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Is The White Album The Greatest Album Of All TIme?
18 March 2019
8.48pm
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Brandon_jordan4
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I want to know if anyone else sees this album as the greatest album of all time.. The variety of songs along with the quality of each put this album at #1 for me. This album is full of masterpieces. From WMGGW to a softer tune like Blackbird . From the great opening of a plane to a great lullaby closer after the avantgarde Revolution 9 . Let me know you’re thoughts..

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18 March 2019
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No, it’s not even my favorite Beatles album.

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18 March 2019
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Getbackintheussr
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It’s not my favorite album, but I think it could be the best. I like pretty much every song on it, and there’s something for everyone. The only thing I don’t like about it is how it is kind of all over the place. I don’t think there’s too much filler, but not every song has a purpose like the songs on Sgt Pepper .

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18 March 2019
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Von Bontee
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Expert Textpert said
No, it’s not even my favorite Beatles album.

  

Indeed. 

I would call it probably my second-favourite double-album of 1968, however.

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19 March 2019
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Timothy
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Brandon_jordan4 said
I want to know if anyone else sees this album as the greatest album of all time.. The variety of songs along with the quality of each put this album at #1 for me. This album is full of masterpieces. From WMGGW to a softer tune like Blackbird . From the great opening of a plane to a great lullaby closer after the avantgarde Revolution 9 . Let me know you’re thoughts..

  

It’s my favourite Beatles album, and I’ve explained why a few times. It’s Ringo’s favourite too. I will say there are several Beatles albums that could have the title of ‘best album of all time’. Like everything it’s subjective.

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1.The Beatles 2.Sgt. Pepper 3.Abbey Road 4.Magical Mystery Tour 5.Rubber Soul 6.Revolver 7.Help! 8.Let It Be
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19 March 2019
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QuarryMan
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In my early days of Beatles fandom I kind of toed the line and held up Sgt Pepper ‘s as both their best album and the best album of all time, as chosen by Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 albums list, which was a big part in convincing me to give them a proper try. 

After listening to them solidly for a few years though, I’ve been drawn more and more to this album. A podcast I listened to described it as the most “indie” Beatles album, and I think that fits, since the whole thing is just cool. Since they were so commercially huge, it’s easy to think of the Beatles being less cool than other smaller bands of the time, but nothing embodies that quality more than songs like Happiness Is A Warm Gun and Sexy Sadie

Is it the best album of all time though? I’m not sure. In terms of sheer ambition, it’s pretty much unrivalled other than maybe Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie or Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. I can only think of a couple other albums with such a variety of sounds, and none that pull off all that variety as well as this. 

I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound. 

19 March 2019
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PurplishRain
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19 March 2019
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50yearslate
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Do I think the White Album is a great album? Yes.

Do I think it is the greatest album of all time? No.

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19 March 2019
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QuarryMan
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PurplishRain said
No but it is in my top 15

 

https://www.besteveralbums.com…..038;page=1

  

is that your list, @PurplishRain ?

I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound. 

20 March 2019
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PurplishRain
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QuarryMan said

PurplishRain said

No but it is in my top 15

 

https://www.besteveralbums.com…..038;page=1

  

is that your list, @PurplishRain ?

  

Yes it is indeed

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Like a Brontosaurus  She was packin' it in" -Prince

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20 March 2019
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QuarryMan
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It’s great! I was surprised to see so many 50s albums there, I’ll definitely have to try a few of them out.

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I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound. 

15 March 2020
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Dingle Lad
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Not even the Beatles best album. Not even the best album of 68.

That belies how great it really is.

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15 March 2020
2.56pm
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meanmistermustard
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It’s not even the greatest album recorded by the Beatles. I’d give that to ‘Revolver ‘.

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15 March 2020
3.32pm
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QuarryMan
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I think it’s probably quite futile to try and figure out any one answer to the question of the greatest album of all time, given that most classic albums are classics for different reasons. What I would say, though, is that it’s hard to think of an album that better sums up the period in which it was released than the White Album . I think it captures the fallout of the Summer of Love and the chaos of 1968, both within and without the band, perfectly. 

I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound. 

15 March 2020
6.07pm
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Timothy
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QuarryMan said
I think it’s probably quite futile to try and figure out any one answer to the question of the greatest album of all time, given that most classic albums are classics for different reasons. What I would say, though, is that it’s hard to think of an album that better sums up the period in which it was released than the White Album . I think it captures the fallout of the Summer of Love and the chaos of 1968, both within and without the band, perfectly. 

  

Indeed. There isn’t such thing as the greatest of all time when opinion is concerned.

1.The Beatles 2.Sgt. Pepper 3.Abbey Road 4.Magical Mystery Tour 5.Rubber Soul 6.Revolver 7.Help! 8.Let It Be
9.A Hard Day’s Night 10.Please Please Me 11.Beatles For Sale 12.With The Beatles 13.Yellow Submarine

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15 March 2020
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Dingle Lad
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QuarryMan said  

I think it captures the fallout of the Summer of Love and the chaos of 1968, both within and without the band, perfectly. 

  

This would be a perfect assessment of Beggar’s Banquet.

