Mini Review: The White Album

[barondave]

Hacking away at the large pile of unlistened to CDs and smaller but still daunting pile of CDs to be entered into the Individual Song Database, I finally bit the bullet and entered The White Album, aka The Beatles. I hadn't needed to enter the double CD set before since I was very familiar with the songs, but formally entering them into my system meant a close listen with headphones.

What a great album! The ninth best selling album of all time in the US is near the top of several Music of the Millenium lists. Some of the all-time best songs by one of the all-time best musical groups. While My Guitar Gently Weeps has long been one of my two favorite Beatles songs (the other being Eleanor Rigby) but I had to also give my highest rating to: Dear Prudence, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Piggies (how can anyone live without hearing Piggies now and again?) and Rocky Raccoon.

But you knew that. What really prompted a LiveJournal entry was Revolution 9. It's a very famous song that almost everyone recognizes from Ringo singing, "number nine, number nine, number nine..." but almost no one could tell you anything else about. I don't think I've heard the entire 8:13 since... well, I'm tempted to say ever but I'm sure I made it through the whole thing at least once in college. Certainly, it's not a song in the traditional sense. On the other hand, it is a very early example of what's all-too-common now: Sampling. Revolution 9 doesn't have a plot (that I can discern) but the bits and pieces are edited exceptionally smoothly. This was quite a feat in 1968, when the Killer App was... stereo.

The first two Beatles albums were released in Mono (in the US). One of the reasons The Firesign Theatre made such a splash was their innovative use of stereo. By 1968, the year The White Album came out, stereo was no longer cutting edge but was still a new toy for producers to play with. Indeed, The White Album was released in mono in Britain (along with a stereo release). Revolution 9 uses stereo very nicely; that it still holds up as a piece of engineered sampling nearly 40 years later is testament to George Martin, the Producer.

I will unhesitantly recommend The White Album for anyone. I don't necessarily recommend that you listen to all of Revolution 9 more than once every 30 years or so...

Okay, you can all go back to doing what you were doing.

Comments

[ericcoleman]

There is no Beatles record called The White Album. It has been nicknamed that because it's ... well ... white. But the proper name is The Beatles.

This has been an official Eric Music Geek Moment.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Careful now. I have pictures of you... grinning...

[ericcoleman]

I feel for your camera ...

The white album

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Interesting to note that people can like the same album for what may very well be widely differing reasons. I have never been that fond of "Piggies" or "Rocky Raccoon," but utterly love a song a lot of other people seem to have neglected completely, "Cry, Baby, Cry." And "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a song that speaks to a whole lot of us guitar players, so on that one, you and I do have a lot of overlap. And how about "Mother Nature's Son?" And have you heard Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's (or is it just Crosby, Stills and Nash's?) cover of "Blackbird"? Another good song.

By the way, I've got a question for you. I assume you're acquainted with at least a few of the other people who have Fresh Air radio shows. Is there someone there who plays a lot of local music, to whom Louie and I could and should give a promo copy of either or both of my CD's (or the Howard Ashby Kranz CD, for that matter)? Please let me know.

Nate

Re: The white album

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I don't believe I've heard the CSN cover but am not surprised they do a good version of a great song. A bunch of Beatles songs are Way Up There and I only mentioned the ones I gave three stars to, not the others. As we talked about in a different post, I'm not at all surprised that our tastes in music are similar for long stretches but diverge wildly at some point.

Re KFAI: Many shows promote local music. The most appropriate one for you I can think of offhand is Pam K, of the group Switched At Birth who does a program called Stone Soup.

More specifically, you should call or e-mail Dan Richmond (mailto:richmond@kfai.org) the Program Director and ask him where to send a copy. Feel free to drop my name. He'll probably say just send it to him for inclusion in the KFAI record library, but you could also ask about specific shows. Include a cover letter so the person filing the CD can place it in the proper category in the Library. His #: 612-341-3144 ext 20. (All this info is from the kfai.org web site, so I don't mind putting it in LJ.)

Re: The white album

[ericcoleman]

While My Guitar Gently Weeps is just perfection.

Re: The white album

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Agreed...one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs.

It really is an amazing collection of songs...it's all over the place musically, and I find it a bit hard to listen to in one sitting. But there's so many different styles and so many cool arrangements and a mix of catchy stuff and experimental stuff and stuff that's both...

-=ShoEboX=-

Re: The white album

[ericcoleman]

They really weren't a band anymore at that point. So everyone was going off in different directions.

[ex-radparker580.livejournal.com]

Good post.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

My first job, back in high school, was working in a rib joint. There was a two foot statue of a pig on the counter where poeple could sit and eat. One day, a buddy and I took a loop tape we had spliced of "Piggies" and hid it in the base of the statue so it played over and over again. We adjusted the sound so it was just loud enough not to be able to be heard behind the counter. The expressions of the customers was wonderful until the manager figured out what was going on.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Heh. Did the manager make you stop the loop or make it louder so everyone could hear?

[davidwilford.livejournal.com]

Dave, if you like "Revolution 9" I'll bet you'd like George Harrison's Electronic Sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Sound) album, which is George's foray into ambient music. I have it on vinyl if you're interested.

[davidwilford.livejournal.com]

As far as a memorable White Album moment, for me the segue from Revolution 9, a song with such a distorted state of consciousness, to Ringo reassuringly singing "Good Night", sums up what works about the whole album, which is an assortment of parts that somehow still manages to come together as a whole.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree: Despite all the meanderings, the album is well constructed and works well and ends very well. It's clearly meant to be listened to as an album: on the CD, the tracks overlap, which is a little annoying when you want to play just one cut. Thanks for the offer of the Harrison, but at the moment my turntable isn't even hooked up.