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The Beatles: the White Album | 
| Artist: The Beatles
Label: Apple
Category: Music
List Price: £24.99
Buy New: £13.97
You Save: £11.02 (44%)
New (21) Used (4) Collectible (1) from £10.32
Rating:  83 reviews
Sales Rank: 136
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 0.9
UPC: 077774644389
EAN: 0077774644389
ASIN: B000026B01
Release Date: August 24, 1987
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Back In The U.S.S.R. | | • | 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 | | • | Martha My Dear | | • | Im So Tired | | • | Blackbird | | • | Piggies | | • | Rocky Raccoon | | • | Don't Pass Me By | | • | Why Don't We Do It In The Road | | • | I Will | | • | Julia |
Disc 2
| • | Birthday | | • | Yer Blues | | • | Mother Nature's Son | | • | Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey | | • | Sexy Sadie | | • | Helter Skelter | | • | Long Long Long | | • | Revolution 1 | | • | Honey Pie | | • | Savoy Truffle | | • | Cry Baby Cry | | • | Revolution 9 | | • | Good Night |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The White Album was meant to be the record that brought the Beatles back to earth after three years of studio experimentation. Instead, it took them all over the place, continuing to burst the envelope of pop music. Lennon and McCartney were still at the height of their songwriting powers, with Lennon in particular growing into one of music's towering figures. But even McCartney could still rock, and the amazement on "Helter Skelter" was that he had vocal cords at the end. From Beach Boys knock-offs to reggae and to the unknown ("Revolution #9"), this has it all. Some records have "legend" written all over them; this is one. --Chris Nickson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 78 more reviews...
 All White? Not really, no!!! November 27, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
This album is rubbish!! It's a shame I have to give it even one star.
There's not one reference to snow, paper, colombian marching powder or anything else white including Xmas!!!
Nope, it's all over the show, no structure to the album at all, songs all jumbled up. I think The Beatles must have still been on drugs when they put this album together. Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Da????? Oh Bloody Hell more like.
Brian Epstein died just before this album was released, and personally, I think he had some insider knowledge as to how this album sounded. This album also coincides with Oh-no making an appearance. Something which must have put them all off their stride, judging by the sounds of it!!
They even had to rope in Eric Clapton to try and make it sound better, but that failed miserably.
Nope, this is a rubbish album by a rubbish band. The Monkees were the original boy band, were far better and produced better songs too.
 Great as in GREAT-LES November 23, 2008
It was 40 years ago to this very day when a double album was put out that critics... well, delved into. Opinions were different, meaning: quite often conflicting, and stars may well not have come close to the fivish the Fab4 are being awarded on this site today.
But look back and taste the sheer genius of four artists in their own right who went on to embark on world famous careers every single one of them. Today, Martha My Dear was on the radio, but other tracks ring bells of themselves. Think of Happiness is a Warm Gun and while away thinking of what happened on that fateful December 8th, 1980.
And think of another warm-hearted soul like George, who, perhaps for the very first time, really and definitely got out into the light from under Paul & John's combined creative wings.
Or of that same person, whose *rash* words to the effect that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus have just been forgiven by the Vatican, again today.
Rest assured that the White Album has lost none of its appeal even if The Beatles hardly sound like a band any longer and that the Fab Foursome were not in the Abbey Road studios when a considerable number of tracks were registered. But what the heck, I should say.
I first got into the Fabs in 1962. I still am fond of the wonderful music they made and welcome every footnote (whether in music or text) that shines a new light on these terrific musicians.
And as for Jesus: let there be no doubt about it that, if He likes music (which I for one I'm sure He is), He simply enjoys The Beatles as much as He does Bach or Beethoven, Rachmaninov or any other top notch composer there has ever been.
Their Tortured Masterpiece September 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It had been a tough year and a bit for The Beatles. Their manager Brian Epstein had committed suicide, their Magical Mystery Tour had seen them mauled by critics for the first time, and their attempts to practise transcendental meditation in India with the Maharishi had ended in disaster. It was during that ill-fated trip that most of these songs were written.
Inside the band itself, the situation was also far from hunky dory. Lennon would soon lose interest in the band, spending more and more time with his new partner Yoko Ono instead. Harrison was increasingly sick of being overlooked by John and Paul, who still only permitted him a few songs per album (he has four out of thirty here). Sensing this unease in the band, McCartney increasingly took charge of the group, a fatherly attitude which further annoyed the others. Meanwhile Ringo gets sole writing credit for `Don't Pass Me By', not one of the album's best but certainly pleasant enough.
It was with these tensions that The Beatles made The White Album, a self-titled song collection that derives its popular nickname from a stark white cover. Most of the songs here are pretty much solo compositions, as the band's two main songwriters had both begun to jealously guard their own work, allowing only minimal input from the other. Ironically, this is the album where George Harrison finally became their equal, writing a couple of the very best songs here.
