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The White Album by The Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The White Album
  • Group name: The Beatles
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Apple Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: serial number A1667785 stamped on front of album
  • Buy it on Amazon: $42.99

The White Album by The Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve heard this record more times than I could possibly estimate.

What I expected

The White Album.

What it was actually like

“The White Album” is vast, complex and rich with great songs and also a bunch of awful songs. Though I love a lot of the music on it, and maybe in aggregate I get more enjoyment from its songs than from other Beatles records, it’s not one of my favorites from the Beatles – I prefer “Sgt. Pepper,” “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver,” “Help” and even their earlier records over their later records.

To me, “the White Album” is a perfect example of what can happen when the musical whole is less than the sum of its parts, when a record has no coherent musical voice or statement. It’s the work of a band that had figured out how, in the mid 1960s, to create not just timeless songs but monumental record albums, and then subsequently lost that rare skill by the time of their return from India 1968. When I listen to “the White Album,” I feel like I’m listening less to “the Beatles” than to the beginning of the end of the Beatles, like these are four extraordinarily talented guys who don’t like each other very much but who all have some songs that they need to get the others to play.

It’s honestly a sad record for me, and it’s quite confounding and sad too that so many people consider this to be the Beatles’ high point – instead of the fountainhead of their disintegration.

Anyway, I have no idea how to write a review of it, so below are what I consider to be the best and worst songs from each of the double record’s four sides.

Side 1

Best: While My Guitar Gently Weeps

If it’s one of the great miracles of XX century music that John Lennon and Paul McCartney both came from Liverpool and met each other and formed a band together, then it has to be one of the great ironies of XX century music that a musical genius like George Harrison was sidelined next to them and that his ability to create masterpieces like While My Guitar Gently Weeps isn’t even that significant in context, and that his growing corpus of unrecorded masterpieces couldn’t be fit onto Beatles records and that this helped to precipitate the band’s breakup. Life is so weird sometimes.

Worst: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

There are a lot of Beatles songs that I very strongly dislike, including several on “the White Album,” but many of them are hardly “songs” at all – rather, as Faul said, Lennon’s “harsh, unmelodious and deliberately provocative” tracks. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da stands out to me as, in Lennon’s words, the very worst of Faul’s “granny music shit.” I would rather have heard three minutes and seven seconds of total silence, or even of Yoko’s atonal screeching, than this drivel.

Side 2

Best: Rocky Raccoon

How fitting is it that I spent the past two days listening to Bob Dylan records (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2) and today I get to hear the greatest Bob Dylan parody song of all time? What, you didn’t know that Rocky Raccoon is a parody of the archetypal Dylan song? Try listening to it again and I think you’ll see what I mean. By the way, here is an outstanding cover.

Worst: I’m So Tired

Boring. It’s tracks like this that make me inclined to agree with George Martin and Ringo Starr that “the White Album” should have been just a single record instead of two.

Side 3

Best: Your Birthday

This is a pretty weak side, to be frank. Your Birthday is fine, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it.

Worst: Helter Skelter

Choosing a worst song from side three is a challenging endeavor, since it’s really a low point of the whole record, but I went with Helter Skelter because it’s what I think of when I imagine Faul trying to write a Lennon-style song, and failing.

Side 4

Best: Revolution 1

I’ve always enjoyed this version of “Revolution” as a companion and counterpart to the hard rock version that was released as a single (B-side of Hey Jude) and not included on any studio record. I especially love how they both play on different approaches to the blues, this one acoustic and the other electric.

Worst: Revolution 9

Not only the worst Beatles track, but this is one of the worst tracks included on any musical record that I’ve ever heard. While I hold John Lennon directly accountable for this monstrosity, it’s of course clear to me that Yoko Ono is the responsible party, and if she hadn’t broken up the Beatles, I would still despise her for being so talentless and grandiose.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
  • Artist name: Bob Dylan
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Buy it on Amazon: $7.00

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I mostly listen to Bob Dylan’s earlier records (especially “Bob Dylan,” “Freewheelin’,” “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde”), but I’d say I know about three quarters of the songs on this double album.

What I expected

Rock, folk rock, blues rock.

What it was actually like

For the sake of clarity: Columbia Records put together “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” in 1967 when he wasn’t recording any new material, and I reviewed that yesterday. Then Dylan kept making new records, and in 1971 there was another break in his recording schedule, so Columbia Records made “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2,” a double album, which I’m reviewing now.

(I understand that there’s also a third volume, but I don’t think it’s in my parents’ collection anywhere – it would have been released long after they stopped listening to popular music and buying records, and would have included music from Dylan’s bizarre evangelical phase that’s of no interest to anyone.)

I expected not to like “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2” as much as I liked “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits,” which did turn out to be the case, but this record wasn’t quite as I anticipated.

