The (not so) White Album

I can find no better word to describe the feeling I got before listening to The White Album all at once but ‘fear’; The Beatles’ 1968 release comes as a mix of over-inflated egos, over-experimentalism, over-playing, over-doing. And I was frightened to death about how it all would reflect on one that’s considered to be one of the best albums of all time.

This may come as a surprise for eveyone that knows me as a major Beatles’ fan, but the so-called ‘White Album’ is not by far my favourite album – doesn’t even make it to the Top 10. One cannot listen to the two LPs – two! the whole thing is bigger than it should be in every way – and simply state that a great Beatles’ album has been made. For starters, it’s not even a Beatles’ album – it’s an album by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, in which Ringo is not much more than a studio musician. The hour and a half that constitutes the release is not much more than 10 or 12 great songs with no connection among themselves whatsoever except perhaps tiny bits of each members’ ego trying to outshine the others.

Of course nothing of this would’ve happened if Brian was still alive; ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, although weird and psychedelic, could’ve still been ‘passable’ for Eppy – given that the intention was to release only the double EP, I don’t think he would’ve agreed with the movie -, but the White Album was simply too much. As it has been stated by Ringo Starr himself later, the Beatles ‘should have released two albums: the White and the Whiter Album. It was too much information for a single record’; I believe that if Epstein was involved in the process, not even a second release would follow – maybe half of album would’ve just been released as B-sides.

Anyone that briefly knows the Beatles’ story can’t help noticing that 1968 was such a sad year for them: that is also very much reflected on the White Album sessions, and when one listens to the album in its fullness, it can’t be denied that it is a testemony of unconfortableness, of four people that simply lost themselves in the process while noone even cared for providing them with a well-deserved ‘No’, the way a father, mother or teacher would do to prevent plain nonsense and stupid decisions to occur.

Sure Revolution 9 is a mark on experiment music; and noone can deny the added value Clapton’s guitar brought to Harrison’s composition – although Eric’s true motifs were highly arguable. But the vibes that emanate from the album are so dark and confusing that no bit of it brings any peace of mind to the listener – not even the cheery Obladi Oblada.

This will always be the first thing on my mind whenever someone talks to me about a ‘heavy album’; my first reaction will probably be to think about how unsettling the White Album is, and how geniuses can seriously trouble your mind – and not always in a good way.

Lights, camera… Beatles!

Although I have already written about Help! on a previous post, I don’t think I ever made due reference on how interesting a full analysis on The Beatles’ movies can become.

It would take an awful lot of time to fully cover every aspect of their film work – maybe one day someone will study it in a PhD thesis or so -, but it’s always nice to have a closer glimpse to their path through the big screen, remembering how innovative they were  – in some ways – when it comes to rock bands/stars making movies; we neither have Elvis-like material nor Pink Floyd’s The Wall-style: what we do have are five different movies with excellent soundtracks and in fields that go from animation to documentary. And just as it happens with the Beatles’ albuns, everybody has their favourite.

The big adventure began with Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night back in 1964, whose wonderful black&white cinematography illustrated a light, unpretencious comedy that had its plot based on Paul’s uncle – played by Wilfrid Brambell – giving Ringo second thoughts about his role in the band. Ringo Starr’s talent as an actor would grant him central roles in the following films (he holds the sacrificial ring in Help!, for example) and Lennon’s sarcastic humour – that can easily be observed in his two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works - made Lester offer him a part in the anti-war black comedy How I Won the War (1967).

Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night trailer (1964)

Help! (1965) was hardly more than a caprice from the studio and The Beatles themselves. Playing with their own lifestyle in Technicolor for the first time, the plot was arranged so they could go wherever they wanted to:  ‘Let’s film in the Bahamas, I’ve heard the weather’s great there’ or ‘Let’s try skiing in Switzerland’ were some of their own “ideas” for another Richard Lester’s film direction. Once again there was comedy, great songs and girls screming inside the theaters whenever the Fab Four appeared on the screen.

Richard Lester’s Help! trailer (1965)

But after a series of events – Epstein’s death, LSD craze, end of stage shows -, it finally appears the experimental TV-film Magical Mystery Tour. It first aired in black&white on BBC1 during Boxing Day. And it was hated. Almost scriptless, it showed the four guys fragmented in their own little worlds – we mustn’t forget the tent’s scene in which we find a born-again Harrison contributing with Blue Jay Way, while McCartney jumped alone like the fool on the hill and Lennon claimed being the walrus. Dream-inspired sequences seem to follow without anything to connect them but the Beatles themselves, and the cult around Magical Mystery Tour would take years to be properly built.

