beatles, the (1968) - the beatles: capitol records 1978 reissue, SEBX-11841

By 1968 the Beatles were a band that were suffering from the joint centrifugal forces of success and the 60's, and both John and Paul publicly noted that the recording sessions for the white album marked the start of the band's break-up.

There were a lot of problems.  Ringo, apparently fed up with it all, had actually quit the band for a couple of weeks, causing the other three to take over drumming on songs like Back in the USSR and Dear Prudence.  John brought Yoko into the studio during some recording, breaking a rule the boys had about keeping the studio skirt-free.  And Paul and John stopped collaborating on songs and started to become openly hostile, at one point recording in separate studios.  As John described the album, "Every track is [a solo song]; there isn't any 'Beatle' music on it. [It's] John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band ..."

By any measure, by 1968 the Beatles were a hot mess, and in many ways their eponymous album reflects that.

Side 1: Back in the USSR Dear Prudence Glass Onion Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Wild Honey Pie The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill While My Guitar Gently Weeps Happiness is a Warm Gun
Side 2: Martha, My Dear I'm So Tired Blackbird Piggies Rocky Raccoon Don't Pass Me By Why Don't We Do It In The Road I Will Julia
Side 3: Birthday Yer Blues Mother Nature's Son Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey Sexy Sadie Helter Skelter Long, Long, Long
Side 4: Revolution 1 Honey Pie Savoy Truffle Cry, Baby, Cry Revolution 9 Good Night

Before they recorded The Beatles, the boys had gone through some weird travels.  George found Ravi Shankar and got into the sitar, John found Yoko, the boys found acid, and after Brian Epstein died they found the false prophecy and phony spiritualism of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

That's some heavy dope.

The result of all this internal searching and turmoil was a fractured, disjointed, and musically uneven album  suffering from trying to be too much in one package.  It tries to pay homage to British music's skiffle ancestry (Don't Pass Me By), recollect their early pop days (Back in the USSR, Birthday), be self-referential (Glass Onion), acknowledge their acidic growth and development (Dear Prudence), give a nod to rock's American heritage (Yer Blues, Rocky Raccoon), look forward to a harder, more cutting and socially relevant musical emergence (Helter Skelter, Revolution 1), and anticipate the experimental weirdness of the early 70's (Revolution 9).

But even though this is a flawed album filled with tension, the "Fab Four" could still write the hell out of some songs. Plus, the 10-year anniversary re-release were pure white vinyl.  WHITE RECORDS?!?  Mind = Blown. I mean, seriously, how cool is white vinyl?   Sure, today colored vinyl is de rigueur for the hipsters discovering LPs, but back in the day it was an event.

Sure some of the tracks are justifiably long-forgotten saccharine pabulum (like I Will), but for every piece of drivel like Don't Pass Me By, there is an epic rock monument like Helter Skelter or While My Guitar Gently Weeps (where George got a little six-string help from his friend Eric Clapton).

One of the things about The Beatles that stands out relates back to the quote by Lennon regarding how there isn't (according to his words) any "Beatle" music on it - just a collection of solo work. Aside from making the album ironically named, the divergence between the musical directions of Lennon and McCartney is quite apparent. Lennon's songs are overall the more bluesy, gritty, and rocky songs, such as Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Warm Gun, Yer Blues, Me & My Monkey, and Revolution (both numbers) and give a great idea of the sort of stuff he would do with Elephant's Memory and The Plastic Ono Band; while Paul tended for the more melodic and accessible songs, like Ob-La-Di, Martha My Dear, Blackbird, and Mother Nature's Son - a style he would continue with Wings.

Leaving aside the stylistic divergence between the Lennon and McCartney songs (the former's being more experimental and bitter, while the latter's tend to be more melodic and softer) the album also is heavily influenced by the boys' time spent on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, and their eventual dissolution with the whole scene.  Many of the songs are direct slams against the false prophet (i.e. Sexy Sadie) and the sort of spiritual tourists who bought the snake oil thinking they could find enlightenment without sacrificing their corrupt ways (Bungalow Bill).

This was also the first album in which the lads were free to express political opinion, something Brian Epstein had refused them to do, fearing fallout. Epstein may have been prescient in a way, because even though songs like Revolution 1 were clearly pacifist and leftist in nature, they were misinterpreted by both the radical left (who felt that Revolution was an anthem calling for a violent overthrow of oppressive governments), and by the unbalanced (both Helter Skelter and Piggies were cited by the Manson Mutants as justification for their murder spree).

In the end, despite the unevenness of the album, the tension of the band, or the misunderstood politics, The Beatles does stand as a significant effort - even if it does signal the eventual end of the group and foreshadows their future. Besides, like I said earlier, the albums are made of white vinyl.

Up next: Can ambience and pop coexist?