Why The White Album Is The Beatles' Greatest

Cypress said:
By the standards of the Beatles, I would have to say White Album is a top notch performance. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is one of the few Beatles songs I still look forward to hearing.

Now, with that said I have a very unorthodox opinion of the Beatles. I do not think they are as musically influential as conventional history assumes. They undoubtedly wrote great pop songs for the era they lived in, and more importantly they were a cultural phenomena. No doubt they remain iconic for their cultural impact.

Musically, their long-term impact is less impressive, in my opinion. Based on my years of head-banging, playing in garage bands, and cranking FM radio to eleven, most rock bands of the 70s, 80, and 90s where either trying to sound like Zeppelin, Stones, Bowie, or Who....or their music and style were much more of a homage to those bands. I really remember very few bands in those subsequent decades musically being a direct offspring of the Beatles, with the possible exception of Oasis.

I might be wrong about that, but that's my story and I'm sticking with it!
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Well at that time who wanted to be compared to the Beatles? That was like career suicide.

Also I’d argue that you underestimated their influence. There was no heavy metal prior to the White Album. Helter Skelter became a starting point for a whole new genre. From one song. Oh I’m sure it was developing in the club scene but Helter Skelter was the first commercially viable Heavy Metal hard charging power chord head banging rock. So that’s pretty influential where one song spun off an entire new genre that’s still around.

Now The Beatles were not exactly a prog rock band but they were hugely influential in prog rock. Like taking ful use of a studio, using multiple overdubs, songs that aren’t love songs, using different and unusual instruments, using classical influences, multiple interconnected songs. Most of the top Prog bands, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Rush, Queen all openly admit the Beatles influence.

Let’s just say the White Album opened up a whole new world of Rock that lead to whole new genres.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Well at that time who wanted to be compared to the Beatles? That was like career suicide.

Also I’d argue that you underestimated their influence. There was no heavy metal prior to the White Album. Helter Skelter became a starting point for a whole new genre. From one song. Oh I’m sure it was developing in the club scene but Helter Skelter was the first commercially viable Heavy Metal hard charging power chord head banging rock. So that’s pretty influential where one song spun off an entire new genre that’s still around.

Now The Beatles were not exactly a prog rock band but they were hugely influential in prog rock. Like taking ful use of a studio, using multiple overdubs, songs that aren’t love songs, using different and unusual instruments, using classical influences, multiple interconnected songs. Most of the top Prog bands, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Rush, Queen all openly admit the Beatles influence.

Let’s just say the White Album opened up a whole new world of Rock that lead to whole new genres.
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All good points, and the Beatles did some things with production and instrumentation that were ground breaking.

I would humbly suggest that Hendrix was the real forefather of progressive rock and the musical experimentation that went along with it. Hendrix was doing some landmark and very experimental and ground breaking stuff in 1967 one to two years before the white album even came out.

I would say that Black Sabbath and the mighty Zep were the real Godfathers of heavy metal, hard rock, and progressive rock. White Album had some really good rock tunes on it, but nothing that compares over the long run to Led Zeppelin's first album in 1968 and Zep II in 1969.

I would also argue that the Who is the god father of the "concept" album. There are doing concept themes musically before the white album, culminating in the rock opera Tommy.

I deserve scorn and derision if I seem to be underplaying the Beatles influenced. Their pop songs can't be touched. They were highly influential, but also in ways that went beyond music. They influenced culture, fashion, politics, art, in ways that no other band could even remotely touch. In that respect, I think their lasting influence is more cultural than it is purely musical.
 
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Choosing your favorite Beatles Album is like trying to choose- who is the most beautiful women in the world- or who the greatest guitarist in the world is- or choosing which Lamborghini you'd rather own!

Out of all the Beatles Albums, I can't think of one that didn't please, please me any more than any other.

I had to have them all!

Very few artists ever had as many albums, but irregardless to that, I can't say I had to have all of many other artist's albums.

There are other artists where I had to have every album offering, like the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc., but with those groups I certainly did have my favorites among those I bought!
 
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Anne Frank said:
Talkin bout my gen-gen-generation.
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we were good.
Singer /songwriters who actually played their instruments and sang. What a concept ! an actual working band!

I always think of the Tom Petty quote:

"I know in my time, in my generation, if you had come, if they tried to offer my generation music by someone that had won a game show, it would have been hysterical. You would have been laughed out of the room. I mean we were suspicious of people that had hit records. I mean it was that different of a time.”
 
I was too young for them to be "the music of my time" but I grew to appreciate the songwriting later. They were prolific.
My guitar instructor taught me blackbird to become used to finger picking style. I still have that piece memorized
40 years later.
 
Micawber said:
I was too young for them to be "the music of my time" but I grew to appreciate the songwriting later. They were prolific.
My guitar instructor taught me blackbird to become used to finger picking style. I still have that piece memorized
40 years later.
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Blackbird uses the same three opening chords as Alice's Restaurant.

I wonder if McCartney "stole" it from Arlo Guthrie....
 
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