme. George delivers the lovely "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which may be his finest Beatles track, along with the strange baroque-sounding "Piggies." The closer "Good Night" was a really nice touch. But perhaps more than any other Beatles album, there's some fairly disposable stuff here like Back In The USSR/Glass Onion/Wild Honey Pie/Bungalow Bill/Why don't we/Yer Blues/Everybodys/Long Long Long.

Were the White Album a single disc with only the best material it would easily be another 4 star affair. With all of the extra delicacies offered, some good and some not so, the album falls to 3 stars overall. Still, while this music is all over 40 years old now, it still blows my mind how superior it is to most modern era mainstream music.

Let me try to be fair here in my assessment of the White Album, properly titled THE BEATLES. First and foremost, I wasn't around in 1968 back when it was first released, so I don't necessarily understand how revolutionary this claims to be. Second, I wasn't really a Beatles fan growing up, so no childhood memories to latch onto here. However, I'm giving two stars to an iconic album of the 1960's, so I'd better have a good explanation.

Actually, I think I do. What the White Album lacks is a good dose of consistency. The album seems to cover a barrage of styles with poor transitions between style changes. This is not like say Queen's A NIGHT AT THE OPERA where many diverse styles were covered, but the fluidity was better and such style changes seem natural to Queen. Going back to THE BEATLES, it goes almost haphazardly from good ol' rock n' roll (''USSR'') to silly kids TV themes (''Bungalow Bill'') to prog rock (''Happiness'') to country (''Rocky Raccoon'') to blues (''Yer Blues'') to avant-garde (''Revolution 9'') to...you get the idea. Any good defense of this album would be the number of styles covered, but in my definition of good music, a great flow trumps multiple genre nods any day.

Keep in mind that the White Album is a double album; this means that there's guaranteed to be quite a few filler tracks. Yes, I use the ''politically incorrect'' term ''filler'' here, but in my mind it makes perfect sense. If you don't believe me, try to defend ''Wild Honey Pie'', easily the worst song I've ever heard out of this group, a song that needn't belong on any album. Why, might you ask? It's a minute of the worst guitar noises and yodeling there is. Thankfully, no other song is this dreadful although ''Bungalow Bill'' comes close thanks to Yoko Ono's vocals.

However, most filler are songs that just don't sound like they ''have it''. Take songs like ''Glass Onion'', ''Yer Blues'', ''Blackbird'' and ''Me and My Monkey''; all of those songs mentioned sound very average to my ears without being of any importance. Others like ''Piggies'', ''Ob-La-Di,Ob-La-Da'' and ''Revolution 9'' are just weird experiments coming from the Beatles, all of them sounding like messes. Then again, double albums and filler tracks go together like peanut butter and jelly. Heck, I'm willing to admit that some double albums I like (TAGO MAGO, CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, FREAK OUT! to name a few) have filler tracks or padded lengths. As pessimistic as it sounds, I should have expected a numerous amount of filler.

However, not all is average here. Even with ''Wild Honey Pie'', Side 1 is clearly the strongest side carrying four of the albums strongest tracks; ''Back in the USSR'', ''Dear Prudence'', ''While My Guitar Gently Weeps'' and ''Happiness is a Warm Gun''. Of particular interest to progsters should be the ethereal ''Dear Prudence'' and its bass jumps and the metre shifting mini-suite of ''Happiness''. I guess everyone has their favourite cuts on this album, but after the first side, only ''Julia'', ''Helter Skelter'', ''Savoy Truffle'' and ''Revolution 1'' are of any interest to me.

It's a well-known album, so this ought to be one that you might want to check out. Just keep in mind that just because the Beatles made this album doesn't mean it's a masterpiece. I say that if THE BEATLES was kept to a single album, it might have been less controversial. Definitely should come with a warning tag.

For it's time, this was a very advanced album. Much of the press, and the Beatles fans back then, just didn't understand this album, and probably never will. This was a band that has grown up. And this album is really the definition of proto prog.

George Martin's production on this album is revolutionary. The sound of the bass, the strings in Glass Onion, the honky tonk piano in the silly Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, the warbling backing track in While My Guitar Gently Weeps, it's all perfect. And don't get me started about Revolution Number 9.

With this many tracks, there are bound to be a few clunkers, but they are just a few. And after all these years, there are some track that I just never need to hear again. Still, this iis a great album.

Late November in 1968 The Beatles released a double album and although commonly referred to as The White album it was actually self titled and due to the plain white used on the cover the name has stuck. The album came with four nice glossy photos,one of each band member and a poster with a photo collage on one side and the other had the lyrics of each tune. The original vinyl release was numbered in sequence and was usually for each country where the album was printed.The actual songs throughout the album are not divided but follow on with minimum breaks.This was the first album to be recorded since the death of Brian Epstein and this is where the band really are coming to the end of the road but with all these issues another wonderful record was created and perhaps the most eclectic album in the bands catalogue.

With the sound of a jet engine the album commences with what could be described as a Beachboys influence with Back in The USSR. The first and only single to be taken of the album was Ob la di Ob la da and the flip in Australia was While my Guitar Gently Weeps and yet internationally it appears it was Julia. We got the better deal to say the least. Other singles were taken later but long after the album was released. One other single was also recorded but did not appear on the album. The first three sides of the album are considered the cream by the majority and with songs such as Glass Onion, While my Guitar Gently Weeps ( considered by this reviewer to be George Harrison's proof that he was a great tunesmith as well and could hold his own against the two big boys Lennon/McCartney)Happiness is A Warm Gun, Blackbird, Rocky Raccoon, Don't Pass Me By ( Even Ringo gets a shot), Why Don't We do It In The Road, Yer Blues, Mother Natures Son, Long,Long,Long( George again) and the blazing Helter Skelter and the rest of the songs are just behind in quality but with a Beatles album everybody will have other favourites and that only really shows the quality of the song writing from the band. Sexy Sadie could be pehaps the most dubious song on the first three sides.

On side four of the album which is considered by a lot of people as being patchy there are some absolute little gems contained within and Revolution 9 being one of them and with this Sound Collage created by John Lennon there is something quite original with its own atmosphere contained within and is really only the held together barely with the repitition of No.9,No.9 disliked by a lot of fans and considered their worst track but it is art and one which took the most time for me to enjoy of the album.Revolution 1 is the first version and although slower in tempo. Still another and not too popular tune appears to be the last song on the album which was Good Night but once again this was The Beatles and could be considered as quite a good finisher to the album as one should remember Double albums were considered extremly lengthy in time in their early days.John Lennon wrote it and Ringo did the vocals and even George Martin plays the Celeste. There a few other songs I have not mentioned on side four but none of them are poor but just indivdual members doing their own thing which really could describe how the album was constructed as the band was barely a band anymore but four indivduals working with George Martin.

Some musicians that particapted in the album were Eric Clapton, Jackie Lomax and numerous others. One mention though is how three of the bands wifes or partners( if you prefer) also contribute vocals on the odd track throughout excepting Paul. Patti Harrison, Maureen Starkey and of course Yoko Ono.

A masterpiece of course and a timeless one at that and the first album on Apple. The number on the album I used for the review which is mine is 34,800 issued in Australia. I was late buying my copy as $11.00 was not chicken feed at 10 years of age.

