After a fun night partying with
friends, I slept in and then had a lovely lunch with Sheila. It’s been a pretty nice, laid back Saturday
so far.
Disc 593 is….Self-Titled (aka The White Album)
Artist: The
Beatles
Year of Release: 1968
What’s up with the Cover? Well, it is known
as “The White Album’.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila is a Beatles fan. I believe she bought this album shortly after
we met, as she was filling out her Beatles collection at that time.
How It Stacks Up: We have seven Beatles albums, mostly encompassing
the latter half of their career. Of the
seven, I’d put “The White Album” second only to “Abbey Road” (reviewed back at
Disc 441).
Rating: 4 stars
Lennon and McCartney can
practically compose a pretty melody in their sleep, but it is beyond even them
to put 30 of them on a double album and expect them all to be great songs. And so we are left with the self-titled “White
Album”; two–thirds brilliance and one-third overwrought, self-referential
filler.
Fortunately, the parts of this
record that are good are exceptionally good.
While I don’t love every one of the so-called ‘classics’ on the record,
even those that don’t appeal (“Back in
the USSR”, “Revolution 1”) I
still admire them as well written songs worthy of someone’s love.
I think of the Beatles principally
as a pop act, but “The White Album” is much more on the rock side of the
ledger. Harrison’s guitar is crunchier
than usual and a lot of the tracks have an edge to them. That edge is still
wrapped up in a pop package, but I actually like how the styles cross over and
play against one another.
“Helter Skelter” is a classic rock song, and while Paul’s naturally
pure voice is a bit light on growl, he pulls it off. “Happiness
is a Warm Gun” and “Everybody’s Got
Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey” are both energetic and very
interesting in construction. I love the
guitar riff that launches the latter of the two.
On that note, Harrison’s playing
on “The White Album” throughout is some of his best work. He is given license to range a bit more, and
for the most part the band doesn’t drown him out in over-production as can
happen on some of their other later records.
He rewards the freedom with one of the Beatles all –time classics, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” a very
un-Beatles type song that would be equally at home on a Cream album.
I’m not sure what the hell a lot
of these songs are about – like who the hell is Bungalow Bill, and how does
Rocky Raccoon either a) read the bible or b) handle a gun without opposable
thumbs? – but it didn’t prevent me from enjoying the songs. If anything, it just made them feel more
whimsical, and let me concentrate on the music instead, which is excellent.
Given that Rocky Raccoon finds religion in the end, he should meet up with Sir
Rastus Bear from the Blue Oyster Cult song “Redeemed”
– now that would be a Disney movie worth watching.
In addition to “Happiness is a Warm Gun” and that
excessively titled song about the monkey referenced earlier, “Blackbird” is one of my favourite songs
on the album. I’m not sure you could
write a more perfect melody than this, and listening to it brings a calm to my
spirit that actual black birds have never managed (my experience with black
birds is principally crows and ravens, neither of which are particularly pretty
vocalists).
For all the great songs on the
record, there are times when the boys get overstuffed with their own cleverness. “Piggies”
thematically belongs on lesser records like “Magical Mystery Tour.” “Glass Onion” has a series of references
to earlier songs, including “Strawberry
Fields” and “I Am the Walrus”
that seems to operate on the premise that I will get a thrill hearing about the
Beatles talking about themselves. Actually boys, I don’t give a crap that “the walrus was Paul.”
The culmination of the auditory
masturbation is “Revolution 9” which
is almost nine minutes of strange sounds, snippets of dialogue, all stitched
together in the name of art – I think that was the intent. The song (I use the term loosely here) has
contributions from Yoko Ono, and it would be more at home on one of her albums,
which is a polite way to say it sucks.
Fortunately, the brilliance of the
five star tracks on “The White Album” eclipse any damage that can be done by
the occasional misfire, and hold this record strongly in four star territory,
warts and all.
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