Spotlight On The White Album

At the end of the day, The White Album is worth owning, click the picture to buy it. 

For me the "White Album" is so polarizing.  It literally has some of the Beatles worst work ever, but also some of their best.  For any crazed Beatle fan, they know the reasons why.  But for those that don't I'll explain it briefly. 

I've read enough Beatle books, magazines, polls, lists, countdowns etc. to have came to the conclusion that Sgt. Pepper is considered their finest work (duh).  Then followed closely behind is Revolver.  It gets a little bit more heated after that, usually with Abbey Road or The White Album coming in third.  Abbey Road is my personal favorite, so obviously the higher it's ranked the better as far as I'm concerned.  That notwithstanding, I couldn't rank The White Album ahead of it, let alone Magical Mystery Tour (their most underrated album for sure) just because of all the trash that is on it. 

Let me start at the bottom of the barrel.  "Revolution 9" is easily the worst Beatle song ever recorded.  (Listen for yourself)  I hate "Yellow Submarine", but #9 makes that look like "A Day in the Life" by comparison.  It's purely just noise for 8:30.  You also get Yoko's annoying ass voice saying some drug induced gibberish. 

Some other low points:

-"Wild Honey Pie" is 0:52 seconds of not quite as annoying noise as #9, and them saying "Honey Pie" over and over.  You hear some of George's Indian instruments, and ridiculous harmonies from the group.  Still it's only 52 seconds, so it's not totally awful, just not anywhere close to Beatle standards

-"Martha My Dear" if memory serves, this is about Paul McCartney's dog with the same name.  Typically McCartney bubblegum and totally lame.

-"Rocky Raccoon"  Paul tries to be a country boy and makes this sound like something from the "old west".  Yuck!

-"Why Don't We Do it in the Road?" The title says it all.  Paul uses his over-exaggerated voice that I hate, in a song about having sex in the road.  Good grief!

OK enough of the hating, here's some highlights:

-"Back in the USSR" Catchy little tune that has an ode to the Beach Boys in it.  (Go the 1:03 mark of the this video to hear it)

-"Dear Prudence" great little "airy" song.

-"Glass Onion" one of personal favorite under the radar songs.  I wrote about it many moons ago. 

-"While My Guitar Gentle Weeps" one of George's masterpieces

-"Helter Skelter" the first heavy metal song, (it's amazing that Paul can write this, and something like Martha My Dear, and put it on the same album.  Which in a nutshell is the epitome of this collection.)

-"Revolution 1" not to be confused with the pile of crap I mentioned before.  Most people are familiar with this rendition.  Revolution 1 is just an slowed down, more acoustic version of that song.  And a good one at that!

-"Long Long Long" is another under the radar song by George.  Simply beautiful. 

So why is this album all over the place?  Well simple put, this is when the Beatles started to hate each other.  For a multitude of reasons that don't need to be written about here.  So for the recording of the White Album, each Beatle recorded his songs in a separate room, only having interaction with the other three when necessary.

So the three creative forces (sorry Ringo) are all doing there own thing accounts for part of the reason why this album is all over the place.  The other reason being that they had returned from their infamous trip to India and had all sorts of songs on the back burner waiting to be completed, thus resulting in their first and only double album.  And honestly with that in play, it's all in probability.  Meaning, the more songs you put out, the more potential for filler (crap) you have- even if you are John, Paul, George, and Ringo. 

So with a Maharishi influence, minimal collaboration, and tensions running high, it really makes perfect sense that the White Album is so truly polarizing.  If you love the whole thing, then God bless you, but for me it truly has both ends of the spectrum contained on it.  And it's the only album that I can say that for- probably for any artist.