Beginning with the sound of a plane taking off, Back In The USSR is a Beach Boys homage with a thumping piano beat and lyrics that were fairly controversial during the middle of the Cold War. This fades hauntingly into the acoustic Dear Prudence, written to encourage Mia Farrow's sister out of hut-bound seclusion during the India trip. Glass Onion mockingly references other Beatles songs, providing more fodder for those fans desperate to read hidden meanings into their work. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is a bouncy tale of inter-racial marriage with a happy ending. Wild Honey Pie is a 50-second oddity that reinforces the strange new direction The Beatles had taken. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill sounds more like a twisted nursery rhyme than a rock song, a trait common to much of The White Album.
Next is While My Guitar Gently Weeps, possibly the album's best song. Written by Harrison and featuring guitar from his friend Eric Clapton, it tells of spiritual pain and disillusionment. Happiness Is A Warm Gun is one of the album's most oddly structured songs, featuring several disorientating changes of tone one after another. Martha My Dear is a nice piano ditty that may or may not be inspired by McCartney's dog, depending on who you believe. I'm So Tired is another pained Lennon contribution (he was clearly not having a fun time in 1968). Blackbird is a Bach-inspired piece, once again acoustic because this was the only instrument available to the band in India, and comprising some tasteful samples of the eponymous bird's song.
Piggies is perhaps the bitterest song present, comparing Capitalism to pigs eating bacon, unfortunately a key inspiration for the Manson cult's murder spree. Rocky Raccoon is a slightly unhinged story of a spurned lover setting out (and failing) to kill his rival for the woman in question's affections, featuring some honky-tonk piano. Don't Pass Me By is a bluesy country song written by Starr, the writing of which predated recording by at least four years. Why Don't We Do It In The Road? originated from Paul seeing two monkeys doing just that, and I Will is another McCartney effort, written for future spouse Linda Eastman. The first disc of the CD version (and second side of the original vinyl) ends with Julia, written for Lennon's dead mother and the only Beatles song on which he is the sole performer. This is one of the album's most beautiful compositions, imbued with a real sense of sadness and longing.
Disc Two opens with Birthday, on which McCartney sounds near-psychotic with celebration. Yer Blues expresses suicidal intent, the sort of soul-purging that would become increasingly common during Lennon's solo career. After this, the subdued Mother Nature's Son is a relief to hear - an early version of what would become Jealous Guy was dropped from the album because of perceived similarities to this McCartney tune. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey supposedly concerns Lennon and Ono, though alternative suggestions have been made such as drugs (it was around this time that Lennon acquired a taste for heroin). Sexy Sadie was originally called Maharishi, but George convinced John to alter the lyrics, though the sentiments remain the same. Helter Skelter is The Beatles' loudest and craziest song, the point where this album sounds most disturbed. Long, Long, Long is an extremely subtle Harrison piece, easy to overlook amidst more attention-grabbing Lennon and McCartney songs, but actually incredibly beautiful.
Revolution 1 was Lennon's response to a hippy movement that had grown increasingly violent, saying that he wants change but won't become brutalised to get it. Honey Pie is another of McCartney's music-hall-style recordings, which a lot of people sniff at but I think are actually quite good (this one especially). Savoy Truffle is probably Harrison's weakest contribution here, name-checking the contents of a chocolate box. Cry Baby Cry was inspired by fairy tales, ending with a brief McCartney segment that pleas `Can you take me back?', as though begging to return to a pre-Beatles childhood. The album's penultimate track is its most controversial, Lennon's chaotic sound collage called Revolution 9: personally I think it's interesting and genuinely haunting, though not one of the album's very best. Finally comes Good Night, a soaring ballad that Lennon wanted to sound deliberately cheesy.
And so that's it. The White Album is The Beatles' most endlessly fascinating album, simply because it features such a wide range of styles and moods. Overall the tone is dark and depressed, a result of the isolation and slight sadness felt by the band that had by now surpassed all its contemporaries. As though longing to regress to youth, many of the songs have a distinctly childhood feel, though it's not the happy one of Sgt Pepper a year earlier. My favourite tracks are `Dear Prudence', `Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', `While My Guitar Gently Weeps', `Blackbird', `Rocky Raccoon', `Julia', `Mother Nature's Son', `Sexy Sadie', `Helter Skelter', `Long, Long, Long' and `Revolution 1'.
 First steps to break-up September 3, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Of all the major albums produced by the Beatles, this is the least coherent. The need to produce output for the purposes of the EMI contract led to some distinctly low quality rushed material from all the participants - in many ways a precursor to the substandard offerings to come later under their individual names. No longer greater than the sum of their parts, this is just four individuals showing their limitations. George Martin thought that it could have made one high quality album if the extensive dross (especially from heroin and Ono fixated Lennon) had been dispensed with, and he was right. This was probably the only occasion when the Beatles short changed their fans for selfish purposes. An example of the Beatles in decline, to be matched only by the Spectorised Let It Be.
NO filler September 3, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Really great tunes here! For a contemporary comparison I recommend Nick Worrall. His album is FREE to download as well.
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