The Beatles' White Album is one of the most talked-about Rock albums of all time. Some say it's the best thing the band ever did, while others say it was crammed full of filler and could have benefited from being trimmed down in length (among the latter group of people is Beatles producer George Martin). Over the years, I have become more and more inclined to agree with the former opinion, and the simple reason is that after years of listening to The White Album, it has sunk in to a point that my listening experience of it is now just as personal and important to me as any key event in my life.

But what makes this release so special? Well, transport yourself back to 1968, if you can. At the time, Rock fans were only just beginning to get their feet wet in the bottomless pool of creativity that we now seem to take for granted. This single piece of work featured within its ingenious gatefold cover a large variety of musical styles including Space-Rock, Avant-Garde, Pop, Folk, Symphonic Rock, and even a quick romp in the realm of early Metal. To mesh so much varied content together on a single release was daring as hell, and still scares people away today. You name any other mainstream Pop-Rock artist popular today who even comes close to being this diverse on any of their albums. You can't of course, because The White Album is in some ways peerless in that regard. No other Rock album has ventured so far in every direction-- and succeeded like this one does.

The bulk of the material heard on this release was written while the band went on their retreat with the Maharishi in India. Much of the lyrics are also direct references to people, places and incidents encountered while staying there. As a result, so much material was brought back to the studio that the band chose to release a double-LP. Daring was this choice, but it was also the best one, in my opinion. I know some people think the album could have been a lot better had it been condensed, but personally, I don't know how you can condense something so rich with content like The White Album is. True, a few songs here and there sound a bit underdeveloped or like mere goofing off, but even those tracks have their charm, and the complete experience of listening to The White Album from beginning to end is such that I honestly couldn't imagine any of the tracks on the record being removed. It all plays a role in making this one of the most enjoyable Beatles records-- not just for me, but for many many others.

The listening experience of this album is too precious to spoil through play-by-play descriptions (and even if I would attempt something like that, I wouldn't do any of the songs justice), so rather than do that, I'm just going to give a quick overview of the album to give you an idea of just how vast a musical plane the influences span.

The album begins with an ode to the Beach Boys-style Pop music in the song ''Back in the U.S.S.R.'', then instantly goes into one of the band's greatest ballads, ''Dear Prudence''. Follow that up with John's playful ''Glass Onion'', Paul's happy, fun-loving Pop tune ''Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'', and the random, off-the-wall ''Wild Honey Pie'', and you're already getting an idea of all the varied, rich content this release has to offer.

''The Continuing Story of Bungalo Bill'' starts off with an impressive guitar lead, then jumps into the main song, which sounds like an old tune from the south. By the way, keep in mind that all this time, many different instruments and orchestrations have already been implemented, and we are only six songs in. ''While My Guitar Gently Weeps'' is arguably the best Beatles-era George Harrison song, and it features a soaring, wailing guitar solo from Eric Clapton. Clapton was brought in by Harrison in order to ease tensions the band members were feeling at the time, and the paring of two monumental artists resulted in on of the greatest Hard Rock ballads of all time.

John Lennon's ''Happiness Is a Warm Gun'' starts off in one place, and ends on a completely different note. His lead guitar work about fifty seconds in to the track is so good and heartfelt, and sounds more like a human being's voice than it does a stringed electric instrument. The man was a genius in every sense of the word. The odd-time vocal section chanting ''Mother Superior jumped the gun'' always gives me chills.

''Martha My Dear'' is a gorgeous piece from McCartney, and features classical instruments heavily along with the drums, bass and guitar. A short and sweet symphonic journey. It all sounds very British to my American ears, but who knows, It's damn good, that's all I know. Paul's bass line that comes in during the final verse is also quite masterful and climbing. John's ''I'm So Tired'' is a nice soft rocker that sounds influenced by the 50s doo wop styles, but builds into a more raw presentation as John strains out the words ''Stupid git!''.

This is the section of the album that I refer to as the 'animal section'. Three songs in a row where animals are the main subject matter. ''Blackbird'' shows off Paul McCartney's acoustic guitar chops quite well, as he finger-plucks away and sings in his smooth, gentle voice about a bird learning to fly and escaping its surroundings. A nice little song. Then, ''Piggies'' is the symphonic track which features a glorious outro filled with powerful cellos and violins. ''Rocky Raccoon'' is without a doubt the funniest song of these three, and tells the wacky story of a raccoon who is on a quest to take back his girl from his thieving rival. It's a folk song full of harmonica, traditional acoustic guitar strums and a ragtime piano. A must-listen.

''Don't Pass Me By''. If there IS a weak track to be found on The White Album, I suppose it would be this one, of any at all. Nothing is wrong with it, really, but it's a Country song about waiting up late for a lover to arrive home who has long left town and/or died in a car accident (at least that is my impression based on the lyrics). The fiddle leads are the highlight of the song, and Ringo's voice is the downside. I personally like Ringo's voice a lot, but this particular song shows his limitations as a vocalist, for whatever reason (he will redeem himself later with the lovely ''Good Night'').

''Why Don't We Do It in the Road?'' is a raw, hard rocker that talks about . . . well, I think you can guess the subject matter. Good song, if perhaps a little underdeveloped and short. McCartney is on top of his singing game on this track. ''I Will'' is a light-hearted ballad featuring vocal bass lines, and a southern-style guitar. ''Julia'' is the greatest song John Lennon ever did solo while still in the band. it is about his estranged mother, who died before he had a chance to re-connect with her. It's sorrowful, beautiful and full of heart. His playing and singing are both top-notch, and this song serves as the perfect, gentle ending to the album's first half.

Part two of The White Album kicks things off with another hard rocker called ''Birthday''. ''Yer Blues'' is, you guessed it, a bluesy Rock song about loneliness. John's rough vocal stylings serve the music well, here. Such diverse voices these men had. Switching gears completely once again, a beautiful Folk song titled ''Mother Nature's Son'' serves as one of the album's many highlights. ''Everybody's Got Something to Hide'' is a story about addiction told at a frantic, schizophrenic pace. John talks about his own personal 'monkey' on his back, and the breakdown at 2:05 is truly of the great Rock 'n Roll moments.

''Sexy Sadie'' is said to be written about the Maharishi. John Lennon apparently learned of an attempted rape of Mia Farrow by the Maharishi, and the group announced that they were leaving their retreat in India immediately after learning this. I personally have no idea how true that is, but I've heard it enough times from enough different sources to assume that is indeed what Lennon was singing about. In this case, names were changed to prevent lawsuit, and Sadie is the Marishi.

''Helter Skelter''. Alright, here we go. The heaviest song The Beatles ever recorded, by far. This is early Heavy Metal, and they pull it off brilliantly. Everything about this track just makes me groove. Once again, it's Paul McCartney showing just how diverse and capable he is as a vocalist, and while his screaming and raw-cut singing style may still not quite match the caliber of John's infamous ''Twist and Shout'' performance, it's pretty damn good. In reality, the band jammed on this idea for quite a long time before reaching the final product, and one early version of the song wasn't metal at all. I'm glad they chose to go this route, because it once again shows how the band was capable of pulling off any musical idea they chose to pursue.

