As my favorite musical artists, it was easy to predict that the Beatles would make it on to my list of top ten albums, and they do. Twice. For the only artists to have sold over 1 billion records worldwide, this should come as no surprise. However, what is amazing is that hardly any of the Beatles' record 20 number one singles is even on an album. In the days that the Beatles recorded, singles and albums were purposefully kept separate. The catalog of Beatles songs is deep, well over 250 songs, and comprises 12 studio albums, an EP and nearly 30 singles, over a scant eight years from 1962-1970.
The arc of the Beatles' recording career follows three distinct phases. The musical styles are so vastly different in these three phases, that it is often amazing that you are listening to the same group. The first phase, from 1962's Please Please Me to 1964's Beatles For Sale is the poppy, lighthearted music, derivative in many ways from their diverse influences, such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and others. The second phase, beginning with 1965's Help and Rubber Soul, and continuing through 1966's Revolver, and 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, showed the influence of both drugs and Eastern philosophy, and revealed a growing musical depth as well as an amazing penchant for innovation.
By the time of The Beatles, the supergroup was moving into their third phase - the breakup. The band had devolved by this point to recording basically solo songs with the other Beatles as side men. Many of the compositions on this double album were written during the group's infamous "vacation" in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the album is almost jarringly different than those of the previous year. Gone are the multiple session musicians and orchestral arrangements. Instead, the cuts run the gamut from hard rock ("Helter Skelter" and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey") to acoustic guitar ballads ("Julia" and "Mother Nature's Son"). There is a lullaby ("Good Night"); a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Beach Boys ("Back in the USSR"); a pastiche of sound clips, backward loops and nonsense ("Revolution 9"); an unlisted "hidden" song (we'll call it "Can You Take me Back?"); a first-ever solo composition by Ringo ("Don't Pass Me By"), and an old-West saloon number ("Rocky Raccoon"). Eric Clapton even contributed an uncredited guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." In all, there are 30 songs (31 if you count the unlisted track), in almost every style imaginable. Even the album cover, with its lack of any photo or even color, was a statement in sharp contrast to the bright, busy cover of Sgt. Pepper.
In a nutshell, the sheer diversity of the album is a large part of the reason I like it so much. You can listen through the over 90 minutes of running time and not run into two songs that sound alike. It is fascinating to me that John, Paul, George and Ringo had the ability to produce so much good music over so short a span of time, and the White Album showcases their broad range of musical gifts. It is definitely worth your time.
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