Strawberry's Almostopster: The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album)

A surprise stone cold classic pick coming from strawb

Unlike most of my fellow vortexers I have more than a topster’s worth of 10’s, so this prompt could be taken from two different angles: an album that is a 10 but I wouldn’t consider to be a “favorite,” or one of my favorite 9’s. If we’re talking about “The 26th album on your topster” the first one that comes to mind is The Pretenders’s debut album, which has just missed my topster two years in a row. But if the pick should be “An album you love but is flawed just enough to not make it to your topster” then I can think of no better flawed masterpiece than the self-titled album by The Beatles (AKA The White Album).

It’s a little tough for me to write at length on this album because all through my childhood this was the only proper Beatles album that I knew – besides their countless other hits – and even still it was mostly just the first disc. And boy, is that first disc etched into my core. While it’s impossible to know how I’d feel about this if it weren’t so tied up with nostalgia, I do honestly believe that this features some of their absolute best songs. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Blackbird,” and “Dear Prudence” are the popular picks, but “I Will” is a masterclass in the sub-two minute love song, “Piggies” and “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” allow moments of levity, and side two opener “Martha My Dear” shows McCartney at the peak of his songwriting powers with jaunty piano and strings weaving in and around rock guitars and trumpet doots. I even love the oft-maligned tracks like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Rocky Raccoon.” In my eyes there isn’t a single misstep on this first disc, from the moment the band kicks off with “Back in the USSR” I’m fully on board. 

But then we reach the second disc, with its infamous eight-minute sound collage piece “Revolution 9.” I can offer more kindness to this track than many (what, do you not like listening to a voice repeating “number nine” ad nauseam mixed in with Lennon’s best goat impression?), because while I often grow tired of it after a few minutes, the way it transitions into “Good Night” is masterful. But tape experiments aside there are too many songs that fail to live up to the bar set by the first disc, whether that’s from overstaying their welcome (“Yer Blues,” “Helter Skelter”) or simply being less engaging or memorable (“Long, Long, Long,” “Cry Baby Cry”). And I’m sure this will piss off any boomer reading this, but I’ve never cared for “Revolution 1.” Why they decided to put the sluggish version of this on the album instead of the upbeat single version eludes me. 

While this wasn’t the first double album, it is an early example of a specific kind of double album: the kind where the band is free to branch out, allowing them to reach musical conclusions they wouldn’t have otherwise, for better and for worse. I’m of the opinion that the unevenness present in The White Album works to its benefit, a large part of what makes it so great is the 90-minute journey you’re taken on, but nonetheless it’s difficult for me to honestly award this a perfect score. I’ve attempted that in the past but there are just one too many issues to gloss over. 

I’ll leave you with two things to consider:

1. I cannot recommend the 50th anniversary remix of this (and other Beatles albums) enough, it feels like listening for the first time all over again.
2. “It was great. It sold. It’s the bloody Beatles' White Album. Shut up!” - Paul McCartney