''Long, Long, Long'' is another folk song of sorts, featuring one of the most memorable, haunting guitar openings in Beatles history (notice there a lot of 'most' moments on this record for me; another reason why I believe it to be essential). However, unlike its peers found in here, this one is much more psychedelic and progressive, and is possibly the only true 'Prog Folk' song on The White Album. It actually puts me in mind of some of the stuff John Martyn would do a little later. ''Revolution 1'' is, in my opinion, not as good as the single version, which is the most remembered, and a hard-rocker. This album version is much slower and more laid back. However, that IS only an opinion, and this version is still absolutely wonderful. It's got a bit of a Swing influence, and is in reality more varied and creative than its faster-paced counterpart.

''Honey Pie''. Remember ''Wild Honey Pie'' from much earlier on the album? Yeah, this song is nothing like that. Sounds like something Al Jolson would sing. It's great, of course, but the name similarities with the aforementioned track is apparently just coincidence. ''Savory Shuffle'' is a brilliant Funk track that also boarders on Big Band at times. Sounds like it could have influenced Chic's ''Dance, Dance, Dance'' track. Another winning track, but just as unusual as the previous one, at least for Beatles music. ''Cry Baby Cry''. It's a hint of the type of musical style The Beatles would later fully develop for the Abbey Road record. The final thirty or so seconds is a haunting mini-ballad courtesy of McCartney.

''Revolution 9''. Here it is. The single most important track on this entire record, and the one reason you should own it. I'm not kidding when I say that this track is extraordinary. Avant-Garde through-and-through, this is an anti-song. It has no set structure or influence, nor does it seem to say any one particular message. There ARE words here, but they are disjointed, unrelated ramblings, typically consisting of profane, agitated stories or nonsensical poems. Nearly everything you hear on the lyrical front is spoken-word, and anything else is just lifted from other sources. Not only is this the most unconventional, forward-thinking track the band ever did, it is also one of the most disturbing listening experiences I encountered during my early days of experimental listening. It still stays with me. I don't really want to point to anything specific, because I think if you haven't heard this track yet, you need to experience it fresh, without any prior knowledge of exactly what is contained, here. I think even the most avid of Beatles haters must admit that this is one hell of a progressive track. Nothing quite like it existed before in popular music, and this was a huge step for music. Now we were moving into the realm in which 'music' was no longer made up of conventional ingredients. This is a 'song' that had me looking over my shoulder in my house at night for a few days after first hearing it, so I guess that means it's effective. I'm not going to say anymore-- buy this album, and listen to ''Revolution 9''. Period.

Well, after the undoubtedly unsettling listening experience of that last track, The Beatles decide to end things on a calmer note, and the Symphonic ballad ''Good Night'' is where we end up at the end of this vast, varied, sometimes unsettling musical sojourn. The light at the end pf the tunnel as it were is this track, and not only is it probably the most melodically beautiful track on the album, but Ringo does a dynamite job of being the singer. This is nothing more than a peaceful lullaby; no tricks, no Avant-Garde weirdness, no hard rocking surprises . . . just beautiful music. It is the perfect way to end this monster of an album.

So, now the question is . . . does The White Album rank among the very top Beatles releases? My answer to that is absolutely. There is no way this album will ever drop below my personal top five for the band, and I often find myself wondering if The White Album is not in fact their best work. I think a lot of good cases have been made for that claim. After all, the band took the most musical risks, here. Also, a large amount of the band's very best songs are on this release. I honestly can't say whether or not it IS their best, but it's ONE of their best, for sure. The sheer bravery that they displayed by taking their music in so many different (and often uncharted) directions shows what a monumental piece of work The White Album really is. Love it or hate it, you can't deny that it's The Beatles' most diverse record, and I think most fans of the group are inclined to feel the same way I do about it. It's just so full of treasures that you would be doing yourself an incredible crime to not listen to it. I would assume most people here already have, but for those of you who haven't (especially if you are one of the people who actually think The Beatles were nothing more than a Pop group), you need to pick this one up right away. In my opinion, it is indeed essential, simply because of its attitude and varied, unconventional content. I wish a rating higher than five existed for albums like this one. Truly one of the most masterful works I have in my collection.

Very, very happy listening.

By far the longest and most ambitious project the Beatles would ever undertake and the quality definitely shows with each passing track. The BEATLES or The White Album is a collection of 30 compositions recorded at the peak of the band's creativity which doesn't necessarily mean that the individual moments here surpass any of their other classics. What this album offers its listeners is a continuous stream of quality material without once showing a sign of weakness.

The consistency and versatility featured on The White Album is truly remarkable considering its 90+ minute run and the fact that only a handful of these songs usually make it on the compilation releases only adds to my amusement. I actually think that this release benefits a lot by not having that many all-time classics because its those lesser known song moments that make this album shine more than anything that the Beatles had produced up to this point. Let's take a song like Happiness Is A Warm Gun, which is in fact a medley of three song ideas complied into a 3 minute mini epic, and imagine how it would have worked have it been a part of albums like Revolver or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I honestly can't do it!

This is an album I can pick up almost any time and sweep though without even noticing the time, which is definitely a sign of a quality release. Still, I somehow have a difficulty of calling The White Album an essential masterpiece of progressive rock music. The only reason for that has to do with my attachment to the final era of the Beatles which can't really compare to anything released up to that point, even though The White Album definitely comes close.

***** star songs: Back In The U.S.S.R. (2:43) Dear Prudence (3:56) While My Guitar Gently Weeps (4:45) Happiness Is A Warm Gun (2:43) Martha My Dear (2:28) I'm So Tired (2:03) Blackbird (2:18) I Will (1:46) Julia (2:54) Birthday (2:42) Mother Nature's Son (2:48) Sexy Sadie (3:15) Honey Pie (2:41) Cry Baby Cry (3:01)

**** star songs: Glass Onion (2:17) Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (3:08) Wild Honey Pie (0:52) The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill (3:14) Rocky Raccoon (3:32) Don't Pass Me By (3:50) Piggies (2:04) Why Don't We Do It In The Road (1:41) Yer Blues (4:01) Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey (2:24) Helter Skelter (4:29) Long Long Long (3:04) Revolution 1 (4:15) Savoy Truffle (2:54) Revolution 9 (8:22) Good Night (3:11)

The Beatles' eponymous album, 'The Beatles', may be the most memorable album of all time! This is where The Beatles decided to throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. With 30 tracks lasting 93 minutes, this is one of the most eclectic albums ever made. I could spend hours writing this review, but since I don't want to do that, I'm going to play a little game where I write only 5 words about each song (and then possibly some more at the end) and give it a rating out of 10.

