(My stupid list's introduction
here)
#1 The Beatles
After some consideration, we’re going to just skip talking about #2. Besides after the ecstasy of writing two thousand words on my favorite band, and album that was my favorite for so long last time, I just couldn’t wait. How important is second place anyway? How could I wait to talk about my
favoritest band, and most conclusively favorite album? (
Spoilers: both of which are The Beatles.) After talking about Oasis, where else can you go but The Beatles? And not just The Beatles, but
The Beatles! The Beatles by The Beatles, the huge 1968 double album! (Okay, I’ll stop having fun, The White Album.)
Nevermind was the bedrock of my musical world, but The White Album was the earth and the soil. The single album that shaped my musical taste and no matter how “far out” I thought my musical journey had become, the album I could always return to and find the roots of what I was listening to. A truly transcendent album, my favorite.
One Friday night when I was in the third grade, I became very sick. High fever, very tired; nothing serious but it was one of the worst I had felt. I was in bed, falling asleep, and my mom was in the room watching over me and watching ABC’s broadcast of
The Beatles Anthology. I didn’t know who The Beatles were. I knew they were an old band my parent’s liked. I didn’t know any of their music (or knew I knew.) I felt no obligation to watching and was too weak to persuade my mom to change the channel so I went to a hearty golden slumber. Fast forward a week, I vividly remember being in class working on a project. All the while with the song “Twist & Shout” incessantly played in my head. I went home and told my mom of this revelation. “Of course you do,” she replied, “
everyone likes that song!” From there skyrocketed my fascination and fandom with The Beatles.
The White album was the very last Beatles album I would buy (along with Let it Be.) I waited for so long because for a long time I didn’t really understand what it was. For some reason I was under the idea that it was a CD of Beatle interviews “Back in the USSR”, “Dear Prudence” didn’t sound like song titles to me. Plus, it just looked different from any other CD in the store. Once I was certain there was music to be had, it was my number one priority. The White album was a smack in the ear drum on my first listen. Though Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, and Revolver were all under my belt by this point, it was The White Album that shocked me. (Plus maybe I listened to Abbey Road and Peppers too early.) The White album rocked
hard. I was most surprised at how contemporary it sounded to me at the time. You could have told me it was a new release. For a kid who was teased by Metallica and Green Day loving know-nothings that my favorite bands were for old people or idiots that killed themselves (referencing Kurt Cobain) a song like “Helter Sketler” or “Everybody’s got something to Hide…” was a big deal. I would play these songs for my friends and then smugly supplement “…would you believe that’s The Beatles?” (Though, when I got to high school and everyone else discovered The Beatles, I smugged harder.)
There is so much more to The White Album than hard rock, as I’m sure you’d know. Not a song was lost on me either. Folk songs, parlor songs, personal ballads, western narratives, experimental music; it was all over the place. It never dawned on me to question why a cute baroque pop song about a dog (“Martha my Dear”) would follow a structurally experimental rock song (“Happiness is a Warm Gun”.) It never dawned on me that a song like “Wild Honey Pie” or the more egregious “Revolution 9” might not be appreciated by everyone. Sure, I’m not going to lie and say that at 9 years old I would get excited to listen to Revolution 9 and I never ever skipped it, but I would occasionally listen through it and never thought it shouldn’t have been there. It was weird, long song; big deal! Even at 9, I knew it was a kick-ass lead into “Good Night.” And isn’t the piano chime after “Take this brother, may it serve you well” a drop better than many a dub-step song? (However, I am glad we were spared the full “What’s the New Mary Jane?”) No, it wouldn’t be better if it was shorter; best album they made.
What I like about The White Album is that it is unapologetic for what it is. It isn’t like Abbey Road that had lots of ideas, ironed into a smooth shiny sleeve; nor is it completely formless. I like to think of it like a good pancake batter, it is all one thing and cohesive, but it still has plenty of lumps. As I mentioned above, The White Album is the nexus of all music I listen to. If I am listening to Beth Orton, I can point to “Blackbird” or “Julia;” The Flaming Lips, “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road” or “Savoy Truffle;” Dirty Projectors have bits of “Wild Honey Pie” and traces of “Everybody’s got something to Hide…” and “Yer Blues.” I consider The White Album the first alternative album, and I’m sure I’m not alone on this. What was The White Album an alternative too you ask? It was an alternative to Sgt. Peppers and the myriad of albums that followed its lead (your Satanic Majestys and your Village Greens, not to imply they were all bad.)
Now I reference The Beatles were revolting a bit against their own creation, which leads to the elephant in the room when talking about The Beatles and their White Album. In every single book or documentary about The Beatles there will be a line to the effect of: “An album by four solo artists”, “the beginning of the end of The Beatles” or “the album that drove them apart.” After years of research,
years, I can soundly say: that’s bull crap. Well, okay, it’s also not entirely wrong: Ringo quit, George Martin quit, Yoko was around, and Paul was often recording songs on his own. Hearing outtakes of the session though, there is still plenty of wild lines and joking around and plenty of tracks where the full band played together. What I don’t buy is the illusion that the four Beatles recorded in isolation and begrudgingly pretending to be a band. Even if Paul recorded Mother Nature’s Son on his own, and George tapped Eric Clapton to play on Gently Weeps, and no other Beatle really touched Revolution 9 besides John, the equalizer is that every song was presented to the rest of the band. Each Beatle still had to please the audience of the other three (plus George Martin) which is why this album isn’t as hum-drum as an
actual solo Beatle record. Even if each Beatle had more control over his own song, there’s no underestimating the influence of the Beatles as an institution.
The White Album is the ultimate in my head. The songs are all great in different ways, it has the band experimenting in many different ways with different song forms, and…and…it’s just cool! Even the band looks their most badass here. All my life I have wanted, what I call, “Long white album hair.” The White Album features the band at their most untouchable, yet also their most precarious. It is arguably their most personal record (along with Rubber Soul) and their most artistic. For all of it lumpiness and choices some may question, it is hard to imagine a work to be ay prouder of.
When deciding my list’s top 10, top 5, I secluded a top 3, with Morning Glory and The White Album among them. As previously stated, Morning Glory had long been my advertised favorite, but now it seemed far too narrow. My collection was growing by the week and I was consciously pushing myself farther and farther out of my old comfort zones of Alt-rock. With these new discoveries, it made me appreciate just how expansive The White Album was – and how relevant and contemporary it still remained; even far removed from my elementary days. This is my “island” album. Even though I can’t honestly say I still find new things in the album (short of the mono version) there is still so much to chew on and appreciate. The poster from the LP hangs in my bedroom, unmoved since I was little; such are my feelings to the music itself.
You may think picking The Beatles as my number one is a push. I can’t help but feel that this album best sums up my identity most (at least as far as musical taste goes.) And really, with a list that contains Number Girl, The Cardigans, Oasis, and Wilco – doesn’t the White Album make sense? As I close my list here at number one, I look back and wonder how suitable an end this really is. I adore the White Album, but that was very early on in my life. And I didn’t even finish talking about the 90’s! No no, we still have work to do. Though The White Album is my most favored, next time we’re going to talk about a truly perfect record.