So why is The Beatles’ White Album on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
It’s easy to throw around words like “prolific” and “iconic” when talking about The Beatles, because they’re as close to objectively true as it gets.
But when you dig in and look at the band’s output by album and year, it becomes all the more astonishing to consider how much elite-tier music these four dudes from Liverpool produced across 1963 to 1970.
The self-titled White Album is a great case in point. Released in November 1968, The Beatles (aka the White Album) sits between Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour from 1967 and Yellow Submarine and Abbey Road from 1969.
Even setting aside the fact that those albums contain some of the best songs ever to be created in known recorded history, one could possibly argue: “well, that’s just one album released in 1968, what’s the big deal?”
Well, hypothetical Haterade consumer, when you isolate to the White Album, we’re talking about a jam-packed double album that spans 30 songs and 93 minutes of playing time. And not only that, as you might surmise or know full well, the White Album is not only upper-tier output by The Beatles’ already sky-high standards, but it’s wonderfully varied and eclectic in the genres and musical ground it covers.
And also: no other record – by The Beatles or by anyone else, arguably – feels as much like the sound of the chaotic late 1960s.
For example, “Honey Pie” digs back into British history with its delightful, old timey music hall vibes while “Revolution 9” is one of the wildest psychedelic-meets-experimental-meets-art rock tracks you’ll ever experience, and it runs for over eight minutes at that!
Memories flood back from my childhood the more I delve into the White Album, and one of them is repeating NUMBER NINE NUMBER NINE for kicks while walking around school.
In between those two polar opposites, take your pick of style and genre and you’re likely to come away with a winner. Hard blues rock? See: “Yer Blues.” Obscenely catchy campfire singalong with a dusting of psychedelia? “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.” All-timer sunshiny pop? “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”
There are endless entry points and side quests that The White Album offers. And maybe that was part of the deal with why it’s the only self-titled Beatles album, one that offers a literal blank canvas as cover art. “Choose your adventure,” perhaps the boys were trying to say.
“Back in the U.S.S.R.” kicks off the double album with the sound of a jet taking off, before taking cruising altitude with a rollicking piano-powered rocker that playfully spoofs The Beach Boys in part (who were clearly obsessed with their British rivals across the pond at the time) while satirizing the notion that anyone – even a triumphant Soviet spy – would enjoy returning to the communist dictatorship motherland.
I must give “Cry Baby Cry” special due: it’s one of the very best John Lennon-fronted songs The Beatles ever released, and I’d argue it might be the single best song Lennon was ever associated with – heartbreaking and beautiful in equal measure. What’s not up for debate: if you let it, it makes you feel all the feels you could ever want to feel.
And to give Paul McCartney his due, I’ll also pay homage to “Blackbird,” a deceptively simple acoustic hymn that sounds both timeless and entirely of 1968, with its minimal, elegant nod to the civil rights movement.
“Helter Skelter” wasn’t really on my radar until I purchased U2’s Rattle & Hum on cassette tape in the late ‘80s and discovered the band’s cover of The Beatles’ original. This led to my finding out about Charles Manson’s own demented journey with the song. On a slightly less demented note, I listened to Rattle & Hum so much back in the day that the U2 version sounds far more familiar to me.
Anyway, if Wikipedia is to be believed, “Helter Skelter” was “a key influence in the early development of heavy metal.”
Also, I’ve always dug the hell out of Ringo Starr shouting at the song’s end, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”
Speaking of discoveries, like many millions before me, I had my own little excited rush of revelation when I connected the dots on the cheeky “clues” that the band dropped about the at-the-time rumors about Paul McCartney’s alleged disappearance or death. Most importantly, it’s an incredibly fun and catchy number that blasts through its couple of minutes of playing time.
“When My Guitar Gently Weeps” is arguably the most popular and enduring song to come out of the White Album. I respect it more than love it myself, maybe just from overplay of it that I endured on classic rock radio on Long Island growing up.
For me, I’ll take the batshit gloriousness that is “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” every time. Seriously, consider that this one combines electric blues, a downer boozed-out section, and then wildly catchy doo-wop-influenced chorus. And then, I mean, the title of the song alone, right?
I’ll end on “Revolution 1,” a perfect slower rocker that incorporates a slightly hazed-out psychedelic vibe and a brilliant message that captures the White Album’s entire vibe – messy, beautiful, questioning, and unwilling to give easy answers.
For what it’s worth, I land on revolution being something that can’t be shouted into being; it has to start from within.
Some stats & info about The Beatles – White Album
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? British Bands, Rock Music, Psychedelic Rock, Baroque Pop, Pop Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #29
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was White Album released? 1968
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #33 out of 1,000
The Beatles’ White Album on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Beatles’ White Album that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Everybody’s got something to hide, except me and the monkey.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.