Back In The U.S.S.R. Aeroplanes ruin this good track! 7/10 a)

Dear Prudence Amazing song with brilliant drumming. 10/10

Glass Onion Clever lyrics about The Beatles. 9/10

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-DaThe most annoying Beatles song. 3/10 b)

Wild Honey Pie Even this is much better! 6/10

The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill Hilarious lyrics with good chorus. 9/10

While My Guitar Gently Weeps Eric Clapton's epic guitar solo! 10/10

Happiness Is A Warm GunTime signatures! Very progressive song! 10/10 c)

Martha My Dear Piano based, old-school rocker. 9/10

I'm So Tired Perfect lyrics sung with emotion. 10/10

Blackbird Beautiful acoustic track. Sweet lyrics. 8/10

Piggies Brilliant because it's so creepy! 9/10

Rocky Racoon An old western tale. Superb. 9/10

Don't Pass Me By Another cringeworthy Ringo tune. *sigh* 4/10

Why Don't We Do It In The Road? Twelve-bar blues. Simple yet effective. 8/10

I Will Too lovey-dovey in my opinion. 7/10

Julia Too repetitive. Good lyrics though. 7/10

Birthday Really exciting rocker. Strong drums! 9/10

Yer Blues Heavier blues track, depressing lyrics. 9/10

Mother Nature's Son Intriguing, deep song. Good brass! 8/10

Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey Punky rock song. Sometimes repetitive. 8/10

Sexy Sadie These lyrics make no sense! 7/10

Helter Skelter The heaviest Beatles song. Astonishing. 10/10

Long, Long, Long Very quiet and quite strange. 7/10

Revolution 1 Slow version of Revolution. Passable. 6/10

Honey Pie Very old-school! Good melody! 9/10

Savoy Truffle Brilliant song about eating chocolate! 8/10

Cry Baby Cry Interesting lyrics, a little creepy. 8/10

Revolution 9 Underrated musique concrète. Occasionally horrifying! 8/10 d)

Good Night We love you really Ringo. 6/10

Points I'd like to make, which I couldn't flesh out in 5 words.

a) It could have been a really good track but those aeroplanes are really annoying and continue for the entire song!

b)This is one of those tracks we had to sing in school, which is why I don't hold it with any fond memories. Moreover, the bouncy beat and the melody turn this into a desperately cheesy song.

c) Yes, this track is extremely progressive! The lyrics are all proggy, e.g. 'She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand, like a lizard on a window pane'. There's at least 10 time signature changes (including polyrhythms at 'When I hold you...'). There's also at least 4 distinct sections to this music. All this in 2:45 makes this a fantastic prog song.

d) I feel I need to give praise to Revolution 9 as it recieves a lot of negative comments. If you are indeed a prog fan, you should have no trouble listening to this track with an open mind. The White Album would simply not have been the same without it. The highlights of this track for me are the soundclips of someone saying 'The watusi ... The twist' and then almost immediately afterwards 'Take this brother, may it serve you well'. This is The Beatles' longest official track, so your doing yourself no favours if you refuse to listen to it!

It's astonishing to think that just 4 years earlier, these men were releasing songs like Eight Days A Week and Can't Buy Me Love. The early Beatles and the later Beatles seem worlds apart from each other. While not every track on this album is great, there are more than enough good moments to call the White Album a masterpiece. There is such a diverse range of styles and genres mixed in here, that the band will really have you guessing what's around the corner. Astonishing music played by astonishing men.

It is, of course, nonsense to say that the White Album revealed the death of Paul McCartney. But it might be possible to say that hidden within its famously oblique lyrics is a different revelation: the death of the Beatles. The band had begun composing the album whilst on retreat with the Maharishi but left disillusioned with the guru; by the time the recording sessions were other, they were thoroughly disillusioned with each other. This album marks the point of no return; after this, the band would be caught in a death spiral of constant disputes and regular departures - Ringo actually left during the recording, only to return before his departure was officially announced. The band would shamble on in this state of living death through their last few albums, and it's probably a sign of how talented they were that they were still able to make an acceptable album under such conditions.

Things start off well. The first four songs are all gems - a couple of heartening and fairly straightforward singalongs from Paul and some psych gems (one gentle, one hard-edged) from John. But then things go a little off the rails - Wild Honey Pie and The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill aim for whimsy but hit irritation, both coming across as undeveloped ideas which could have used a little work. George Harrison makes a fine attempt to put the album back on course with the excellent While My Guitar Gently Weeps, but the momentum's been lost. It's not the experimentalism per se that makes them not fit - Happiness Is a Warm Gun, possibly the oddest song on the first side, is actually damn good - so much as the way they come across as solo demos that their respecting primary songwriters believed in but the rest of the band didn't.

Side two has another strong opening selection of tracks - Martha My Dear gives the proceedings a little elegance, whilst I'm So Tired has a clever mix of languid sections and fraught bridges which puts you in mind of Lennon tossing and turning during a sleeping night. But then Harrison follows up the gentle and thoughtful political message of McCartney's Blackbird with a naive and crude little message in Piggies. McCartney's Rocky Raccoon takes the bands' habitual borrowings from Dylan to a tedious extreme, and Ringo's sloppy and unfocused Don't Pass Me By is one of his worst contributions to a Beatles album. Things do pick up towards the end of the side, with two nice little song fragments from Paul, but it closes on another downer with Julia, which is pretty enough at first but is a bit too repetitive and is dragged out for so long that by the end it becomes intensely irritating.

Side three includes a number of unconvincing attempts to do some hard rock (Birthday, Helter Skelter, and Everybody's Got Something to Hide...) or blues (Yer Blues), and also includes Sexy Sadie, a somewhat mean-spirited and half-baked song from Lennon, and Long, Long, Long, one of Harrison's more forgettable numbers. And side four includes the plodding Revolution 1 (nowhere near as good as the single), the pointless Revolution 9 (I won't dignify it with the term "experimental" because that would imply Lennon was actually trying to achieve something with it), another version of Honey Pie (really, one version was more than enough), a forgettable Savoy Truffle from Harrison and a Good Night warble from Ringo. Really, the only song worth the time on this last side (to me) is Cry Baby Cry.

The thing about the White Album is that there's a damn good Beatles single album in there, swollen up to double album size by a lack of filtering and quality control. But then, trimming it down would mean agreeing to remove some of the songs, and the Beatles were in absolutely no state to be making such concessions to each other at this point in their career. There's a five star album wanting to get out here, but I can't give it more than a three - and that's generous for a double album whose songs I want to trim so savagely. What I will say about it is that which albums you'll want to skip over will probably differ from the songs I personally dislike, which I suppose is a testimony to just how disjointed the whole thing is; maybe if you had an extremely broad taste in music you'd be able to appreciate every single song on here - but I can't think of any situation in which I'd be in the mood to hear *all* the songs on here.

With 30 songs and 94 minutes of listening time, this is one of the most expansive albums I own. And it's good, although I don't think anyone could like every single song. The White Album saw The Beatles turn away from their psychedelic and baroque pop period in favour of, basically, doing whatever they felt like at any given moment, be it blues, country, rock, ska, folk, reggae, jazz, funk, metal, vaudeville, pop, soul, music hall, prog, boogie, or totally avant-garde electronic soundscapes.

I'll talk about a few of my favourites from the album. 'Dear Prudence' is a wonderful journey of a song, building up the instrumentation around a familar chord sequence. I think it was an influence on Led Zeppelin (think 'Ten Years Gone'), and maybe even Supertramp ('Even in the Quietest Moments'). The song that closes side one, 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' is also fantastic, changing time signatures as often as Gentle Giant. It shows John as the forward thinker of the group, even if Paul could write a better melody. George's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' is equally one of his best songs, featuring Eric Clapton's famous guitar solo, but it's the great chords that do it for me.

The second side might be my favourite (it's mostly Paul, so that doesn't surprise me). 'Martha My Dear' is a strange, but endearing composition, and everything about it feels just right. 'Blackbird' meanwhile, is Paul's best acoustic ballad, and he already set the bar quite high with 'Yesterday'. 'Rocky Racoon' is another cracker, a western pastiche. Lennon's songs here reflect what would come from him in the seventies; with the moody rock of 'I'm So Tired' and sad, meaningful 'Julia'. 'There is certainly a feeling, after the album's first half, of individualism. This continues throughout the record, and it becomes a problem for me when the songs don't sound remotely 'Beatley'. The appeal of this band was their cohesiveness, and whether these tunes are good or not, very few of them sound like 'a band', which makes the whole album seem more like a aural documentary of Abbey Road Studios than a piece of art.

