The Beatles [White Album] [Digipak]

Performer: The Beatles
Engineer: Geoff Emerick; Ken Scott
Producer: George Martin
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Each copy of this limited edition is sequentially numbered. The packaging recreates the original double-gatefold sleeve and includes the original poster as well as the individual photos of each band member. The Beatles: George Harrison (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, violin, organ, bass, tambourine, firebell); John Lennon (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, saxophone, piano, organ, harmonium, bass, 6-string bass, maracas, tambourine, tape loops); Paul McCartney (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, flute, flugelhorn, piano, Hammond organ, bass, drums, bongos, timpani, percussion); Ringo Starr (vocals, piano, drums, bongos, maracas, castanets, tambourine). Additional personnel includes: Yoko Ono (vocals); Eric Clapton (electric guitar); Mal Evans (trumpet, tambourine); George Martin (piano, harmonium); Chris Thomas (harpsichord, Mellotron); Maureen Starkey, Patti Harrison (background vocals). Recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Trident Studios, London, England between May and October 1968. This reissue of THE WHITE ALBUM has been digitally re-mastered. It comes packaged with replicated original U.K. album art, an expanded booklet containing original and newly written liner notes, and rare photos. Limited quantities of the CD are embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Audio Remasterers: Sam Okell; Sean Magee; Steve Rooke; Guy Massey; Paul Hicks. Liner Note Authors: Mike Heatley; Kevin Howlett. Each song on the sprawling double album The Beatles is an entity to itself, as the band touches on anything and everything it can. This makes for a frustratingly scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience, depending on your view, but what makes the so-called White Album interesting is its mess. Never before had a rock record been so self-reflective, or so ironic; the Beach Boys send-up "Back in the U.S.S.R." and the British blooze parody "Yer Blues" are delivered straight-faced, so it's never clear if these are affectionate tributes or wicked satires. Lennon turns in two of his best ballads with "Dear Prudence" and "Julia"; scours the Abbey Road vaults for the musique concr�te collage "Revolution 9"; pours on the schmaltz for Ringo's closing number, "Good Night"; celebrates the Beatles cult with "Glass Onion"; and, with "Cry Baby Cry," rivals Syd Barrett. McCartney doesn't reach quite as far, yet his songs are stunning -- the music hall romp "Honey Pie," the mock country of "Rocky Raccoon," the ska-inflected "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and the proto-metal roar of "Helter Skelter." Clearly, the Beatles' two main songwriting forces were no longer on the same page, but neither were George and Ringo. Harrison still had just two songs per LP, but it's clear from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the canned soul of "Savoy Truffle," the haunting "Long, Long, Long," and even the silly "Piggies" that he had developed into a songwriter who deserved wider exposure. And Ringo turns in a delight with his first original, the lumbering country-carnival stomp "Don't Pass Me By." None of it sounds like it was meant to share album space together, but somehow The Beatles creates its own style and sound through its mess. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine THE BEATLES (generally known as "The White Album" because of its cover) was a sprawling two-record set, highlighting the distinct personalities in the group as they matured and moved further away from each other. With the four Beatles playing like session men on each other's songs, the making of the album was fraught with tension. John Lennon's songs included a bitter take on people who read too much into the Beatles' lyrics ("Glass Onion"), reflections on loneliness and alienation ("Yer Blues," "I'm So Tired"), and the avant garde sound collage "Revolution 9." George Harrison's songs offered black humor ("Piggies") and tender sadness ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps," with Eric Clapton on guitar). Paul McCartney provided both light, lyric songs ("Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Honey Pie"), and rockers ("Back In The U.S.S.R.," the explosive "Helter Skelter"). Ringo Starr made his solo songwriting debut with the goofy country/ska lilt of "Don't Pass Me By" and sang the album closer "Good Night."

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.90) - Ranked #10 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...THE WHITE ALBUM is an exhilarating sprawl - some of the Beatles' most daring and delicate work..." Q (6/00, p.86) - Ranked #7 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums" - "...[Out of] boundless enthusiasm and creeping paranoia - comes [their] most peculiar record....Childish, colorful, antiquated and faintly macabre..." Vibe (12/99, p.157) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century Q (Magazine) (p.120) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "It's the most honest portrait of a band breaking some limits and banging their heads against others." NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #8 in NME's list of the 'Greatest Albums Of All Time.' Paste (magazine) (p.60) - "Each track is anchored by the unmistakable collaboration of The Beatles as a solid musical unit."

No other band has had quite the same impact as the four lads from Liverpool. Over the course of eight years and more than a dozen albums, the Beatles changed popular music and culture forever, spearheading the 1960s British Invasion and shaping rock & roll along the way. Along with their amazing musical output and unprecedented worldwide celebrity, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were responsible for many pop music revolutions, major and minor--writing their own material, pushing the limits of the studio, making films of their music, printing song lyrics on albums--that today are taken for granted. Although the Beatles disbanded in 1970, their artistic legacy is permanently ingrained in the entire world's musical vocabulary.

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