The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official
album by
The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is most often referred to as
The White Album as it has no other text than the band's name on its plain white sleeve, designed by
pop artist Richard Hamilton. The album was released at the height of the Beatles' popularity, and is often hailed as one of the major accomplishments in popular music. It was originally intended to be called
A Doll´s House.
In 1997
The White Album was named the tenth greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by
HMV,
Channel 4,
The Guardian and
Classic FM. In 1998
Q magazine readers placed it at number seventeen, while in 2003 the
TV network VH1 placed it at number eleven. In 2003 it was ranked number ten in
Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
According to the
Recording Industry Association of America,
The White Album is the Beatles' best-selling album at 19-times platinum and the ninth-
best-selling album of all time in the
United States. Note, however, that the RIAA counts sales of double albums twice for its rankings, and without this adjustment,
The White Album would be the Beatles' fourth best selling album.
With this album, each of the four band members began to showcase the range and depth of his own individual songwriting talents and styles that would be carried over to their eventual solo careers. John Lennon displays his stark musical nakedness ("
Julia"), manic insanity ("
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey"), biting attacks ("
Sexy Sadie"), political views ("
Revolution 1"), and Yoko collaborations ("
Revolution 9"). While John went lyrically different, Paul went musically different. He had delicate pop ballads ("
I Will"), heavy metal ("
Helter Skelter"), piano pop ("
Martha My Dear"), surfer rock ("
Back In The USSR") and Sinatraesque songs ("
Honey Pie"). George Harrison demonstrated his usual Indain mantra ("
Long, Long, Long"), a religious cry for help ("
While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), a goof off ("
Savoy Truffle"), and social commentary ("
Piggies"). Even Ringo had a song in "
Don't Pass Me By".
The now classic portraits of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr featured on the inside of the album.
Many of the songs here are personal and self-referencing; for example "Dear Prudence" was written for actress
Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, who attended a
Transcendental Meditation course in
Rishikesh,
India, at the same time as the group and who experienced violent hallucinations while meditating. She had to be kept in her room under guard for a period and after the guard was removed she was afraid to leave her room. She was serenaded with this song in an attempt to reassure her and help her calm down. In fact, many songs on
The White Album were conceived during the group's ill-fated visit to India in the spring of 1968. "
Sexy Sadie" is about
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who led those transcendental meditation classes and who allegedly tried to seduce Mia Farrow. "
Glass Onion" is Lennon's song for those fans who spent their time trying to find hidden meanings in the group's lyrics; it references several other Beatles songs. The album runs the gamut of genres from pop with tracks such as "Birthday" and "
Back in the U.S.S.R.," hard guitar-based rock in "
While My Guitar Gently Weeps," British blues in "
Yer Blues," proto-
heavy metal in "
Helter Skelter,"
Pink Floyd-like montages in "
Revolution 9," and acoustic ballads such as "Blackbird" and "Julia."
The only western instrument that was available to the group during their Indian visit was the acoustic guitar, and several of the songs (such as "Dear Prudence", "Julia", "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son") were written and first performed during their stay. These songs were recorded either solo, or by only part of the group.
Yoko Ono made her first appearance, adding backing vocals in "Birthday" (along with
Pattie Harrison); Ono also sang backing vocals and a solo line on "Bungalow Bill" and was a strong influence on Lennon's
musique concrète piece, "
Revolution 9".
Eric Clapton, at Harrison's invitation, provided an extra lead guitar for Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
Several songs recorded during
The White Album sessions were not part of the final album, such as, "
Hey Jude" (released as a single backed with "
Revolution"). Other songs would later surface on bootlegs as well as on
The Beatles Anthology, including Harrison's "Not Guilty" (which he would later re-record as a solo track and release on his 1979 self-titled album,
George Harrison) and Lennon's "What's The New Mary Jane?".
The album was produced and orchestrated by
George Martin, and was the first album released by
Apple Records, and the only original double album released by the Beatles. Martin was personally dissatisfied with the double album and advised the group to reduce the number of songs in order to feature their stronger work on a single disc. However, the group overruled him.
The album was recorded between
30 May 1968 and
14 October 1968, largely at
Abbey Road with some sessions at
Trident Studios. The sessions, although productive, were sometimes fractious and exacerbated the growing tensions within the group. A major source of this tension was the constant presence of Lennon's new girlfriend and artistic partner
Yoko Ono; prior to this, the Beatles had been very insular during recording sessions. Lennon's dissatisfaction with the band and growing drug use were also evident, and this left a vacuum that McCartney stepped in to fill. Often McCartney would record in one studio while Lennon would record in another at the same time, using different engineers. The studio tensions carried over into the Beatles' subsequent album and film project in early 1969, ultimately released as
Let It Be. At one point in the sessions,
George Martin grew disgusted and spontaneously left on vacation, leaving
Chris Thomas in charge of producing the sessions.