'Birthday' is the one song that really defies this judgement, and the whole band are on top form. Apart from that song, 'Mother Nature's Son' is the best that side three has to offer. The final side is also thin on meat, but flows the best, with the pair of 'Revolutions' bookending and 'Good Night' making for a beautiful finale. 'Honey Pie' and 'Savoy Truffle' are gems from Paul and George, but nothing new by this point in the album. Regarding 'Revolution 9', I come on the "favourable" side of the fence, because I think the picture Lennon paints is interesting from a number of angles. It doesn't come close to the true avant-garde composers though.

I always feel a bit tired and confused after listening to The White Album, but it is one of the Beatles' albums I frequent if I want to pick out some great individual songs. 1967 couldn't last forever, and in that respect, the greatest thing about this monster is that it wasn't afraid to take chances.

The Beatles - 'The white album' (1968)

With' Sgt. Pepper' the legendary Beatles established themselves as the masters of sixties rock development. In '68 the band had already reached it's zenith and 'The white album' is the album that would have been much better if it had been a single lp. Due to the mix of instant classics and material that isn't too interesting spread over 90 minutes I can't really get into this one. Even if it had to be 2lp, why not skip on at least 20 minutes of weaker material?

Whereas former albums had a warm production and sound, this album sound plain silly. There's nothing but treble in the mix and even when I equalize it myself I can't help to be bothered by the sis and shaky sound. Furthermore, '68 would prove to be the year the Beatles would be overthrown on all grounds by bands like The Mothers of Invention, The United States of America, The Doors and The Collectors, to name a few.

Now, let's not get whimsical. The first lp contains a lot of great songs and the Beatles have never been more eclectic and frantic. The band does show it can find new grounds to explore and some of vocals are really good. With the mix of radio-friendly pop and acidic psych tracks it's kind of a wonder this album became a classic, because a lot of people must have really disliked tracks like 'Helter Skelter' and 'Revolution number 9'. For fans of the progressive genre this album had a lot of diversity and frequently shows how things can sometimes work out all right and sometimes completely fail.

Conclusion. An under-produces Beatles album with both of classics, lesser known beauties and misses. Not the first record of the Beatles to get into, but perhaps an adventurous record for fans. Three stars.

My first successful acid-trip took place with this album as backdrop. If I can sound objective the other choice was "The Wall" which was unbearable; in such conditions. Later on I returned to this work which turned out to be; what "The Pepper" album was for others; the wildest experimental recorded effort in their discography. So this proto-prog album; has the whole RIO oriented conceptual informality. (No "Residents" mere coincidences) combined with skill-full; daring good; both in lyrics and music; compositions. Problem for me; I never liked most of Pauls´s songs. When he rocks he is the best "Helter Skelter" and the likes; but when not; he really can pull up some...to put it lightly; S..t!.. I mean the kind of "Obla Di Da" songs over I can bet any Harrison Beatle worst song; would have been better. Same goes for me with "Abbey Road" everytime I see my rating and think of "Maxwell! or "Polythene Pam" or "Golden Slumbers" I want to downgrade it a star. In a way I have learned to live with that fact. Also half the act is on permanent strike... By the way "Revolution #9" is not as repulsive as die-hard Beatles fans proclaim it to be. Better off; if you are on acid in a star filled mexican landscape. 4 Stars; for stretching their own self-impossed musical boundaries and turning out songs like "Dear Prudence", "Glass Onion", "Helter Skelter" and "While my Guitar Gently Weeps" among others. They never did nothing like this again. And will never do.

Dead musicians can be a handful. Talking to them can be even worse. Stripped of their fame and notoriety but still with the same ego and obsessions that got them to the top of the rock 'n roll food chain, you never know what you'll be in for when taking an interview. But there are some meetings that are just too tempting to pass up. This was one. I can't say the Liverpudlian songsmiths who changed popular music are among my personal favorites. But those albums. Oh those albums. And when things started getting really interesting ~ which is to say tense, messy and painful ~ it became compelling. Though those moments are not this band's best inter-personally, they yielded some of their most challenging, and ultimately successful, music. Tension and the painful wake of traumatic events will often cause conditions that foment creative breakthroughs and the Most Famous Band in the World began showing clear signs of that in 1968. And Yoko wasn't the only upstart one making trouble, either.

I figured George Harrison and John Lennon would want to meet somewhere in their British homeland but, unsettlingly for me, we gathered at the Dakota Apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the place Mr. Lennon was murdered in 1980. As an American, that event has given me terrible guilt ever since. Here was probably the most important rock musician of his time and he couldn't walk home without getting shot. God bless America. The three of us sat in Lennon's old flat he'd shared with Yoko Ono, an airy but comfortable warehouse-like space that reflected Lennon's spartan tendencies mixed with Ono's Nipponese aesthetic. My first question was compulsory.

A - Why did you guys want to talk at the Dakota?

John - This'd been my home for seven years before I died, mate, I luv this city. Me and Yoko spent a lot of great time in this apartment, I wasn't gonna let some dope take that away from me.

A - Of course, I can understand that. So you stayed in New York, made it your permanent home?

John - Yeah man, I already traveled the universe when I was alive, I just wanna relax and enjoy things.

A - But George, you're more active?

George - (grinning) Barmy. I mostly hang-out in Scotland frightening people (both chuckle). And play guitah.

A - Gotcha. If it's alright I'd like to talk about the band's 1968 issue, known as The White Album.

George - Good one.

John - My favorite.

A - What makes it your favorite?

John - (after a long pause) It's closest to what we did best; It's what I thought was the closest we ever got to a truly great piece of work.

A - Why?

John - It makes me smile the most.

A - Word is they were difficult sessions, a lot of turmoil and fallout.

John - Don't believe everything you read.

George - Actually it got to be hellish in there. Peoples' patience was frayed, and nerves.

A - Right. Let's begin with 'Back in the USSR'.

John - What about it? It's just a song. Not even a great one, a bluddy attention grabber 'at was, wunn'it.

A - 'Dear Prudence' was written at Rishikesh during the spring of '68 along with many other cuts that appear on the double record. Mia Farrow claimed that the song was written about her sister, both of whom were at the Rishikesh Transcendental course with you. Is that true?

John - If not, that makes her a liar, dunn'it? And me too.

[* Note to reader: It was moments like this, and there were numerous, when Lennon's infamous temper would show and I would have to summon some patience .]

A - 'Glass Onion', a satire about Beatles popular mythology.

George - I like that one.

John - Made 'o glass, baby.

A - And the increasingly reviled 'Ob-La-Di'-- funny because when I was younger it was sort of a kitschy favorite.

John - It's rubbish but if people like it that's fine.

George - I'd not say rubbish. Bottom shelf maybe.

A - And 'Wild Honey Pie', known as "the greatest piece of filler..."

George - But it's passages like this that set the tone for things. It turned out to be alright.

A - Bungalow Bill was written out of disgust at hunting?

John - It wasn't disgust for hunting as much as for this one knob.

