The Beatles - The Beatles

Released - November 1968

Genre - Rock

Producer - George Martin

Selected Personnel - John Lennon (Vocals/Guitar/Organ/Piano/Effects/Percussion); Paul McCartney (Vocals/Guitar/Bass/Piano/Organ/Percussion/Recorder); George Harrison (Guitar/Organ/Percussion); Ringo Starr (Drums/Percussion/Vocals); Eric Clapton (Guitar); Mal Evans (Percussion/Vocals); Yoko Ono (Percussion/Vocals/Effects); Harry Klein (Saxophone)

Standout Track - Blackbird

Back when I was first covering 60s albums before I took half a year off from this blog and listened to loads of other 60s music I've now had to go back and fill in, I chose not to include the Beatles' 1968 self-titled double album (generally referred to as The White Album thanks to its minimalistic, inscrutable cover art). I was well aware of it but it didn't do enough to excite me for me to include it. I've since changed my opinion of it, though not by much. Double albums tend to fall into one of a few categories - there's a very small minority that manage to be solidly brilliant (I'm thinking Pink Floyd's The Wall). There are a few that more or less justify their length but have a fair bit of filler (maybe Prince's Sign "O" The Times). There are some that would've made a good single album, but therefore contain an entire normal album's worth of uninspiring stuff. And then there are some that don't even have enough decent material in them to justify a single album, let alone two (Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans). The White Album sits in the penultimate category, and I usually feel with such albums that it's not worth including albums of which I don't enjoy at least half of them. But, on repeated listens, it's dawned on me that the good single album hidden away within this overlong mess would have been one of the Beatles' finest, and some of their very best songs are to be found here. As such, I've decided to include it.

We also get an interesting glimpse at the Beatles functioning as a particular kind of band we never saw anywhere else. There's so much music here of so many different styles that, of course, it's naturally going to draw on many of the different kinds of music they turned their hands to during their career, but the stuff here feels tangibly different from the straightforward rock & roll of A Hard Day's Night or Rubber Soul, tangibly different from the self-consciously experimental psychedelic rock of Revolver or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and tangibly different from the symphonic rock, verging on prog, of Abbey Road. The material is more mature and musically interesting than their early pop rock, but (with one notable exception) is less self-consciously experimental than their later stuff. As such, we get a rare insight into the band as a straightforward rock band, neither pandering to a commercial market nor trying very hard to do something challenging and different. (Admittedly, the first half of Abbey Road gives us a glimpse at the same kind of thing, but even that had stuff like "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," while that album's second half with its symphonic complexities tips the balance the other way).

Having basically changed the world with Sgt. Pepper, the band went on a transcendental meditation retreat in India, following through on their newfound obsession with Indian culture that had been kickstarted by George Harrison's passion for Ravi Shankar's music that influenced a lot of Revolver. While there they refrained from their experiments with hallucinogenic drugs and therefore regained some of their songwriting clarity and started assembling some of the songs that would form their next, tangled mess of an album. The recording sessions were among the most turbulent the band ever had - they no longer functioned well as a unit, with several of the songs being worked on as solo pieces. The band rarely recorded all together, and on many of the Lennon-McCartney songs, the respective songwriter would have to add all the overdubs themselves due to the other's refusal to be involved (Lennon infamously dismissed "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "granny music shit," and the following year refused to have anything to do with recording "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" on Abbey Road for the same reason. I have to agree with him on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," although I love "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.") The growing tensions meant that Ringo briefly quit the band altogether, only to be eventually coaxed back.

One of the major reasons for Lennon's increasing frustrations with the band, and their growing frustrations with him was, of course, the presence of Yoko Ono, the Japanese conceptual artist he had fallen in love with. Lennon insisted on Yoko having more input into the recording process, and her avant-garde ideas didn't sit well with the rest of the band. Lennon and Yoko were also in the throes of a heroin addiction, which massively affected his mood and temper, while the whole affair also obviously impacted hugely on Lennon's relationship with his wife and son. We may as well deal first, then, with Yoko's biggest impact on the band's recorded output altogether, the hugely divisive "Revolution 9." It's a bizarre, confounding sound collage underpinned by somebody speaking the words "Number nine" looped over and over and mixed in with all sorts of tape effects, fragments of musique concrete and occasional spoken word overdubs by Yoko and Lennon. Harrison contributed to its assembly, but McCartney refused to have anything to do with it. Ringo was probably absent at the time. Altogether, while it's a fascinating piece of art, it falls into my "interesting, horrible to listen to" category, and I can't count myself as a fan.

