The Beatles (White Album)
So.... I clearly like the Beatles' White Album.
Of its 30 songs, as of now, 14 of them are on my SHoF list of favourites... deemed as somehow significant in my life. So, the White Album is probably the most significant album in my life, it would seem. I can accept that.
So, why is it significant? A couple reasons.
The Beatles were my favourite group, growing up in the '70's, altho they had already disbanded several years before I knew much about them. The White Album was out when I was only three, nearly four. It wasn't until the mid to late '70's that I think I took much of an interest in the Beatles, tho...
I prefer the late '60's Beatles music to the early '60's music. The more interesting lyrical content, the more interesting instruments and musical content... and visually, the longer hair and more colours of the late '60's always appealed to me.
The White Album, if I'm not mistaken, I think I got once at Christmas. As an LP, it came with a poster and lyrics, as well as the four portrait posters... which I still have and have at various times been put up on walls.
I like the fact that all the songs are quite different and distinct, in lots of different styles of music. Most are pretty simple and sparsely accompanied by instruments. Many tell a story of some sort, or are somehow appealing to me... they show the distinct personalities of the fracturing Beatles of the time.
Unlike most LPs, there wasn't that three-second gap between tracks... the songs usually ran from one to another sometimes with little bits of music joining them.
From Wikipedia... according to the author Ian Inglis: "Whether positive or negative, all assessments of The Beatles (White Album) drew attention to its fragmentary style. However, while some complained about the lack of a coherent style, others recognized this as the album's raison d'être."
In The Sunday Times, Derek Jewell hailed it as "the best thing in pop since Sgt. Pepper" and concluded: "Musically, there is beauty, horror, surprise, chaos, order. And that is the world; and that is what The Beatles are on about. Created by, creating for, their age."
According to Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson: "None of it sounds like it was meant to share album space together, but somehow The Beatles (White Album) creates its own style and sound through its mess."
Among reviews of the 2009 remastered album, Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph found that even its worst songs work within the context of such an eclectic and unconventional collection, which he rated "one of the greatest albums ever made".
In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked The Beatles at number 10 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Other general attractions that the album has for me includes the facts that:
Most of the songs on the album were written during March and April 1968 at the Transcendental Meditation course they went to with the Maharishi in Rishikesh, India.
The interest I have in Charles Manson.... in The Beatles (White Album) he interpreted prophetic significance in several of the songs, including "Blackbird", "Piggies" (particularly the line "what they need's a damn good whacking"), "Helter Skelter", "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9", and interpreted the lyrics as a sign of imminent violence or a race war. He convinced the Manson Family that it was an apocalyptic message predicting an uprising of oppressed races, drawing parallels with chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation.
The fact that it's vast... a double album.
Should it have been a double album ?? George Martin said that he was against the idea of a double album at the time and suggested to the group that they reduce the number of songs to form a single album featuring their stronger work, but the band decided against this.
Well, yeah, I think some of the songs could've been cut... Honey Pie, Good Night, Revolution 9, Savoy Truffle, which are all on side four, for instance... but on the other hand, you couldn't have had a three-sided album... so I would've left it.
In conclusion... The White Album is a worthy possibility if I were to pick my favourite album of all time. So that's what I'll do. Settled.