Bernard Knowles and The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour trailer (1967)

Fortunately, The Beatles redeemed themselves with one of the greatest masterpieces in animation of all time. Yellow Submarine was released in 1968, directed by George Dunning and only featuring The Beatles in the final scene (their characters were voiced-off by other actors). Produced in the middle of the Psychedelic daze, its innovative shape amongst cartoon-like movies made it become a hit that remains a case-study to this day for film and animation students.

George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine trailer (1968)

And finally we have Let it Be, exactly four decades ago today. Initially conceived to portrait the making-of of a rock album, the film gained a life of itself by being the main testemonial of the band’s breakup; mean, unappropriate remarks are made between the four members and illustrate how people grow apart personal, professional, and artistically. And the roof-top concert in the end of the film has some hidden aura of a ‘goodbye friend’ hommage, like a funeral of The Beatles-personas mixed with an awkward sense of relief. Although the film and the album were recorded before Abbey Road was, they were both released afterwords (1970), working as self-explanatory for people that still wondered why they had broken up (even if many of them preferred the Yoko Ono’s syndrome theory).

Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let it Be trailer (1970)

40 years have gone by since then, and The Beatles remain as one of the few bands that tried to experiment and innovate in almost every level; their movies act almost as a metaphor not only of the sixties themselves but also of the innocence gradually given birth to fearless artistic assureness as one realizes that there’s always a price to pay for coming of age.

Desperately seeking Sargeant

Well, maybe not that desperately after all, otherwise I’d already fallen for ultra-exclusive-import-editions with poor quality and damaged covers sold as if they had been property of The Beatles themselves. Ok, so I’m talking about 1967′s Sgt.Pepper’s album. Let me state that although it’s always been one of my favourites, it gained extra points for keeping me company – streaming on youtube – quite often while cooking or tiding up my apartment in Paris. And I re-discovered an old fascination for one of the XXth century masterpieces on how-to-do-experiment-rock-without-letting-people-know-we’re-doing-it. But allow me to explain.

It’s been a long long time since I found out that my favourite Beatles record was Revolver; I love it in every way, every single song, the line-up is perfect and the cover was designed by Klaus Voorman (who The Beatles’d met in their early years in Hamburg and would later play bass in Lennon’s album Imagine). As I have it on CD since the very beginning of my teenage years, it seemed to me that the logical thing to do before having it in vinyl was to get the other albuns first and leave Revolver in the bottom of my “to-buy” list. But everybody knows that quality Beatles vinyl albuns – the original ones – have become more and more expensive during the years, and although I intend to be very rich one day, the salary of a musician/writer/something doesn’t allow me too many extravagances. But the issue here is not how deep my wallet is, but why I want Sgt. Pepper’s so bad. First of all, I’ve always loved the cover; assemblage was always a great influence on my artistic work and I have a weekness for the “finding Wally” kind of thing. I must also add that, being Revolver my favourite album, I can see its shadow hiding behind certain parts of Sgt. Pepper’s – I like to think about it as if Revolver were the rough though solid sketches and Sgt. Pepper’s the full-coloured comic book (you know, the intelectual/popular duality of one specific philosophy). And then there are the cut-outs. Oh yeah, how I wish I’d catch one copy that still had the original poster that came with the album, the moustache, the picture card, the badges and stripes! Although The Beatles’ wish to create a concept album failed, it’s nice to see how much they wanted Sgt. Pepper’s to build a reality of its own in every person that bought it.

And the songs. As a big Lennon’s fan, I have to admit A Day in the Life and Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite have always been on my top favourites – but what truly amazed me these last re-listening period were McCartney’s tunes like Getting Better, Fixing A Hole or Lovely Rita (I don’t mention When I’m  64 for I’ve always considered it to be more a Yellow Submarine‘s type of song) for their ability to perpetuate themselves in time and suit what we now call “indie rock”, as well as Brit Pop (Getting Better‘s back vocals are outrageously Oasis).

A perfect album, one must say; we can even notice that it marked the end od Beatles’ live concerts, allowing them to have more freedom with the choice of instruments and special effects (they would NEVER have to do it in public, otherwise they would need a whole orchestra) and the beginning of an era when they started to look inside their own special musical needs – what was craving to be communicated and how, taking time, having fun, and starting 1967′s Summer of Love without noticing, for the release date was June the 1st and San Francisco was burning empathically with what the Fab Four were doing an ocean away, a cosmic wheel one would say. I’ll just suppose that, once again, The Beatles were ahead of their time.

And please, if you see the vinyl record on sale for a decent, fair price, let me know.

The Beatles’ A Day in the Life (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)