First, of its 21 songs, five can not be considered to have been “greatest hits” by any stretch of the imagination, as they were previously unreleased. Whose decision it was to package that material on a record of greatest hits is unclear to me, but if it hadn’t happened over half a century ago, I would certainly be calling for him to be fired post haste.

Second, the earlier installment “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” was released in 1967 (between “Blonde on Blonde” and “John Wesley Harding”) and “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2” was released in 1971 (between “New Morning” and “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid”) so one would expect that the second volume would consist of songs from “John Wesley Harding,” “Nashville Skyline,” “Self Portrait” and “New Morning.” Of the 16 previously released songs, however, only six are from those records, while another is a single that wasn’t included on an LP, and nine are from “Freewheelin’,” “Blonde on Blonde,” “Another Side,” “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited.” Does that matter? Not really, but it’s kind of weird, and makes me wonder if maybe Dylan and his handlers at Columbia Records didn’t have their shit together back in 1967 and were trying to correct a major mistake four years later.

Anyway, I always love to hear Maggie’s Farm, so that was a hit for me. Lay Lady Lay is another favorite that I almost never remember because it’s on “Nashville Skyline,” and therefore not in my regular routine. All I Really Want to Do is another that I never consider a favorite until it comes on and I recall how much I enjoy it. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall used to be one of my father’s favorites, and while I do think it’s good, it never really spoke much to me. All Along the Watchtower was probably the high point for me; I listen to the Hendrix version a lot (and I think it will come up imminently in a review, as I noticed that album on the shelf), so hearing Dylan’s totally-different-and-almost-as-good take was very cool.

The low point for me was most of the fourth side, which is where the producers stuck all the new material. Though I thank them for segregating it onto one side of one of the discs, I still wish it had been left out.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Farther Along by The Byrds (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Farther Along
  • Group name: The Byrds
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written inside album sleeve, indicating that my father owned this record
  • Buy it on Amazon: $12.99

Farther Along by The Byrds

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m familiar with the Byrds, but didn’t realize that they were still around and making new records in the 1970s, after David Crosby left.

What I expected

Folk rock.

What it was actually like

This was much more of a rock record than I expected. Tiffany Queen, for example, had the sound of a 1950s rock and roll song that might have been revived in the late 1970s as stadium rock, or as punk rock, and So Fine sounded like it belonged on an early Kinks record.

On the other hand, America’s Great National Pastime was Oompa Loompa music, and was not good, and didn’t belong at all with the rest of the record. Antique Sandy and Precious Kate also sounded like a Bob Dylan impression (or maybe an impression of Dylan doing an impression of the Byrds) – but was not as funny an impression as Rocky Raccoon.

The Byrds’ version of Farther Along, a traditional gospel/country classic, was pretty solid, and it makes sense to me that they named the record after it.

I was also pleasantly surprised that they ended the record with a bluegrass song, Bristol Steam Convention Blues.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

On The Threshold of a Dream by The Moody Blues (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: On The Threshold of a Dream
  • Group name: The Moody Blues
  • Year: 1969
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Deram records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written inside album sleeve, indicating that my father owned this record
  • Buy it:

On the Threshold of a Dream by The Moody Blues

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I listened to a Moody Blues compilation a few weeks ago, and thought it was all right, but not really impressive or memorable.

What I expected

Progressive rock with Space Oddity vibes.

What it was actually like

This record had some of the same stuff that I disliked from the previous one. In particular, In the Beginning and The Dream were really annoying and I don’t get the point of them at all.

On the other hand, I thought the quality of the actual songs was quite strong. Lovely to See You and Never Comes the Day were both great, and Lazy Day was also pretty good.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Peter, Paul and Mary In Concert (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Peter, Paul and Mary In Concert
  • Group name: Peter, Paul and Mary
  • Year: 1964
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Warner Bros. Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “Brenner” written on record, indicating that my mother owned it
  • Buy it:

Peter, Paul and Mary In Concert (Vinyl record album review)

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Peter, Paul and Mary were and remain a favorite of my mother’s (and she asked me to find a copy of Le Déserteur when I mentioned that I was listening to this record), so I know their work, but haven’t ever listened to this live record specifically.

What I expected

1960s folk.

What it was actually like

1960s folk, with some ups and downs.

The last time I listened to a Peter, Paul and Mary record I was delighted to hear 500 Miles, and I had the exact same reaction this time. I also loved Oh, Rock My Soul, One Kind Favor and (maybe my favorite) the final song on the fourth side, If I Had a Hammer.

On the other hand, they do a lot of children’s songs, and I’m not a child so I’m much less into those. This two-record album would have been far better if they had thought to group all of those – Car-Car, Puff, the Magic Dragon and It’s Raining – on one of the four sides. Additionally, listening to Paultalk was a complete waste of my time, so I wish that track had been grouped with the children’s music.

Grade

4/5: would listen again