Number 9, number 9: The 'White Album' as a single record

Reasonable visionary that he was, George Martin strongly encouraged the boys to drop the filler, the frivolity and the self indulgence and pare the double album down to a tight single record.

“I really didn’t think a lot of the songs were worthy of release,” Martin famously said. “I said, ‘I don’t want a double album. I think you ought to cut out some of these, concentrate on the really good ones and have yourself a really super album.’”

The boys, or more appropriately The Boys, would hear none of it.

For an album cohesively entitled “The Beatles,” 1968′s “White Album” is by far the most self-centered and disjointed of all the band’s releases.

The majority of the songs were written, individually, while John, Paul, George and Ringo were on meditation retreat in India. And when it came time to commit the creations to tape, rarely were all four Fabs in the studio at the same time.

Source: Jon Pompia/chieftain.com