Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by a CD.
Commonly known as The White Album. I could go on and on about how this album is hit-or-miss; the hits are some of the best songs the band ever wrote while the misses are some of the worse. I could put in my two cents on whether or not this should have been condensed to one album. I could add my opinion on whether this is the work of a band or just a compilation of solo songs. But Sir Paul McCartney says, "It's great, it sold, it's the bloody Beatles' White Album, shut up." Shutting up, sir.
Update: In its 2020 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone ranked this album at #29 and in 2017, it was ranked at #4 on Pitchfork's list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1960s.
Press of the time:
- Rolling Stone: "it is the best album they have ever released, and only the Beatles are capable of making a better one."
- CashBox: "a lot of the tunes have easy appeal"
- Billboard: "without doubt their most ambitious and impressive effort to date."
- Stereo Review: "as good as ever"
- High Fidelity: "ninety-minute bore"
- Record Mirror (★★★★★): "It is beyond comparison."
Album chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200: #1 (9 weeks between Dec 28, 1968 - March 1, 1969)
- Billboard Pop CD: #1
- CashBox CD chart: #1
Tracks:
Disc 1:
- Back In The USSR ✔
- Dear Prudence ✔
- Glass Onion
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da ✔
- Wild Honey Pie ✘
- The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps ✘
- Happiness Is A Warm Gun
- Martha My Dear ✔
- I'm So Tired ✘
- Blackbird ✔
- Piggies ✘
- Rocky Raccoon
- Don't Pass Me By ✘
- Why Don't We Do It In The Road
- I Will ✔
- Julia ✔
- Birthday
- Yer Blues
- Mother Nature's Son ✔
- Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey ✔
- Sexy Sadie
- Helter Skelter
- Long, Long, Long
- Revolution 1
- Honey Pie
- Savoy Truffle ✔
- Cry Baby Cry ✔
- Revolution 9 ✘
- Good Night
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| For more information on the brief life of the CD longbox, go visit The Legend of the Longbox. |
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: A very early CD purchase (late 1989 or early 1990), it was the first double CD I purchased and also the first CDs I had where the plastic insets weren't black (they're white, of course).
My 5th and 6th grade years, I had a music teacher that loved the Beatles and taught us to sing Rocky Raccoon and Bungalow Bill so I knew those songs before I'd ever heard the Beatles' original versions.
Previously revisited for the blog:
Love (2006)
Let It Be... Naked (2003)
Anthology 2 (1996)
Anthology 1 (1995)
1967-1970 (1973)
1962-1966 (1973)
Abbey Road (1969)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Revolver (1966)
Rubber Soul (1965)
Help! (1965)
Please Please Me (1963)
Blog post #1050
I look at this post and see the songs you dislike while my guitar gently weeps
ReplyDeleteI look at this post and wish you would take a hike still my guitar gently weeps
There is some common ground for us among the 30 tracks but the fact that you chose to single out 'While My Guitar Gently Sleeps" as one your least liked tracks is hurtful. Sure, the lyrics are insipid but that's half the fun, making up your own lyrics to the effortless, flowing melody. The song has countless credentials, bonafides and accolades which may be its downfall in your contrarian eyes.
Or maybe, like me, you prefer other versions of the song. I just checked and there are more than a dozen different Beatles versions of this song in my library.
Specifically, George's demo version recorded on July 25, 1968 and included on the Anthology 3 album. It is even quieter, more sedate with just his voice and acoustic guitar which makes it even more passionate to these ears. (Your disdain of demos has been duly documented.)
The other version, which I never tire of hearing or watching, is the 2004 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame jam led by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne along with Steve Winwood and Dhani Harrison. It slowly chugs along until Prince steps out front and plays what has been justifiably been called "the greatest guitar solo ever played". It is incendiary and transcendental and proves once and for all, without a doubt, that Prince belongs in any conversation about the greatest guitarists of all-time.
<<throws guityar in air and walks off stage>>