These sessions also marked the change from
4-track to
8-track recording, although in essence this had started in 1966 and 1967 with the technique of 'bouncing down' several tracks onto one, to free up new tracks for recording.
(Source: Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. Hamlyn Publishing Group. ISBN 0-600-55784-7.)Notable songs from the album sessions
"
Hey Jude" was originally intended to be included on the album, but was instead released as a stand-alone single. "
Revolution", an alternate version of "
Revolution 1" was recorded and released as the
B-side to "Hey Jude."
The Beatles was the last Beatles album to be released with a unique, alternate
mono mix, albeit one issued only in the UK. Twenty-nine of the album's thirty tracks ("Revolution 9" being the only straggler) exist in official alternate mono mixes, all of which are popular items amongst Beatles fans.
Beatles albums after
The Beatles (except Yellow Submarine in the U.K.) occasionally had mono pressings in certain countries, but these editions â€" of
Yellow Submarine,
Let It Be, and
Abbey Road â€" were always mono fold-downs from the regular stereo mixes.
In the USA, mono records had already been phased out so the USA release of
The Beatles was the first Beatles LP issued in the USA only in stereo.
The album's sleeve was designed by
Richard Hamilton, a notable
pop artist who had organised a
Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the
Tate Gallery the previous year. Hamilton's design was in stark contrast to
Peter Blake's vivid cover art for
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band's name was discreetly embossed in the middle of the album's right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped
serial number, in Hamilton's words, "to create the
ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies." [
1] Later
vinyl record releases in the U.S.A. showed the title in grey letters. Early copies on
compact disc were also numbered. Later CD releases rendered the album's title in black or grey.
The album's inside packaging included a poster, the lyrics to the songs, and a set of
photographs taken by
John Kelley in
Autumn of 1968 that have themselves become classic.
Two re-issues in 1978 (one by
Capitol Records, the other by
Parlophone) saw the album pressed on white vinyl, completing the look of the "white" album. In 1985, Electrola/EMI released a DMM (direct metal mastered) white vinyl pressing of the album in Germany, which was imported to the United States in large numbers. Another popular white vinyl pressing was manufactured in France. The 1978 Parlophone white vinyl export pressing and the German DMM pressing are widely considered the best sounding versions of the album. This is due to the use of the famed Neumann lathe on the 1978 export pressing and the use of the DMM process on the 1985 pressing.
Influence
The White Album's cover has been very influential. In the 1990s, both
Prince and
Metallica released self-titled albums with their names printed against mostly plain black covers, and are both informally referred to as "The Black Album". In 2003, rapper
Jay-Z released an album officially called
The Black Album. Two compilations of Beatles material, released in 1973 as
The Beatles 1962-1966 and
The Beatles 1967-1970, are often referred to as "The Red Album" and "The Blue Album" respectively, with reference to their colour scheme. Both of
Weezer's self-titled albums borrow from this idea as well and fans refer to them respectively as "The Blue Album" (1994) and "The Green Album" (2001).
311's self-titled release from 1995 is often referred to "The Blue Album".
In the fictional world of
Spinal Tap, the band's 1983 album
Smell the Glove was released with an entirely black sleeve, although this was due to a controversy about the original cover art rather than a conscious homage to The Beatles. In a case of life imitating art, the soundtrack for the
Spinal Tap film was itself released in a plain black sleeve, with the band's name embossed on the front. The practice of referring to an album by its colour - particularly untitled or otherwise significant releases - is nowadays widespread.
In 1979, the writer
Joan Didion published a collection of essays in a volume entitled
The White Album.
In 1987,
Saturday Night Live comedian
Dennis Miller put out his first comedy album, entitled
The Off-White Album, recorded live at George Washington University, featuring a likewise colored album cover.
Electronica duo
Orbital's first two albums are both titled
Orbital and known colloquially as the
"Green Album" (1991) and the
"Brown Album" (1993), whilst their 2004 release has the formal title,
Blue Album.
In 1995, the
Australian comedy duo
Martin/Molloy released a double CD officially called
The Brown Album, and in 1997 the band
Primus released a CD with
the same title.
In 1998, an album of new songs from
The Simpsons, titled
The Yellow Album, was released. The album's cover was a parody of the cover of
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had already been done as a
couch gag for an episode in the series.
In 2000, comedian
Lewis Black released an album titled
The White Album, with similar cover art, down to the capitalization scheme of "Lewis BLACK".
In 2004, Brian Burton (also known as
Danger Mouse) released
The Grey Album, an unauthorized remix album later distributed on the
Internet using
samples from
The White Album against the
a cappella version of Jay-Z's
The Black Album.
