“It's not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know”: The story of the Beatles ... MusicRadar
Bursting with some of the most audacious - and at times challenging - songs the Beatles ever recorded, their eponymous 1968 double-album (aka, the White Album) demonstrated just how far John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had widened the boundaries of contemporary pop.
It was also the album which most markedly revealed the distinct individuals the Beatles had grown into. Essentially creating music for the album as four (arguably three… with a floating Ringo, sorry Ringo) solo artists, the band still needed each other to serve as vital competitors. Their ideas swimming in a contentious marketplace of potential Beatle songs.
The ‘let’s record everything you’ve got in one day’ production-ethos that had been relied upon to track the bulk of the Beatles’ debut (amazingly, just five years prior in 1963) was a far cry from the overdub-laden, exploratory production techniques applied to the Beatles late-60s work.
By 1968, albums weren't just records of a beat combo's usual live set. These were now culturally significant statements.
In-keeping with the era's spirit of invention and disruption, the Beatles' new material needed to push and challenge conventions, as established by its trailblazing predecessor, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Although this double-album revealed an ever-widening gulf between these four men, it also underlined how expansive the Beatles had made their musical playground. The White Album contained tracks which cribbed from the conventions of heavy blues rock, vaudeville, reggae, pastoral folk, brain-taxing avant-garde experimentation and even drunken saloon bar piano.
Source: musicradar.com/Andy Price
