The Best Beatles Albums Part 5

 The Beatles (aka The White Album) - Released 11/28/1968

Hard to see, but it's there

After the sorry performance of the Magical Mystery Tour television special, and in light of their manager's death from a drug overdose, the Beatles and several other celebrities flew off to India to practice transcendental meditation under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They had come across his teachings shortly after their Our World triumph.  The plan was for several months of meditation and learning Eastern ways.  In ten days, however, Ringo left for home, stating he didn't like the food.  McCartney left a month later.  Finally the other two returned amidst rumors that the Maharishi's intentions, at least where the women were concerned, were not altogether spiritual (Lennon's  Sexy Sadie was a thinly veiled swipe at the guru because of this). While in India, they were not only meditating, but they were also writing songs. Lots of songs.  And not just Lennon and McCartney, but also Harrison and even Ringo.  When they returned to the Abbey Road studios in May, 1968, they were ready to record almost all of the songs they wrote.  Enough songs for a double album set.  George Martin immediately protested.  Some of the songs were outstanding, and would make a strong - possibly their best - album (consider Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps in that category). Others were everything from goofy to just garbage (I'm looking at you Wild Honey Pie).  Nonetheless, the four wouldn't budge.  It was all of them or nothing.  And that included a bit of avant-garde electronic sound experimentation (Revolution 9), courtesy of a new presence in the studio that was adding to the already tense atmosphere.  That presence was John's new love interest, artist Yoko Ono.  

As production continued, Martin turned into more of an executive producer, moving from studio to studio, overseeing the process as the individual Beatles worked on their own songs their own ways.  McCartney became increasingly bossy, chasing Ringo out for over a week.  George Harrison threatened to quit, growing tired of his limited allotment of songs per album.  And the Lennon-Ono team was pushing everyone, including staff, to the limits. Despite that atmosphere, they still managed to work forward.  They needed to.  After years of seeing at least two albums released in a year, 1968 was progressing without a Beatles album release.  The one bright spot musically speaking came with the release of Hey Jude.  It was a pure McCartney song written for Julian Lennon after his dad left Cynthia Lennon for Yoko Ono.  Their 16th #1 song in the US, it became their biggest hit single, and one of the biggest singles of all time.  Staying at #1 for almost two and a half months, it was also long.  Far longer than radio stations typically agreed to play.  Nevertheless, it broke records at the time and remains their most successful chart topper.  Still, an album was needed, and wanted by fans.  The Beatles was released on November 22, 1968, under their own newly formed Apple Corps record label.  Its blank appearance was a purposeful attempt to distance themselves from the excess of the Sgt. Pepper days and the oversaturation of psychedelia, which by now was commonplace among the cultural revolution.  The reception was mixed.  It did, as usual, go to number one on the album charts.  But critics complained that it was erratic, nonsensical, and at times downright amateurish.  Over the years, The White Album (as it came to be called for obvious reasons) became one of the essential Beatles albums to own, and considered one of the greatest albums ever.  This is not so much due to the quality of the music, however, even if some songs are among their best.  Rather it is seen that way because it shows not only the growing strains in The Beatles' much studied history, but also the distinct songwriting personalities of the four separate band members like no other album.  

Engineer Geoff Emerick with an increasingly independent McCartney

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Released 5/26/1967

It was twenty years ago today ...

For years this was voted the greatest album of all time.  In later years, that title has shifted about, but most still consider this, if not the greatest, then undeniably the single most influential album of all time.  By August, 1966, it was clear that Beatlemania was passing its sell-by date.  An unintentional slight against the Marcos presidency in the Philippines led to the band being whisked out of the country in fear of their lives.  In  Japan, protests erupted as some politicians worked to ban the group from coming and corrupting their youth.  And in America, the backlash against John's statement about the popularity of Jesus vs. the Beatles sparked the famous 'Fantastic Beatles Boycott.'  Worse, however, though often unspoken, was another unexpected development.  Even as they were playing more and more in massive venues like sports stadiums, they were beginning to notice something they hadn't witnessed since achieving mega-stardom - empty seats.  Yes, they were still playing huge arenas, but a year earlier it was to mostly sell out crowds.  When they returned to Shea Stadium in 1966, over 11,000 tickets were left unsold.  Tired of the rigors of touring, the mounting controversies and scandals, and quite frankly seeing the writing on the wall and wanting to go out on top, they made an unprecedented decision for a musical act to make: They would stop touring.  After over three and a half years and almost 1400 concert performances, their appearance at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966 was their last performance together on tour. 

