134. The Beatles — The Beatles (aka The White Album) (1968)

Disarmingly clean

1. It’s almost like the book saw that The Byrds had as many albums as The Beatles and immediately had to correct that error. Thank goodness. I actually hadn’t listened to The White Album all the way through before, and I’m glad to finally have the chance. The album lifts off immediately with the fantastic, genuinely funny and rocking Beach Boys & Roy Orbison-ripoff “Back In The U.S.S.R.” and doesn’t look back. I don’t mean it as an insult to call that song a ripoff; an homage would be more fair. This album jumps between styles and genres without abandon, each song utterly true to itself, without the styles ever clashing problematically. They still work in their goofy-ass tunes like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” but those moments work better here in context than past attempts like “Yellow Submarine.” And unlike The Byrds, everything here sounds inherently Beatles-esque, despite the genre hopping.
2. The first two sides (first half) of the album is some of the strongest work the Beatles put out. Side one gives you at least four classics in “USSR,” “Ob-La-Di,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Happiness Is A Warm Gun,” and the rest of the tunes surrounding those are just as strong (excluding “Wild Honey Pie,” which serves almost more as a rap album-style skit than a true song). Side two gives us “Blackbird” and “Rocky Raccoon” (another goofy-ass Beatles song that I actually enjoy well enough). It’s a killer intro.
3. The second half of the album is still incredibly strong, though lacking in the universally beloved classics. Again, they kick off with a banger — “Birthday” deserves recognition with the best of the Beatles work, built off of a Chuck Berry-esque riff and growing into something that sounds closer to a 2005 indie rock song than a 1968 pop rock tune. “Yer Blues” laughs at the generic (if solid) blues rock Clapton was putting out around the same time. And then the album relaxes back into acoustic sounds. Like I said: it’s a mishmash of sounds, genres, and ideas, but I appreciate that each individual tune exists within itself, and the transitions between the tunes are rarely if ever jarring. “Revolution 1” is anoutstanding, gorgeous tune. The centerpiece of the second half for me is “Helter Skelter,” another tune that feels like it came from an entirely different era. I’ve always understood the Beatles to be a forward-thinking band, but I generally interpreted that in a more academic manner — they used sitar! — but a number of the tunes on this album are genuinely decades ahead of their time. Listening to the album straight through, it’s revelatory.
4. That postmodern kitchen-sink result is clearly the outcome of a band splitting at the seams. The band wouldn’t officially break up until after Abbey Road, but significant troubles were mounting here, as Yoko joined recording sessions (breaking the band’s “no wives/girlfriends” rule), George Martin took an unexpected vacation, and Ringo straight up left the band for two weeks. You get a sense that the band knew their days were ending, they simultaneously wanted to put out everything they had while each member wanted to impose their individuality for inevitable solo projects. It shouldn’t have worked. It works stunningly well.

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