A - And maybe a bit of Ugly-Americanism?

John - Maybe, but English hunters are no bettah.

A - And George, we know a lot about 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', the work Eric Clapton did on it. It sounds like he mainly did the solo work, is that right?

George - Mmm, yes, primarily, but, you know, he really helped with the whole thing, rhythm bits and suggesting an arrangement here or change there. It was almost as much his bit as mine.

A - I remember a rumor that you'd wanted to turn the cut into one hour-long experimental project featuring people weeping. [Both men erupt in belly laughter-- I turn a shade of red just a bit darker than a baboon's ass and sink in my seat]. Okay, alright, and Warm Gun, not about heroin I assume?

John - No, no, that's about guns, mate. Guns. This is what started happening. Everyone assumed there was always some hidden message, some cryptic meaning in things, and there just wasn't.

A - I can see that. Must've been frustrating. Did it turn you off interpreting other artists' work?

George - Well just over interpreting, I reckon.

A - And the nice '50s-style falsetto there. This was a good moment for the band at a difficult time, yes?

George - Yeah, great, y'know, after all the bickering we just all really enjoyed doing it. Working it out.

John - I mean that's what being a band is, playing together and each one giving something. We couldn't seem to capture that anymore, so it was a nice one.

A - Paul said 'Martha My Dear' came to him through his "muse" - -

George - That tune was just Paul recording; (grinning) It was only a Northern song.

A - And 'I'm So Tired'; simply that?

John - Exactly, yeah, why not --

A - Even though it's a Paul song, let's talk just a bit about 'Blackbird'.

George - Ace tune, that is. How can you argue with it, and that guitar, and the metronome. Bit o' genius, that.

John - (making a silly face) Aye, like that wun. It's brill. And then George's tune, I like the piggies, George.

[* At this point an assistant came in with coffee, pastry, bowls of fruit, packs of Gauloises, and a container of fat joints. We ate, drank, smoked, and generally goofed-off before sitting down for more conversation.]

A - It's reported that producer George Martin thought 'Rocky Raccoon' was filler. What's your take on that?

George - Not really fair, I'd say. It's a fun track. You have to remember we were disintegrating as a family and so a bit of fun was a great relief ... and also gave the sessions a sense of the unknown. It'd gotten nuts, we were always expected to write hits. But we'd 'av gone crazy if that's all we did.

John - Same with 'Why Don't We Do it in the Road'. Bit o' trifle that, but actually a nifty little number.

A - And your tribute to your mother, Julia, and the only time you play alone on the record. Any thoughts?

John - I said it all in the song.

A - After everyone's favorite party tune, 'Birthday', is one of my favorites, 'Yer Blues'. Please talk about writing and recording it, and your performance of it with the Stones in '68.

John - We were in India and realized the Maharishi was full of sh*t, so I lost my buzz and wrote it. I was missing rock 'n roll and needed it. The odd rhythms were unusual for a straight rock tune, y'know? And that was a good jam with Mick and everyone.

A - Both 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide..' and 'Sexy Sadie' were inspired by him, the Maharishi?

George - That's right, yeah.

A - "Helter skelter" is of course a kind of skyslide for kids in the UK, and had nothing to do with Hell. Another misinterpretation, this time a deadly one?

George - You can't perceive things through just one lens, otherwise you're capable of awful things. Quite sad, that.

A - Guys, we're about to wrap this up with just a brief discussion of side 4, which seemed to be the most unconventional part of the record. Would you agree?

John - The best part. How could you not have fun with Rev Nine?

A - You didn't care for 'Honey Pie' -

John - Look, we wrote songs, man, that's what we did. It's all we did. We'd come in and put what we had out there; We'd arrange, record and re-record, and George (Martin) would do his thing and eventually we'd have some decent stuff, get an album together. That's it. That's all. We were a rock band. ~~~

Here's more solid evidence for the claim that the Beatles were trailblazers. Perhaps you thought Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, Soft Machine's Third, or Can's Tago Mago was the first double album that would've been a wonderful single album if they'd just kept the best material. Well, it turns out those bands were just following in the Beatles' footsteps.

It's never been obvious to me why the Fab Four didn't release the best 35 or 40 minutes of The Beatles (a/k/a The White Album) as one album, then rework the remaining material for their next LP. In fact, 1968 was only the second year since 1963 in which the Beatles didn't release two separate albums. Unlike Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and their three film-soundtrack albums, The White Album wasn't thematic; the songs seemingly could have been divided into multiple projects. So why a double album?

Multiple reports have the Beatles, at various times, fearing that they were about to become irrelevant. Could a double album have seemed like a consolidation of both their popularity and their gravitas?

The White Album has been referred to as an 'inside joke,' and I guess can see why; while 'Blackbird' doesn't need much context to be understood, and while 'Revolution 1' would've been decipherable to most who heard it in 1968, the attentive yet uninitiated listener may well have felt that songs like 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' and (especially) 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill' required some insider knowledge. It should be acknowledged, though, that in 1968, there must have been fewer attentive listeners uninitiated to the Beatles than to any other band. Mid-period Beatles albums like Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966) were comprised of unrelated songs, but, partly due to their song sequencing, those albums hung together as unified works. The sequencing of the songs on the The White Album seems intended to avoid palatable transitions. And then there's the length of the album: 30 songs totaling more than an hour and a half. From the point of view of UK fans, The White Album was the same length the band's previous three LPs/EPs combined (Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and the Magical Mystery Tour EP). This was no longer the band of little ditties like 'She Loves You.'

But it also wasn't the band that had produced the cogent, singles-eschewing Sgt. Pepper sixteen months prior. It's been said that the sprawling, disorienting miscellany of The White Album formally described the state of the band at the time. While that's pretty ingenious if it was the intention, it doesn't make this a better musical work, even if it helps illuminate the situation for those in the know.

In retrospect is seems more likely that the fractious foursome's lack of cohesion prevented the album from becoming the unified whole it could've been; indeed, the Beatles had discarded raw material in the past in reaching consensus on the final form of an album. But with The White Album it seems they included everything, ready or not. Maybe they settled on a double album before realizing that they only had three sides of good material, but didn't have the collective will to reverse course.**

Be that as it may, there's a lot to like about The White Album. Among its thirty songs are one all-time classic ('Ob- La-Di, Ob-La-Da') and four other very good songs ('Back in the U.S.S.R.,' 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps,' 'Blackbird,' and 'Birthday'). Add to that 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,' 'Revolution 1,' 'Glass Onion,' and 'Savoy Truffle,' and there's a solid half-hour to build upon. And although neither 'Helter Skelter' nor 'Revolution 9' is a Beatles classic, each is important historically - - and maybe each fits better here than on a tighter, more calculated album.

On balance, The White Album is worth having, but it's not the first to get if you want an immersive Beatles-album experience; for that I'd suggest any other of the group's albums from Rubber Soul (1965) to Abbey Road (1969).

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* counting Magical Mystery Tour as an album, which I do.

** to be fair, the band made the final selection of 30 songs from a larger collection, as evinced by the 2018 '50th Anniversary Box Set' of the album.

