The Album

Almost five months in the making, nearly 94 minutes in length, it had no graphics or text other than the band’s name embossed (and, on the early LP and CD releases, a serial number) on its plain white sleeve.

“The Beatles” aka “The White Album” was their ninth official British album release, and fifteenth American album. It was the first full album project the group undertook following the death of their manager Brian Epstein in August of the previous year. It also went on to become their best selling album ever, certified at 19 million by the RIAA.

PLAY The White Album 25th Anniversary Radio Promo (radio spot)

On one hand, ‘The Beatles’ or ‘The White Album’, was the most diverse record that The Beatles, or probably any pop band in history, had ever made. On the other, as Paul McCartney remembered, “That was the tension album. We were all in the midst of that psychedelic thing, or just coming out of it. In any case, it was weird. Never before had we recorded with beds in the studio and people visiting for hours on end: business meetings and all that. There was a lot of friction during that album. We were just about to break up, and that was tense in itself.” Lester Bangs described it perfectly: “The first album by The Beatles or in the history of rock by four solo artist in one band.” In saying that Bangs was simply following John Lennon’s lead.

If you took each track, it was just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group — I enjoyed it, but we broke up then.” ~ John Lennon

A Dolls House

The “White Album’s” original working title was A Doll’s House, which is the name of Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece play written in the 19th century. In addition, according to Geoffrey Giuliano, author of The Beatles Album, an illustration was prepared for the cover of A Doll’s House by the famed artist Patrick. However the title was changed when the British progressive band Family released the similarly titled Music in a Doll’s House earlier that year. The plain white cover was opted for instead after McCartney then requested the albums sleeve design “be as stark a contrast to Peter Blake’s vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as possible, the complete opposite of it…” he said. That’s exactly what he got.

About the Songs

Most of the songs that eventually ended up on “The Beatles” were conceived during the group’s visit to Rishikesh, India in the spring of 1968. There, they had undertaken a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Although the retreat, which had required long periods of meditation, was initially conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavours—a chance, in Lennon’s words, to “get away from everything” [1] — both Lennon and Paul McCartney had quickly found themselves in songwriting mode, often meeting “clandestinely in the afternoons in each other’s rooms” [2] to review the new work. “Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing,” Lennon would later recall, “I did write some of my best songs there.” [3]

The Beatles left Rishikesh before the end of the course, with Starr and McCartney departing first, and Lennon and Harrison departing together later. According to some reports, Lennon left Rishikesh because he felt personally betrayed by rumours that Maharishi had made sexual advances toward Mia Farrow’s sister Prudence, who attended Transcendental Meditation classes in Rishikesh, India at the same time as the group. Shortly after he decided to leave, Lennon wrote a song called “Maharishi” which included the lyrics, “Maharishi/You little twat”; the song became “Sexy Sadie”. According to several authors, Alexis Mardas (aka “Magic Alex” ) deliberately engineered these rumours because he was bent on undermining the Maharishi’s influence over each Beatle. [4] [5] [6] Lennon himself, in a 1980 interview, acknowledged that the Maharishi was the inspiration for the song. “I just called him ‘Sexy Sadie’.” [7]

The Kinfauns Demos

Close to forty new compositions had emerged in Rishikesh, a little more than half of which would be laid down in very rough form at Kinfauns, (photo left) George Harrison’s home in Esher. In May 1968, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison assembled at Kinfauns, and demoed 23 songs that they composed at Rishikesh.

PLAY Harrison’s Sour Milk Sea (early outtake)

Cultural Responses

Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head, argues that “The Beatles” was the album in which the band’s cryptic messages to its fan base became not merely vague but intentionally and perhaps dangerously open-ended, citing oblique passages in songs like “Glass Onion” (e.g., “the walrus was Paul”) and “Piggies” (“what they need’s a damn good whacking”). These pronouncements, and many others on the album, came to attract extraordinary popular interest at a time when more of the world’s youth were using drugs recreationally and looking for spiritual, political, and strategic advice from The Beatles. Steve Turner, too, in his book A Hard Day’s Write, maintains that, with this album, “The Beatles had perhaps laid themselves open to misinterpretation by mixing up the languages of poetry and nonsense.” [8]

Bob Dylan’s songs had been similarly mined for hidden meanings, but the massive countercultural analysis of The Beatles surpassed anything that had gone before. [9] Even Lennon’s seemingly direct engagement with the tumultuous political issues of 1968 in “Revolution 1″ carried a nuanced obliqueness, and ended up sending messages the author may not have intended. In the album’s version of the song, Lennon advises those who “talk about destruction” to “count me out.” As MacDonald notes, however, Lennon then follows the sung word “out” with the spoken word “in.” At the time of the album’s release — which followed, chronologically, the up-tempo single version of the song, “Revolution,” in which Lennon definitely wanted to be counted “out” — that single word “in” was taken by many on the radical left as Lennon’s acknowledgment, after considered thought, that violence in the pursuit of political aims was indeed justified in some cases. At a time of increasing unrest in the streets and campuses of Paris and Berkeley, the album’s lyrics seemed to many to mark a reversal of Lennon’s position on the question, which was hotly debated during this period. [9]

The search for hidden meanings within the songs reached its low point when cult leader Charles Manson used the record to persuade members of his “family” that the album was in fact an apocalyptic message predicting a prolonged race war and justifying the murder of wealthy people. [10] The album’s association with a high-profile mass murder was one of many factors that helped to deepen the accelerating divide between those who were profoundly skeptical of the “youth culture” movement unfolding in the mid to late 60s in the UK, US, and elsewhere, and those who admired it’s openness and spontaneity.

Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote a best-selling book about the Manson “Family” that explicated, among other things, the cult’s fixation with identifying hidden messages within The Beatles; Bugliosi’s book was entitled “Helter Skelter”, the term Manson took from the album’s song of that name and construed as the conflict he thought impending.

Cultural responses to the album persisted for decades, and even offer a glimpse into the process of collective myth-making. In October 1969, a Detroit radio program began to promote theories based on “clues” supposedly left on The Beatles and other Beatles albums that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a lookalike. The ensuing hunt for “clues” to a “coverup” The Beatles presumably wanted to suppress (and simultaneously publicize) became one of the classic examples of the development and persistence of urban legends.

The Charts

As it was their first studio album in almost eighteen months (and coming after the blockbuster success of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) expectations were high at time of release of “The Beatles”. The album debuted straight at #1 in the UK on December 1, 1968 [11] (becoming their third album to do so – the first two were Help! and Revolver). It spent seven weeks at the top of the UK charts (including the entire competitive Christmas season), until it was replaced by The Seekers’ Best of the Seekers on January 25, 1969, dropping to number two. However, the album returned to the top spot the next week, spending an eighth and final week at #1.

The White Album was particularly notable for blocking the Beatles follow-up album, Yellow Submarine, which debuted (and peaked at) #3 on February 8, 1969, the same week The White Album was dominating the second position on the charts. It then spent another four weeks in the Top 10 before dropping down the charts. In all, “The Beatles” spent 24 weeks on the UK charts (a far cry comparison to the over 200 weeks spent by Sgt. Pepper’s).

In the United States, the album was received with huge commercial success. It debuted at #11, then reached #2, and finally peaked at #1 in its third week, spending a total of nine weeks at the top. In all, The Beatles spent 155 weeks on the Billboard 200. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is The Beatles’ best-selling album at 19-times platinum and the tenth-best-selling album of all time in the United States.

Although it carried a list price of $11.79 (a single album was selling for $3.98), their double album “The Beatles” sold 4 million units during its first four weeks alone; a record for any double album up to that point in time.

Re-issues

Two re-issues in 1978 (one by Capitol Records, the other by Parlophone) saw
the album pressed on white vinyl, completing the look of the “white” album.

In 1985, EMI Electrola released a DMM (direct metal mastering) white vinyl pressing of the album in Germany, which was imported to the United States in large numbers. Another popular white vinyl pressing was manufactured in France. The 1978 Parlophone white vinyl export pressing and the German DMM pressing are considered by many to be the best-sounding versions of the album. This is due to the use of the famed Neumann lathe on the 1978 export pressing and the use of the DMM process on the 1985 pressing.

On January 7, 1982, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs released the album with a non-embossed unnumbered version of the cover art containing an ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING banner across the top. Neither the poster nor the portraits were included. The labels to these discs were white with primarily black text and the Capitol dome logo at three o’clock. The MFSL discs were made with Super Vinyl, a heavy and hard compound that provided an extraordinary quiet playing surface. Although MFSL leased the album from Capitol and used the company’s sub-master, many fans believe they sounded superior to the standard British and American pressings. The discs were stored in rice paper, static-free, dust-free inner sleeves enclosed in an off-white gatefold with a reinforced stiff board that fit into the custom fabricated album jacket.

In 1998, a 30th anniversary reissue of the album was released on a two-disc compact disc version in the United Kingdom. The packaging of this release is virtually identical to its vinyl counterpart. It has the same pure white gatefold cover, complete with the title “The BEATLES” in a slightly raised, embossed graphic at a slight angle. It also included the now-classic sequentially numbered serial number on the front of this cover, thus making this one a real limited edition. The interior of this cover features the song titles on the left-hand side, and the four black-and-white photos of the group members on the right. This version of the cover even accurately mimics the original British vinyl pressing from 1968, with the openings for the discs at the top rather than the sides. There are miniatures of the four full-colour glossy portrait photos included, as well as an exact replica of the poster with the photo collage on one side, and the album’s complete song lyrics on the opposite side. The CDs are housed in black sleeves, which were also used for the original British album. This commemorative double CD album is housed in a clear plastic slipcase.

Mono Version

The Beatles was the last Beatles album to be released with a unique, alternate mono mix, albeit one issued only in the UK. Twenty-eight of the album’s 30 tracks (“Revolution 1″ and “Revolution 9″ being the only exceptions) exist in official alternate mono mixes. Beatles’ albums after The White Album (except Yellow Submarine in the UK) occasionally had mono pressings in certain countries (such as Brazil), but these editions—Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be—were in each case mono fold-downs from the regular stereo mixes.

