The Beatles
The White Album (1968)
It was the final Beatles album to get a dedicated mono mix as well as the by then more common stereo mix. Differences in some of the tracks in the two various mixes means that the true Beatles fan will have to track down both to get the complete picture. We will of course play both versions of the album on Radio Dupree this month.
The White Album is also the first album recorded using Abbey Road studios brand new eight track machine instead of the tried and tested four track.
The white album shows that The Beatles was falling apart as a group. The album includes some of the group's best songs, but at the same time it includes some rather lousy ones. In the book "A Revolution In The Head" author Ian MacDonald calles Harrison's "Piggies" embarrassing. "Don't Pass Me By" and "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" are not on Radio Dupree's list of Beatles favourites either. The gigantic tape collage "Revolution 9" probably seemed very exciting to the fans when the album was release, but nowadays it's not more than a joke.
Two of the songs on the album also inspired Charles Manson to commit his revolutionary mass murders, and that kind of gave the songs a bad name. Those are "Piggies" and "Helter Skelter". According to MacDonald Manson thought that the title of "Helter Skelter" had something to do with "hell" and it gave him inspiration to kill people in his racial war. Manson did not know that a "helter skelter" is a slide, common in British amusement parks.
More:
The Wikepedia entry on The White Album.
A page on the differences between the mono and stereo mixes.
/N.S.
& S.H. November 2008
