The White Album Challenge

[miamiric]

Leave it as a double album. It's great ,It sold it's the bloody Beatles White Album, shut up!

-Sir Paul's words almost to a tee, when asked the same question.

I second that!

[nukebass]

Definately a single album.

Back in the USSR
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison)
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
I'm So Tired
Yer Blues
Mother Nature's Son
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Sexy Sadie
Helter Skelter
Revolution 1
Cry Baby Cry

I'm not sure what the 15th should be and these are in no particular order. Some of the other songs that are decent (Savoy Truffle, Julia, Blackbird, etc. ..) could be on an EP or an album that was never written. I think they had enough for 3 sides, just not quite enough for 4 solid sides. Then again, Help wasn't exceptionally great in the middle and it was a single album.

I do agree Goodbye Yellow Brick Road could be cut down, as long as Harmony stays. I'm not usually a fan of double albums, though.

[beatlefreak]

When compiling your single album release of the White Album, keep in mind that the Beatles and George Martin followed a 'formula' that worked well, and they rarely strayed from it. On each album, Ringo alway had one song to sing (the only exception was on A Hard Day's Night). George was always given space to sing at least one song (in 1968 and 1969 he had two per album). Although John and Paul's songs were always credited to Lennon-McCartney, they usually wrote their songs separately. Generally, whoever sings the song, wrote it. Each of the albums tried to balance the song load between them. There was always a lot of competition between John and Paul to better each other's songs (and try to get their song as the next single's A side.

[Scastles]

George was always given space to sing at least one song (in 1968 and 1969 he had two per album).

Prior to '68 actually, Harrison had two songs on Rubber Sould and three songs on Revolver.

[beefandbones]

I think White Album is best as a double album, not because it's so great, but because the overall quality of their songwriting was so diminished during this period, with the Beatles themselves seemingly unable to focus on a cohesive vision for the record, that the sheer quantity helps mask the problem. Their lyrics are less thoughtful and incisive (though perhaps more immediate and expressive, qualities they obviously valued) than during the Rubber Soul - Sgt. Pepper period. I often get the feeling that if many of the songs they wrote and recorded during the White Album sessions had surfaced in previous years, they would have been consigned to B-sides. I know, most of you might disagree.

I cut mine down to 14, since the GM and the Beatles seemed fond of side symmetry. I also eliminated the 'extremes' both lyrically and musically in an attempt to make something more cohesively 'Beatles'.

Back in the U.S.S.R
Dear Prudence
Sexy Sadie
Mother Nature's Son
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Long Long Long (Harrison)

Blackbird
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison)
Cry Baby Cry
Martha My Dear
I'm So Tired
Julia
Good Night

October/November 68 Single: While My Guitar Gently Weeps b/w Don't Pass Me By (I know, John and Paul would have never gone for it...)

February 1969 EP:

Helter Skelter
Yer Blues
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Birthday

[shamustwin]

I'd just cut a few:

Ob La Di, Ob La Da
Why Don't We Do It In The Road
Wild Honey Pie
Revolution Number 9
Goodnight.

They're just obnoxious to me.

[stubby]

To put another spin on this thread (and I hope I'm not derailing it), what are the "masterpieces" of this album? Given that the album is by all accounts a collection of individual efforts, I guess what I'm asking is:
What are the "must-be" included tracks from this album?"

[shamustwin]

To put another spin on this thread (and I hope I'm not derailing it), what are the "masterpieces" of this album? Given that the album is by all accounts a collection of individual efforts, I guess what I'm asking is:
What are the "must-be" included tracks from this album?"

There ya go, a very good way of looking at it.

I do think there are some brilliant songs, and some excellent songs.

Really fit well with the era in which it was recorded.

The psychedelic hangover was happenin', baby!

[simer4001]

I knew I heard it somewhere before.

[kiramdear]

OK, after much inner horse-trading, here is my list:

Back In The USSR
Dear Prudence
Obla-Di-Obla-Da
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
While Mt Guitar Gently Weeps
Blackbird
Julia
Martha My Dear
Revolution 1
Bungalow Bill
Don't Pass Me By
Rocky Raccoon
Sexy Sadie
Savoy Truffle
Helter Skelter

Don't know if these are the must-haves for everyone but they are for me (Glass Onion a close runner-up)

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

I keep waiting for someone to open the album with something other that "Back in the USSR"...but it's a pretty darn good opener, innit?

To me, an essential part of the White Album's appeal is its length. With every song you hear, there is more appreciation for their scope and breadth as creative artists...the possibilities seem endless. A single album doesn't carry that message nearly as effectively. What's more, even a single album still has that disjointed, coming-apart-at-the-seams feel, that sense of increasing isolation and distance from each other. All alone as a single album, it ends up resembling Let It Be.

One thing you learn from this exercise is how good they were. Some of their "worst" songs are on this album. All I can say is that's some kinda worst...

Ale!

[kiramdear]

I know what you mean, Mark I submitted my list after great hemming and hawing and it still looks like a compilation more than an album. The lesser songs were needed, IMO, to frame the killer ones. No improvement to be made by culling out the small ones, the greatness of TWA is its scale, like you said, and the journey it takes us on; it's better than the sum of its parts

[beefandbones]

I think there are few first tier songs on the White Album, songs that stand with their peak of '65-mid '67, although there are very many enjoyable songs.

First tier masterpieces:

Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Blackbird
Julia
Mother Nature's Son
Sexy Sadie
(Hey Jude)
(Revolution)

The second tier songs are very good, but juust shy of standing with their peak of '65-'67:

Back in the U.S.S.R
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
I'm So Tired
Long, Long, Long (Harrison)
Cry Baby Cry
Good Night

Third tier songs are good songs, but to me seem a little... pointless. I think most of these could have benefited from a little more involvement from their respective songwriting partner:

Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Matha My Dear
Yer Blues
Don't Pass Me By (Starkey)
I Will
Birthday
Helter Skelter
Revolution 1 (I rank this low because I prefer the B-side version and find this one cool but unnecessary)
Honey Pie
Savoy Truffle (Harrison)

Fourth tier, experiments both fun and dismal, and/or songs that are just kind of lacking:
Wild Honey Pie
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Piggies (Harrison)
Rocky Raccoon
Why Don't We Do It in the Road?
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Revolution 9

I think it's possible that they would have been much happier if they'd recorded a simple acoustic album - like the Esher demos, but with Ringo - shortly after they returned from India. It could have followed the Hey Jude single in August. Not that they did, or would have...

[Scastles]

I know what you mean, Mark I submitted my list after great hemming and hawing and it still looks like a compilation more than an album. The lesser songs were needed, IMO, to frame the killer ones. No improvement to be made by culling out the small ones, the greatness of TWA is its scale, like you said, and the journey it takes us on; it's better than the sum of its parts

Succintly said, Kira. That is what the White Album is all about, or how it turned out.

[wayang]

Well, I've tried to imagine The White Album sounding any way other than the way it did in the dark in the first weeks after I bought it in '68 and, sorry kids, I wouldn't change a thing...not even for the sake of playing a game. It was, in a word, cinematic...the first album of many with that quality produced in the years that followed. We all have our favorite 'scenes' from The White Album, but nothing beats seeing the whole 'movie' from beginning to end...

I mean, not ending with 'Goodnight'??? Blasphemy. Like cutting the last scene from 'Casablanca'. When I listen to 'Goodnight' in the dark, I'm twelve years old again.

Not to change the subject, but try taking 'The Grey Album' challenge...some may find it too challenging, but I thinks it's hilarious and cool...