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16 March 2020
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In no ways do I think the White Album is the best Beatles album, much less the greatest album ever made. However, it really has two things going for it, the ridiculousness of it’s concept and the Beatles charm that accompanies it. I think this album reflects a bit of my gripe with “Abbey Road “.

All things considered, “Abbey Road ” is pretty much superior in every way, with better compositions, production and track-list structure (I do think this is important with albums). Yet, in many ways, somehow I end up a little disappointed once I hit the end. The album is the perfect reflection of everything the Beatles were throughout the decade and sends them off with a Disneyworld-firecracking-bang, but it doesn’t have a lot of that ‘Beatles-feel’ (if you know what I mean). In my opinion, that “Beatles-feel” is much better represented in albums such as “Rubber Soul “, “Revolver “, and of course the White Album

The White Album has many flaws: It’s bloated, it’s disjointed, it’s production is bit of a step down, etc. . But it also has many things that we love about the Beatles: It’s cool (“Back In The USSR ” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps “); it’s charming (“Dear Prudence ” and “Martha My Dear “); it’s quirky (“Glass Onion ” and “Piggies “); it’s fun (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da ” and “Rocky Raccoon “); it’s goofy (“Wild Honey Pie ” and “Cry Baby Cry “); it’s politically relevant at times (“Blackbird ” and “Revolution 1 “); it’s experimental (“Happiness Is A Warm Gun ” and “Revolution 9 “); it’s poignant (“Julia ” and “Long, Long, Long “); it’s raw (“Yer Blues ” and “Helter Skelter “); it’s calming (“I Will ” and “Mother Nature’s Son “); and it’s sometimes just weird (“The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ” and “Wild Honey Pie “).

In my opinion, the White Album works because it represents all the Beatles are at heart, their musical highs and lows. This stage of their career is where they are the most disjointed, yet all things considered they manage to shine out even without half the members on some songs. It shows another aspect (in my humble opinion) for why the Beatles will break up eventually, because they have become too independent and too powerful to stay together. I highly doubt any other band will be able to rock the musical world and destroy themselves only to become the equivalent of the sum of their parts.

So is the White Album the greatest album of all time? In my humble opinion, no. Is it a fantastic album in my eyes? Yes, definitely.

 

Side note 1: I do apologize for the long length, this post is pretty much a love letter of mine to the White Album , and I may have gotten to carried away.

Side note 2: I do love “Abbey Road ” honestly, despite me making it sound like I am dissing it. It’s a fantastic album, one where only many can even dream of competing with it. I just prefer the other albums.

Side note 3: I won’t mind a Bungalow Bill-themed screenplay adaptation. Perhaps one of these days I shall write a letter to film companies about it.

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22 November 2020
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Why, yes it is!

 

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23 November 2020
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I don’t think there can be a greatest album of all time but it would be up there in the list, it’s certainly in my list near the top. @CakeMaestor listed many of the reasons why people love/hate the album (great recap btw), and I’ve probably said this somewhere before on this site but the White Album represents for me the period where Beatles songs became just songs again without any unifying marketing tool (unless you see the absence of one, in which case, touché) seeking to play in whatever genre pool they felt like, even mixing several together at times.

That is itself an important moment in popular music, whether or not they were the first or not, it mattered that the Beatles said “you don’t have to be an “anything band” you can be a “whatever you feel like on the day” band too. This of course still ruffles critical feathers to this day, hence the charges of “disjointed” and “bloat” and most moralistic of all “self-indulgent” DUM DUM DUMMMM beatlemaniacs_02_gif This album paved the way for a lot of interesting musical experiments because people felt permitted to make those kinds of explorations well into the 1970s until the bean-counters called a halt to all the fun. So in a way its legacy might be longer-lasting than even Peppers. That one band could produce not just the quantity but the range of all this, it’s pretty awe-inspiring, and pretty quickly too by contemporary standards.

No one’s gonna agree on this album because it’s too big to agree on anything and I don’t think the band agreed either but alas we can’t ask two of them any more. I think John’s opinion changed depending on what day it was and George seemed to forget a lot stuff like who was playing what. Paul will defend anything and maybe Ringo’s enjoyment of the album is perhaps the most surprising of all given how tensely the sessions started for him. But then I listen to tracks like Birthday or Yer Blues or even Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and I hear a band having fun playing their own songs and wow, how many bands do you hear doing that these days? That’s the thing that still attracts me like no other lover. That magic is still there in this album, perhaps its just not served up to you on a place with arrows pointing at it. I think for once they asked you to pay more attention. And maybe that’s what makes it a candidate for one of the greatest albums of all time, a Beatles album that isn’t as simple as it looks.

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23 November 2020
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It’s my favorite Beatle album, I think it’s the Beatles best album, and that makes it also the greatest album ever.  IMO.  I like it for several reasons, partly it’s the deserted island argument:  If you could only take one album with you on a deserted island, this one has the most songs, and the most variety.  Everything is on this album but the kitchen sink.  I also like the era, and the heaviness of it – there’s a lot of genuine rock here.  It’s also a great Lennon album because he got off the drugs for awhile and cleared his mind in India where most of these songs were written.

I think there are four legitimate choices for best Beatle album:  Abbey Road , the White Album , Sgt. Pepper , and Revolver .  I’m sure other people have different favorites, but those are the most credible contenders.

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