Rolling Stone called the record "...an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time". EMI and Apple sent Brian Burton
cease and desist letters which prevented official distribution of
The Grey Album.
Also in 2004, Australian alternative band
TISM released a 2 DVD/1 CD pack called
The White Albun. An intentional misspelling of
The White Album, its packaging was a white box with 'TISM' embossed on the front. At the end of the song "Cerebral Knievel" there is a short parody of "Revolution 9".
At some point in the early-to-mid 1980s,
Sonic Youth planned to cover the entire album, but this never saw the light of day.
During a concert on
October 31 1994,
Phish played all the songs from
The White Album (except "Good Night") as one of the band's "
Halloween musical costume" extravaganzas. The show has been released in its entirety as
Live Phish Volume 13.
In December 2005, the
BBC show
One World broadcast a two-hour retrospective on
The White Album. Narrated by former Beatles co-producer
Chris Thomas - who went on to produce such luminaries as
Pink Floyd,
Sex Pistols,
Roxy Music, and
Brian Eno - the broadcast features reworkings of songs from
The White Album from a large and diverse roster of independent artists such as
Bardo Pond,
Deerhoof, Toy, and
Bedouin Soundclash.
On
May 19 2006, Will Taylor and Strings Attached, an
Austin, Texas-based string quartet known for their collaborations with pop musicians, held a performance of the complete
White Album, featuring many Austin rock/country/blues musicians, such as Gary Clark Jr., Libby Kirpatrick, and White Ghost Shivers. The concert was held at University Baptist Church in Austin and was recorded for a CD release.
Dynamite Hack's acoustic guitar rendition of Eazy-E's rap "Boyz in the Hood" includes a short use of the guitar from The Beatles song "Blackbird" with altered lyrics.
In
Men In Black, as
Agent K (
Tommy Lee Jones) is explaining to the newly recruited
Agent J (
Will Smith) that alien technology permeates Earth society, he holds up a small (perhaps an inch in diameter) shiny disc (supposedly the latest music media) and laments, "Guess I'll have to buy the
White Album again."
*All songs by
Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
Side one
#"
Back in the USSR"#"
Dear Prudence"#"
Glass Onion"#"
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
(vorbis sample 204K)#"
Wild Honey Pie"#"
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"#"
While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (
Harrison)
(vorbis sample 188K)#"
Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
Side two
#"
Martha My Dear"#"
I'm So Tired" #"
Blackbird"
(vorbis sample 140K) #"
Piggies" (Harrison) #"
Rocky Raccoon"#"
Don't Pass Me By" (
Starkey) #"
Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" #"
I Will" #"
Julia"
Side three
#"
Birthday"#"
Yer Blues"#"
Mother Nature's Son"
(vorbis sample 164K)#"
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey"#"
Sexy Sadie"#"
Helter Skelter"
(vorbis sample 147K)#"
Long, Long, Long" (Harrison)
Side four
#"
Revolution 1"
(vorbis sample 203K)#"
Honey Pie"#"
Savoy Truffle" (Harrison)#"
Cry Baby Cry"#"
Revolution 9"#"
Good Night"
Rejected tracks
The following were rejected before final mixing:
[Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. Hamlyn Publishing Group. ISBN 0-600-55784-7.]#"
What's The New Mary Jane" #"
Not Guilty" #"
Hey Jude" (released instead as a stand-alone single, it is widely regarded as the band's best selling single; eventually released on the compilation album
The Beatles Again (Hey Jude))
The following were songs in an early form that may or may not have been considered for the album:
[Lewisohn, Mark (1996). The Complete Beatles Chronicle. Chancellor Press. ISBN 0-7607-0327-2.]#"
Junk" (known at the time as 'Jubilee')#"
Circles"#"
Sour Milk Sea"#"
Mean Mr. Mustard" (later featured on
Abbey Road)#"
Polythene Pam" (later featured on
Abbey Road) #"
Child Of Nature" (an early version of Lennon's hit song
Jealous Guy)#"
Across the Universe" (later re-recorded during the
Get Back/Let It Be sessions and later featured on
Let It Be)#"
Lady Madonna" (may have been considered for the album but, like "Hey Jude", it was also released as a stand-alone single; the single also became a big hit)#"
Revolution" (a faster version of "Revolution 1", it was released as the B-Side to Hey Jude and also became a hit single)#"
The Inner Light" (recorded during the album sessions but instead was released as the B-Side to Lady Madonna)#"
Hey Bulldog" (recorded during the album sessions, it was also planned to be released as a single but instead it would be recorded for the film
Yellow Submarine, as well as the accompanying
album of the same name).
*
Further information, including photographs of the packaging*
Album Lyrics*
White Album Lyrics
