The Beatles' White Album 40th Anniversary Tribute

The White Album turned 40 this week and still is one of the best rock and roll records of all time. Although there are some forgettable cuts ("Honey Pie," "Revolution #9," "Martha My Dear," "Don't Pass Me By," "Goodnight" -in my opinion), the double LP is one of the most remarkable records of our generation. With cuts like the Lennon-led "Yer Blues," "Cry Baby Cry," "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," Glass Onion and the McCartney tunes like "Blackbird" & "Rocky Racoon" and even George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - this is probably one of my favorites set of Beatles songs; I never get tired of listening to them. These songs have certainly stood the 'test of time' and if you have never heard the LP, do yourself a favor and buy one.

I have put togther a small celebration of the LP and will post something about it for a few days. Enjoy:


Beatles Music
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White Album
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"The Beatles" is the ninth official album by The Beatles, a double album released in November of 1968. It is more commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no text other than the band's name (and, on the early LP and CD releases, a serial number) on its plain white sleeve, which was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton. The album was the first The Beatles undertook following the death of their manager Brian Epstein. Originally planned to be "A Doll's House," the title was changed when the British progressive band Family released an album earlier that year bearing a similar title.

Many interpret this album as actually having no title, the words “The BEATLES” only being intended to indicate the group, as all Beatles albums contain this identification.

In 1997, The Beatles was named the 10th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 1998, Q magazine readers placed it at number 17, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 7 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001, the TV network VH1 named it as the 11th greatest album ever. In 2006, the album was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time. It was ranked number 10 in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2003.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles is The Beatles' best-selling album at 19-times platinum and the tenth-best-selling album of all time in the United States.

Album Cover Art

The album's sleeve was designed by Richard Hamilton, a notable pop artist who had organised a Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Tate Gallery the previous year. Hamilton's design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake's vivid cover art for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band's name was discreetly embossed slightly below the middle of the album's right side, and the cover also featured a unique stamped serial number, "to create," in Hamilton's words, "the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies." Indeed, the artist intended the cover to resemble the "look" of conceptual art, an emerging movement in contemporary art at the time. Later vinyl record releases in the U.S. showed the title in grey printed (rather than embossed) letters. Early copies on compact disc were also numbered. Later CD releases rendered the album's title in black or grey. The 30th anniversary CD release was done to look like the original album sleeve, with an embossed title and serial number, including a small reproduction of the poster and pictures.

The album's inside packaging included a poster, the lyrics to the songs, and a set of photographs taken by John Kelley during the autumn of 1968 that have themselves become iconic. This is the only sleeve of a Beatles studio album not to show the members of the band on the front.

Tape versions of the album did not feature a white cover. Instead, cassette and 8-track versions (first issued on two cartridges in early 1969) contained cover artwork that featured a black and white (with no grey) version of the four Kelley photographs. In both the cassette and 8-track versions of the album, the two tapes were sold in a black slip-cover box that bore the title, "The BEATLES" in gold lettering along the front. This departure from the LP's design not only made it difficult for less-informed fans to identify the tape in record stores, but it also led some fans at the time to jokingly refer to the 8-track or cassette not as the "white album" but as the "black tape." In 1988, Capitol/EMI re-issued the 2-cassette version of the album, still with the same cover artwork as the original cassettes - but without the black slip-cover box.

SOURCE: (wikipedia)



Track listing
All songs written and composed by Lennon/McCartney, except where noted.

Side one
# Title Length
1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." 2:43
2. "Dear Prudence" 3:56
3. "Glass Onion" 2:17
4. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" 3:08
5. "Wild Honey Pie" 0:52
6. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" 3:14
7. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (George Harrison) 4:45
8. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" 2:43

Side two
# Title Length
1. "Martha My Dear" 2:28
2. "I'm So Tired" 2:03
3. "Blackbird" 2:18
4. "Piggies" (Harrison) 2:04
5. "Rocky Raccoon" 3:32
6. "Don't Pass Me By" (Starkey) 3:50
7. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" 1:41
8. "I Will" 1:46
9. "Julia" 2:54

Side three
# Title Length
1. "Birthday" 2:42
2. "Yer Blues" 4:01
3. "Mother Nature's Son" 2:48
4. "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" 2:24
5. "Sexy Sadie" 3:15
6. "Helter Skelter" 4:29
7. "Long, Long, Long" (Harrison) 3:04

Side four
# Title Length
1. "Revolution 1" 4:15
2. "Honey Pie" 2:41
3. "Savoy Truffle" (Harrison) 2:54
4. "Cry Baby Cry" 3:01
5. "Revolution 9" 8:22
6. "Good Night"


The Beatles-The White Album Demos