The Beatles' double album, simply called The Beatles, but gone down in history as the White Album, is a Lp that features 4 very diverse facades, all very beautiful, and marks the Beatles' return to rock. The first side is thrilling, a 10/10 with flakes, it is the best ever in the Beatles discography (average 8.25), as far as Sgt. Pepper reaches 10/10 in the same way (but despite the lower average-song), given for the synergy of the pieces, the variety of arrangements and especially the novelty of the operation.

Back in The USSR is an excellent rock and roll by Macca, with sound of departing planes, unhinged rhythm, great piano percussion, great guitar solo. As is often the case with Paul's retro songs, the song may seem like a parody of 1950s music (in this case Chuck Berry's Rock and roll) but in reality it is only emphatic and sung and played with fury, as well as being embellished with backing vocals in Beach Boys style. Dear Prudence, with a beautiful acoustic guitar sound, is a reflective song by John, with a bewitching hypnotic trend and with a beautiful paroxysmal ending where Paul makes virtuosistic numbers on the drums (Ringo does not play). Glass Onion, a short song, with a violin ending, is a minor piece, with beautiful rhythm, beautiful sound and beautiful singing by Lennon. The mind-blowing sequence continues, giving excellent rhythm to the side, the pounding piano of Obladi Obladà, which in its pop-ska genre, is a masterpiece, with great finds of fiatistic arrangement, captivating text, beautiful piano sound, catchy chorus. It fades with a tail that is considered a song but is not: Wild Honey Pie, which alone means nothing but that in the economy of the A side is fine, before the flamenco guitar of Bungalow Bill, another cheerful and parodic piece (this time for real) , which makes Yoko Ono's overcut voice heard in some ways and which, with its goliardic chorus, ending in hand beats, makes the first side even smoother and more enthusiastic, and then finally arrives at a dramatic atmosphere, almost thriller, from a western duel, with the beautiful incipit of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Harrison's absolute masterpiece and major piece of the whole album. It is a rockblues delighted by Clapton's guitar that, along with George's voice, the mighty bass and drums, and the background keyboards, creates a phenomenal pathos, which reaches the climax in the guitar solo and the chorus repeated in the paroxysmal ending with the constant wailing of the guitar, to create an epic-tragic atmosphere. After this tour de force, comes the calm and melodic voice of Lennon, who soon climbs, along with the endless convolutions of Happiness Is a Warm Gun, another absolute masterpiece of the Beatles, composite song, which combines three different tranches, first melodic, then hard rock, then soul, to end with a striking vocal performance of Lennon's singing. End of an A-side among the greatest in the history of rock music.

The B-side contains many songs, almost all of them short, which unlike those on the A-side, are often solo works by the Beatles. It's the worst side of the LP, although it still manages to maintain an average quality of the pieces more than good. It starts with the melodic pop of Martha My Dear, Paul's easy piece, dedicated to his dog, which is well arranged (piano and winds). It continues with I'm So Tired, two minutes scant, by Lennon, soulful, clear, which highlights his vocal performance. Lennon's unfolded voice, present here and in Happiness, leaves no doubt about which singer was the most gifted singer of the Beatles: Macca's best performances, however excellent, are curated and studied in detail, but they never reach the power and the natural casually of Lennon's best. Then comes McCartney soloist, vocals, guitar and toe-beating, for a small, melancholy, melodic masterpiece, Blackbird. It follows Harrison, with an acoustic-based song (Piggies), but is gracefully embellished by harpsichord and bridge, becoming a small gem of originality. So far, we've all had short pieces, very different from each other, however conventional, which are still great for inspiration. From now on, the B-side drops decisively: Rocky Raccoon is a very well-told song, with acoustic guitar and western saloon piano; "Don't Pass Me By" is a country song by Ringo, with folk violin, which is among the most ramshackle and least toned than the Beatles: it conquers the palm of their worst song; Why Don't We Do It In The Road features Paul solo, playing almost all the instruments and repeating only two verses for a soul-blues of great effectiveness thanks to his vocal performance; I Will is a melodic sketch that alternates sweet pieces with too sweet pieces; Julia is John's only solo song in all Beatles discography: very nice melodic theme, but too monotonous song, suffering from too much singing and arrangement. He finishes the first record, falling. That's why the album can't get to a 10 as the final grade. In one ideal sequence of Songs from the White Album (see below), such as to make it an absolute masterpiece of 10, a long single album, would be excluded 4 songs of the B side (out of a total of 9).

The second record opens with Side C, which is by far the most rock side in the history of the Beatles. It starts with "Birthday," Paul's song to a pounding beat, which reaches the climax in the bridge thanks to Lennon's voice and piano touches. The rhythm is so pressing that it makes the song a little too forced to proceed. However it is a piece of great effect. It follows, slowing down the pace a lot, Yer Blues, Lennon's masterpiece. It is the toughest blues of the Beatles, comparable only to the later I Want You by Abbey Road: where it is hypnotic obsessive, Yer Blues is dramatic, tragic, bordering on delirium. Never before had there been such harsh sounds, such loud turns of guitars and bass in Beatles songs. The rhythm is the master, and the finale, which repeats the guitar riff, with Lennon singing without a microphone, is like a real dirty blues rock band. It is no coincidence that in the Rolling Stones film Rock and Roll Circus, Lennon, the only beatle present, will play this song (accompanied by Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell). Here comes Macca's melodic interlude, Mother Nature's Son, which suffers from the poor arrangement. However, Paul's voice, acoustic guitar and melody beauty are enough to understand that this song could have been a melodic masterpiece. Back John with Everybody's... a very fast piece, which for percussion, guitar riffs and sung could be punk. Overwhelming rhythm, it's an underrated piece: it's as forerunner of punk rock as Helter Skelter, and it has the only flaw of fading too abruptly in the finale. He deserved better development. Sexy Sadie, a vocal sharishi, is a piano rock ballad, with a very original harmonic development, as a melodic gradually becomes an atmospheric rock, conducted in the finale by voice and electric guitar. John's voice accompanied by the piano has the same sound that we'll find in Jealous Guy and Imagine. Big piece. Here comes rock, with a power never seen, unhinged, unhinged, screamed, it's Paul who wants to make a rock piece more explosive than those of the Who. And as always it gets an effect on the edge of parody. The piece is screamed, obsessive, repetitive, and impressive. It will be considered one of the first punk songs, and many will make its covers. Long finish, with nuance, shooting, growing, and Ringo screaming (in a very intonated way with surrounding din) who has the calluses on his hands. Long Long Long is an almost whispered, nocturnal song by George, which suffers from a non-focused arrangement. It still has an excellent bridge and a delirious psychedelic ending with strange sounds. It ends a great side, perhaps the side that fans of rock like the most and that pleases the Beatlesd d.o.c.