For the next few months, they took their first significant break from each other.  When they returned in November, it was a new incarnation of the group.  Mustaches, goatees and beards were the norm, and Lennon was now sporting his 'granny-glasses', a prop from his part in the Richard Lester movie How I Won the War (and the basis for the picture of Lennon as a solider that graced the cover of the first issue of 'Rolling Stone' magazine).  Rebounding from rumors that they had broken up, and buoyed by the stunning level of positive feedback from their album Revolver, they wanted to keep pushing the limits of the industry.  They saw, as with Revolver, that no matter how far ahead they were, the rest of the industry was quick to catch up.  They decided to work on a concept album about their childhood.  But the studio number crunchers made the first two songs recorded be hastily put together and released as a single to fill the void left during their break.  That single, released as two A Sides, featured the songs Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever.  Considered one of the strongest singles ever produced, it also saw the production of the first 'self-contained conceptual promotional films' meant solely to promote the songs' releases.  That is, the first official music videos meant to compensate for their lack of touring.  Ironically, because the two songs were both released as A-Sides in the UK, they worked against each other and failed to overcome Engelbert Humperdinck's Please Release Me. They stalled out at #2, making headlines as the first single by the Beatles since 1963 to fail to make number one on the UK charts (in the US, Penny Lane did manage to make it to #1, their 13th in the US). 

 The first official stand alone conceptual music video

Returning to the studio, they turned their attention to building on everything they had learned up to the Revolver recording sessions. In addition to their basic drive to stay ahead, their imaginations were spurred on by an increase in recreational drug use. It was here that the recording engineers, especially recording engineer Geoff Emerick, working alongside George Martin, would establish the modern recording studio as we know it.  The most complex and state of the art recording process belonged to Lennon's Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite, a song inspired by an old Victorian circus poster he owned.  But other tricks and studio wand waving emerged with the evolution of each song.  The album was becoming for recording technology what Disney's Fantasia was for animated film. None other than the London Symphony Orchestra found itself playing background on the recordings, especially the album's climactic finale, A Day in the Life.  Soon the production as a whole, including the album contents themselves, took on a life of their own.  Four years earlier, even heavy hitters like Sinatra or Elvis would only take a few weeks to record an album.  Sometimes it was a one day affair.  The Sgt. Pepper sessions lasted almost seven months.  And that was with almost around the clock work schedules.  The legendary cover photo tapped into the emerging psychedelia movement and helped push that movement into the mainstream.  As the primary driver behind the project, it was Paul who conceived of the 'Sgt. Pepper' bookends that give the impression of a concept album.  He admitted that Pepper was, in many ways, their much needed answer to Pet Sounds.  Released on May 26, 1967, Sgt. Pepper quickly became the biggest selling non-soundtrack album to date (it remains the biggest selling album in the UK).  It immediately connected to the Summer of Love, and helped define the entire counter culture revolution from that point on.  No singles were released, as the idea was to present it as a cohesive whole; to make it a singular work of art.  The idea worked, and its success led the music industry to shift from a singles based marketing model to one centered around the album.  It seemed as if everything - music, fashion, attitudes, graphic art, pop culture, the music industry itself - changed with the release of Sgt. Pepper.  For their efforts, the Beatles became the first rock musicians to win a Grammy Award for best album.  It put them straight back on top of the entertainment world.     

As George Martin looks on, Paul McCartney conducts a French horn section from the LSO

On June 25, Our World aired. It was the first live global television broadcast before an audience estimated at around half a billion.  Multiple countries provided various individuals to represent them.  England chose the Beatles, and they headlined the entire broadcast, quickly throwing together the song All You Need is Love for the occasion.  Tying that song to the summer already invigorated by the release of their signature album, the Beatles were, as the Monkees' song Randy Scouse Git described, 'the Four kings of EMI sitting stately on the floor.'  It was the pinnacle of their success and influence on both the music industry, as well as world culture at large.  And it marked the beginning of the end.  

"The song [Sgt. Pepper intro], along with the album as a whole, gave other musicians new ideas and new attitudes to the approach of music. The production of the record set new standards in expertise and innovation. It may not be too far-fetched to say that much of popular music in the half-century after 1967 has come under the influence of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band." Martin Chilton, Editor and Author

"Everyone I knew who was involved in popular music spent weeks and weeks listening and relistening and discussing [Stg. Pepper], and everyone at that point considered it a major event." Milron Okun, Producer/Arranger

"Sgt. Pepper, for its time, captured a moment in popular music that will probably never be repeated in quite that way, in the sense that it was an artistic statement in a music that was never regarded as art before." Lenny Kaye, musician  

Our World - The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger sits on the floor next to Harrison