In the U.S., mono records were already being phased out; the U.S. release of The Beatles was the first Beatles LP to be issued in the U.S. in stereo only.

Influences, Parodies and Tributes

The original working title of the The Beatles (White Album) was A Doll’s House. While the working title of the album wasn’t Lennon’s idea, his wicked sense of humor helped him come up with a cover idea for the new album: The Beatles would parody their unreleased original “butcher cover” of YESTERDAY…AND TODAY.

The 1968 “butcher doll’s house” photos were taken the same day as the “Mad Day Out” photo session on July 28, 1968 and had the band assuming the same poses as the 1966 “butcher block“. In addition to the cover, Lennon had the idea of including four glossy 8-1/2 x 11 photos of each band member with the new album. (Right: This is one of the four glossy 8-1/2 x 11 pictures that was to be included with the album) This was the only idea of Lennon’s that actually was used when THE BEATLES was released in 1968.

However, both the title and the new photos were eventually rejected for the new album. Supposedly, Paul McCartney, ever the diplomat for the band, didn’t want any controversy for the all-important first Beatles record to come out on Apple Records. Thus, the stark white cover eventually became the official album cover.

Note: In defense of the cover, John reportedly said, “It’s as relevant as ‘Obla-di-obla-da’!” _source: earcandymag.com [12]

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The album’s cover, though stark and minimalistic, has been highly influential. Goth band The Damned released The Black Album in 1980, and is considered the first album to draw influence from the cover, as well as the first band to use the term “Black Album”.

The 1984 Rob Reiner “rockumentary” This Is Spinal Tap also pays homage with their own “Black Album”, which is juxtaposed to the original by A&R staff Bobbi Fleckman, who notes in a debate about appropriate packaging material: “What about the White album? There was nothing on that Goddamned cover.” The band are generally less enthusiastic, referring to it variously as “a black mirror”, “none more black” and “death”.

The self-titled debut album of They Might Be Giants is commonly referred to as “The Pink Album” due to the amount of the color pink on the cover.

Comedian Dennis Miller released a stand-up comedy recording in October 1988 titled “The Off-White Album” which mimicked the design of The Beatles.

In the 1990s, both Prince and Metallica released self-titled albums with their names printed against mostly plain black covers, and are both informally referred to as “The Black Album”.

In 2003, rapper Jay-Z released an album officially called The Black Album. DJ Danger Mouse produced the mashup The Grey Album by combining vocals from Jay-Z’s Black Album with samples from The Beatles.

Two compilations of Beatles’ material, released in 1973 as 1962–1966 and 1967–1970, are often referred to as “The Red Album” and “The Blue Album” respectively, in reference to their colour scheme.

The Bob and Tom Show named their first collection of material as The White Cassette (later renamed The White Album when released on CD).

All three of Weezer’s self-titled albums borrow from this idea as well and fans refer to them respectively as “The Blue Album” (1994), “The Green Album” (2001), and “The Red Album” (2008).

311’s self-titled release from 1995 is often referred to as “The Blue Album”, and The Dells’ 1973 self-titled album is often known as “The Brown Album”, as is The Band’s 1969 self-titled album.

Australian comedy duo Martin/Molloy also released a CD called The Brown Album in 1995, while American rock band Primus did likewise in 1997.

The animated television series The Simpsons and SpongeBob Squarepants both used the title The Yellow Album for their spin-off CDs, with the latter also parodying the plain cover.

The British electronica duo Orbital released their first two albums without definite names, which in time became known as The Green Album and The Brown Album, while their final release is known as The Blue Album.

The satirical Australian alternative rock band TISM released The White Albun [sic] in 2004.

The band Phish covered the album in its entirety for their second set of their three set Halloween show in ‘94.

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NOTES:

1. Anthology, page 281
2. Spitz, page 752
3. Anthology, page 283
4. Brown, Peter; Steven Gaines (2002). The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles. Penguin Group Inc.. ISBN 0451207351
5. Spitz, Bob (2006). The Beatles: The Biography. Little Brown and Company. ISBN 0316013315
6. Lennon, Cynthia (1978). A Twist of Lennon. Star Books. ISBN 0352301961
7. Sheff, David (1981). The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Playboy Press. ISBN not listed.
8. Turner, Steve (1996). A Hard Day’s Write. London: Little Brown.
9. a b MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties.
10. Bugliosi, Vincent with Gentry, Curt. Helter Skelter — The True Story of the Manson Murders 25th Anniversary Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 1994. ISBN 0-393-08700-X. P
11. http://freespace.virgin.net/sharon.persky/Top%2010s.html
12. Source — earcandymag.com

Released: 22 November 1968 UK
Released: 25 November 1968 US
Recorded: 30 May – 13 Oct 1968
Location: Abbey Road Studios and Trident Studios, London
Length: 93:35
Label: Apple, Parlophone, EMI
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
PMC 7067–8 (mono)
PCS 7067–8 (stereo)
Apple (US) SWBO 101
Parlophone CDS7 46443 B