The D-side, the last, opens with Revolution No. 1, a semi-acoustic rock ballad with a fairly lazy, cute rhythm, with good progression and trumpet effect, but overall it doesn't take off. Lennon will make an accelerated rock version (Revolution, The B-side of Hey Jude) that will contain the maximum guitar distortion of the Fab Four discography, and which in my opinion is much more successful than this. Also because the name of Revolution takes a powerful, messy song, not an indolent song. Honey Pie is an ante-war swing-jazz piece by Paul, comparable to When I'm Sixty Four, which was well played and sung; compared to Sgt Pepper's, he has the advantage of being played with the instruments of a rock band. ). Luckily, Harrison arrives to make a slightly soft side more incisive. His Savoy Truffle is a small masterpiece for me. Cheerful blues rhythm, enjoys an excellent singing (finally George begins to affect the quality of his pieces with singing), a great rhythm, a great guitar sound (which makes a nice solo), and an excellent arrangement with distorted brass. It's a soundtrack song from an era. John's Cry Baby Cry is a simple song, but one that enjoys an excellent progression of drums and piano; punctuated by garden sounds, it looks a bit like Sgt Pepper's climate, and is more than pleasant, in its relentless and menacing. It has a piece of Macca that tempers in melancholy the previous menacing atmosphere. At this point a composition by Lennon begins, aided by Yoko Ono and George Harrison, who wants to follow the sound avant-gardes. You may or may not like Revolution No. 9. It can be boring or surprising. It's definitely long. In my opinion, however naive and amateurish, it is a masterpiece. The sounds and noises are well studied, there is a progression, a narrative, it could be a symphonic poem with a text describing what music represents; then there are piano sounds and the words Number Nine that, like a music box, hold the song together. It could have been the closing of the record, and it would certainly have been a brave and unconventional closure, but the Beatles are not subversives, and they keep us not taking themselves too seriously, especially John who, in fact, master of the D-side, wanted to put it last song , as a farewell to the listener, a lullaby arranged by George Martin with a Hollywood film-style orchestra. Sung by Ringo, Good Night closes giving good night to the listener: after the revolution, we return to our beautiful bourgeois security. Ideologically questionable, but ending up with Revolution No. 9 would have been difficult, given that George Martin and McCartney were against the song. Some critics say that this ending cancels, makes a joke the subversive power of Revolution No.9, which seems excessive to me. Simply, it is the Beatles who do not take themselves seriously, even in Sgt Pepper the song of Indian music and classical music harrison closed with laughter, given its pretentiousness. It is true, however, that in the finale of Pepper and Abbey Road (where McCartney commanded) the Beatles took themselves seriously.

White Album is a great album. The first sides of the two discs are the best. The A-side is a phenomenal pop-rock side, which follows that of Sgt Pepper: very smooth and varied in arrangements and musical styles; just missing the symphonic arrangements of She's Leaving Home and the circus pyrotechnics of Being For.... On the other hand, there are two mature rock masterpieces, Harrison's While My Guitar, and Happiness. The C-side is an experimental side, for the hard-rock sounds of 4 of his songs, two of which are remarkable 4 minutes (one by John and one by Paul), which lead the Beatles to successfully occupy the rock songs of the late Sixties. On the side, there are three atmospheric songs that soften the hardness of the side. The B-side is the more conventional one, which almost resembles the first albums: a long series of short single songs, with little in common (although the sequence flows), which vary on various styles (melodic, country, folk, blues), without however bringing anything of New. It's also the less rock and acoustic side, and it's dominated by McCartney songs. Lennon, on the other hand, dominates the fourth side, that of the revolution, in fact almost all the songs are written by him. So, in the White Album, the main novelties, in the lyrics and sounds, come from John, who tries to bring the Beatles into the arena of the 1968 protest and avant-garde music. Although not a project album like Pepper and as Magical Mystery Tour, White Album represents a very well organized collection of Beatles songs, with 4 sides very well studied and diversified, which end up in a last side that wants to send a one of its own message inherent to the 68-year-old revolution. The freedom that the Beatles take is unprecedented, since in practice John, Paul and George work as three soloists, who ask for help from others when they need it: in this way we find some minor or poorly arranged pieces, but also pieces by originals songwriters, which touch on avant-garde peaks, hard- rock, melodism, which certainly would not have found space in a single album by the Beatles, as too out of the canons of the group or too personal. This freedom of expression, this organized disorder, makes the White Album the most loved by classic rock listeners, and in any case, to be a double, holds very well, has no noticeable declines considering that every double Lp has moments of tiredness (the drop of the end of the Side B is not long and is well absorbed by the variety of the songs) and has the great merit of having four sides each with its own diverse and well-defined character, which continue to surprise the listener. Masterpiece.

1 Back in the USSR 8+ 2 Dear Prudence 8+ 3 Glass Onion 7,5 4 Obladi Oblada 8+ 5 Wild Honey Pie sv 6 Bungalow Bill 7,5 7 While My Guitar Gently Weeps 9+ 8 Happiness is a Warm Gun 8,5/9 -------------- 9 Martha My Dear 7+ 10 I'm So Tired 8 11 Blackbird 8 12 Piggies 8 13 Rocky Raccoon 7+ 14 Dont Pass Me By 5+ 15 Why Dont We 7,5 16 I Will 6,5 17 Julia 7

Totale 122,5; Media: 7,656

18 Birthday 7,5/8 19 Yer Blues 8,5 20 Mother Nature Son 7,5 21 Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey 7,5 22 Sexy Sadie 8 23 Helter Skelter 8,5 24 Long Long Long 7 ------------- 25 Revolution n. 1 7,5 26 Honey Pie 7+ 27 Savoy Truffle 8+ 28 Cry Baby Cry 7,5/8 29 Revolution n. 9 8,5 30 Good Night 7+

Total 101,25; Medium quality: 7,788

Average album 7,70. Final Rating: 9,5 - Five Stars, great masterpiece VOTO FINALE 9,5.

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Ideal White Album:

1 Back USSR 2 Dear Prudence 3 Glass Onion 4 Obladi Oblada 5 Mother Nature Son 6 I'm So Tired 7 Blackbird 8 Bungalow Bill 9 While My Guitar 10 Happiness ------- 11 Yer Blues 12 Honey Pie 13 Savoy Truffle 14 Cry Baby Cry 15 Everybodys Got 16 Piggies 17 Rocky Raccoon 18 Why Don't We Do It In The Road 19 Sexy Sadie 20 Helter Skelter

Ghost Track: Revolution n. 9

Medium quality: 8,012. Final Rating 10.

Not inclused: Wild Honey Pie, Martha My Dear, Don't Pass Me By, I Will, Julia, Birthday, Long Long Long, Revolution n. 1, Good Night.

My association with The Beatles never included this album; I have never owned it, never listened to it through and through, barely even listened to any of its sides. But I've heard a lot of its music. Some songs are undoubtedly "classics" while others have never registered with me. I owe my Beatles association entirely to my mother. She was an avid fan up to this album. Then she stopped. She never purchased, owned, or liked another Beatles album after Magical Mystery Tour--until the "red" and "blue" greatest hits albums came out. As I grew into my own musical tastes, I found an aversion to this album due to its association with Charles Manson and the grizzly murders he ordered in California--about which Vincent Bugliosi wrote and made a film of. Not one to enjoy horror film, especially when it has true life significance--I was afraid to listen to The White Album until well into my adult years. Never having acquired the fanatic adoration of these music masters that so many have, I have to say that as clever as the music (and, perhaps, lyrics) are on this album, it just doesn't do anything for me. I've even found that covers of these songs as done by other artists have found greater enjoyment and preference to me than the originals. I know it has historical significance, but, as a musical experience, I can give it no more than "for collectors only" status since that is exactly where I would relegate its value.

I really don't care if I ever hear this album as I do not know if I would ever be able to reclaim the hours of time it would take to get to know it--especially should I dislike it enough to regret wasting such a great deal of time and energy on it. Suffice it to say, it came out on November 22 of 1968 and became a big deal to a lot of people. I hear it's a good album.