Review Summary: A retrospective look at a timeless album
Some people hate reviewing well-known and critically acclaimed albums. “It’s pointless,” the anonymous faces protest, “what is there left to say about an album that has been examined and picked apart a million times? Hell,
Kid A has seven pages of reviews on this site alone! There is no way to offer new insight on these albums–the ones that have always had a spotlight hovering over them, similar to the raincloud that follows the character experiencing a string of bad luck in cartoons.”
Then what is it about these albums that keeps drawing us back to them, waging a battle between our interest and the music that like two magnets of opposite charge just seem to click when they are within a certain range of each other?
Perhaps it is wonder: what is it exactly that makes
this album a classic? Perhaps it’s enjoyment: the excitement you get when you hear the acoustic chords of “King of Carrot Flowers Pt.1” ringing like church bells early Sunday morning. The trance you go into after the heartbeats that open
Dark Side of the Moon build from a soft murmur into a collage of voices laughing and cash registers cheering before finally receding into spacey guitar and a gentle rhythm that a drum kit beats out from somewhere hidden in the cosmos. Whatever the reason may be, there will always seem to be a perpetual attraction between us as listeners and, what can be defined subjectively as, good music.
Self-titled albums are somewhat iconic in a band’s discography; they either aim to illustrate a refined and excelled version of the group’s known sound or show the band moving into uncharted territory, breaking away from the familiar and predictable. But what makes The Beatles’ eponymous release so paramount is that it encompasses both these attributes. Throughout the album’s colossal 30-song anthology, the band takes us on a journey through their career, showing us the ghosts of albums past, present, and future. Tracks like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, “Wild Honey Pie”, and “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” contain enough psychedelic experimentation to be B – sides cirque 1966 while “Yer Blues” and “Helter Skelter” show the band’s roots in blues and rock music, respectively, by paying homage to Lennon and McCartney influences such as Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry. But the bulk of
The Beatles seems to show a maturation of sound; the Liverpool Lads are growing up, moving away from the studio tinkering and drug-laced undertones of
Revolver and
Sgt. Pepper’s and more into a sound that is organic, fluid, and developed.
Don’t be fooled though, this album still serves as a testament to the Beatles’ willingness to expand and try new things. In fact, this might be the Beatles’ most experimental album of their career. While on past works, the band pitched ideas and voted on which ones made the cut and which did not (usually done by the head honchos Lennon and McCartney), the White Album shows inclusion.
By 1968, the Beatles could, quite frankly, not give a hoot about the band or its future. George Harrison was sick of touring as well as the whole “band” idea by
Revolver, and detested it even more post
Sgt. Pepper’s, an album on which he was barely involved. Ringo was the Switzerland of the group, never taking sides in the constant arguments that arose, usually from or over drugs, which were driving a schism in the band since 1965. Lennon, who by 1968 was already completely controlled and captivated by longtime mistress Yoko Ono, was beginning his downward spiral into insanity and had lost most of his sense of self from all the prior drug use. Thus, the White Album allowed for inclusion. Every idea, song, and suggestion from each member was welcome. The tracks weren’t molded and shaped like on past albums but instead left raw and authentic, which combined with the collaboration, gave the album much-needed versatility, something that was lackluster at best on the group’s prior releases. Ringo even gets to sing a couple tracks on the album- “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Good Night”. Harrison contributes more than past efforts too, offering his second best song behind “Something”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar, as well as “Piggies”, a diatribe of the aristocracy, the delectable and catchy “Savory Truffle”, and the sub-par “Long, Long, Long”.
That’s not to say this album isn’t without filler, though. For a 30-track album, there aren’t too many weak spots, which is an accomplishment in itself. However songs such as the celebratory theme revamp of “Birthday”, the god-awful “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” and “Revolution 9” are some the worst of the band’s catalog, while “I Will”, “Don’t Pass Me By”, and “Glass Onion” are mediocre at best. The album’s best tracks (“Revolution 1”, “Blackbird”, “Sexy Sadie”, “Helter Skelter”, “Everybody’s Got Something…”, “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, and the underrated gem “Rocky Raccoon) more than make up for it though, and when all things are said and done, I find
The Beatles to be the most complete and enjoyable of their discography, tied with
Abbey Road.
So maybe we’ll never know just what it is about an album that drives people to talk about it so much; nostalgia, personal reasons that tie the album to a particular special moment in the listener’s life, musicianship, and lyrical content are all contenders for the answer to that $62,000 question. But I’m ok with not knowing, because at the end of the day, some secrets are just better left as they are, mysterious and kept away from the prodding hands and tongues of the public. It will be interesting to see what people have to say in 100 years about these proto-classic albums from the music world of yesteryear. Until then however, we will call sacrilege when we read scathing reviews of albums we consider divine and rejoice when those same albums are shown in a light that makes the disc appear to be made out of solid gold when you look at it at just the right angle.
So godspeed to those who continue to zealously seek out these reviews; despite the fact that they’ve seen the content before in some form or another for an album that’s been deconstructed and reconstructed countless times, they continue to read, hoping that
this listener is the one whom deciphers the cryptic message left deep in the grooves of the CD and finds new insight about the album he or she loves so much. And whether we manage to find that unprecedented commentary or not, we know that that album will always be there, waiting and ready for the next challenger who decides to take a crack at finding the unknown lurking within it.