Elsewhere, McCartney wins overall in the battle of contributing great songs to the album. Most of the album's out-and-out highlights are his, from the exhilarating, cartoony surf rock of "Back In The U.S.S.R.", complete with its Beach Boys-inspired backing vocals and occasional electrifying guitar riffs from Harrison, to the gorgeous, unaccompanied acoustic ballad of "Blackbird," easily one of the most beautiful songs the band ever produced, though it's entirely a solo McCartney effort. There's also the aforementioned "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," one of the more successful of McCartney's forays into ridiculous, cartoonish pop music, this one apparently intended as a pastiche of ska music. Lennon, by contrast, contributes a number of great songs but few of them stand out as true highlights of the album. "Rocky Raccoon" is a lovely song I'm a big fan of which builds from its plaintive, acoustic, almost Dylan-esque intro to a fun, honky-tonk breakdown towards its end, all underpinning Lennon's fantastical, Wild West narrative. There's also the gorgeous closing lullaby of "Good Night," sung with characteristic unpretentiousness by Ringo and functioning as a lush, over-the-top orchestral piece intended as a lullaby for Lennon's song Julian (himself also the subject of one of the band's finest songs, "Hey Jude," written by McCartney as an attempt to comfort Julian in the wake of his father's infidelity to his mother and absconding with Yoko).

Harrison, meanwhile, contributes what comfortably sits alongside "Here Comes The Sun" as one of his two finest songs in the dark, dramatic "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," distinguished by its pounding piano riff and its fiery guitar solos from Cream's Eric Clapton (Clapton does a fine job on it, though it's a shame Harrison didn't take the opportunity to truly own his song by doing the solos himself). Elsewhere, his compositional contributions are fairly forgettable ("Piggies," "Long, Long, Long" and so on), and it's clear that the occasional rumour that Harrison could've been just as strong and prolific a songwriter for the band as Lennon and McCartney are mostly unfounded - he clearly wouldn't have been able to match their output, and is far better served by just occasionally turning out the odd stone-cold classic like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

The album also features a couple of reminders of how great the band could be when they genuinely did rely on collaboration rather than functioning as a bunch of solo artists vying for attention. "Birthday" is the only song on the album that Lennon and McCartney genuinely wrote together and is an exciting, ferocious rock song, while the blisteringly aggressive "Helter Skelter" emerged out of a whole band jam session and is one of the album's most refreshingly different moments - the sheer anger and ferocity on show almost sounds like proto-metal, and culminates in Ringo's enraged scream of "I've got blisters on me fingers!" that he exploded with after flinging his drumsticks away after the 18th take of such an intense song.

And...that's it. Those are pretty much the only songs I really feel compelled to write about. There are some other nice songs on show, for sure - brief shout-outs for "I Will" and "Revolution 1," a slowed-down early version of what would become a bigger hit for them simply retitled "Revolution" in a different version, are in order. But the album has a whole host of stuff that's either totally forgettable, or verges on the irritating (weird experimental pieces like "Wild Honey Pie" don't do anything to engage your interest in the way the experiments on Sgt. Pepper did, and simply serve to further bloat the running time). If a good half of the content here had been whittled away, the band could have had a truly great, more straightforward rock album on their hands. Instead, it stands as one of their most fascinating missteps and greatest follies. It of course topped the charts on release, but confounded fans and critics to this day - debates still rage as to whether there is anything of artistic merit in "Revolution 9" or whether it's just a bunch of nonsense. It remains an interesting look at how, even under intense pressure and when all at each other's throats, the Beatles were interesting enough musicians to produce some works of real quality. You just have to sift through some rubbish to get to them.

Track Listing:

All songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney except where noted.

1. Back In The U.S.S.R.

2. Dear Prudence

3. Glass Onion

4. Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

5. Wild Honey Pie

6. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill

7. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Harrison)

8. Happiness Is A Warm Gun

9. Martha My Dear

10. I'm So Tired

11. Blackbird

12. Piggies (George Harrison)

13. Rocky Raccoon

14. Don't Pass Me By (Ringo Starr)

15. Why Don't We Do It In The Road?

16. I Will

17. Julia

18. Birthday

19. Yer Blues

20. Mother Nature's Son

21. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey

22. Sexy Sadie

23. Helter Skelter

24. Long, Long, Long (George Harrison)

25. Revolution 1

26. Honey Pie

27. Savoy Truffle (George Harrison)

28. Cry, Baby, Cry

29. Revolution 9

30. Good Night