100 Best Albums Of All Time

01 Back in the USS R

02 Dear Prudence

03 Glass Onion

04 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

05 Wild Honey Pie

06 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

07 While My Guitar Gently Weeps

08 Happiness Is a Warm Gun

09 Martha My Dear

10 I’m So Tired

11 Blackbird

12 Piggies

13 Rocky Raccoon

14 Don’t Pass Me By

15 Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

16 I Will

17 Julia

18 Birthday

19 Yer Blues

20 Mother Nature’s Son

21 Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

22 Sexy Sadie

23 Helter Skelter

24 Long, Long, Long

25 Revolution 1

26 Honey Pie

27 Savoy Truffle

28 Cry Baby Cry

29 Revolution 9

30 Good Night

Interviewed during the making of The Beatles, Paul McCartney commented: ‘We are family grocers. You want yoghurt; we will give it to you. You want cornflakes, we have that too.’ He might have added that in 1968 they expanded into homewares; even the kitchen sink was included.

Often criticised for its excessive length and for its vast range of styles, The Beatles, or ‘The White Album’, has improved and become more influential with age. In fact, the album’s diversity is its strength. Having made a hugely successful ‘concept’ album on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles fell back on what they did best which was channelling the spirit of their times into popular song.

The world in 1968 was a non-stop riot and the ferment that is known as ‘the ’60s’ was at its high point. The group itself was being harassed by the drug squad, getting arrested, getting divorced, experimenting with gurus and dealing with the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. Much of this mess and turmoil was addressed in the song ‘Revolution’ and all of it spilt across this wildly divergent double album.

Underpinning all of this was that the Beatles were pulling apart, starting to express themselves as four brilliant individuals rather than one fab whole. During the recording of ‘Back in the USSR’ Ringo quit the band; George Harrison brought Eric Clapton to a session for ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ (because he needed the extra cachet for Lennon and McCartney to consider the song); and many tracks feature just Paul McCartney alone. It is almost as though the Fab Four were bursting with so many ideas that they couldn’t go back to their old methods of recording everything together. And yet by flying their freak flags, they blossomed.

The Beatles has so many highlights: the unbridled mania of ‘Helter Skelter’, ‘Yer Blues’, ‘Revolution’ and ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey’, the great simplicity of ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?’; the inventive story telling of ‘Rocky Raccoon’, ‘Glass Onion’ and ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’; and the experimental soundscape of ‘Revolution 9’. John Lennon shines with his song to his mother (and Yoko), ‘Julia’, while McCartney is equally plaintive and successful with ‘I Will’. Even Ringo shines on ‘Don’t Pass Me By’. All in all there isn’t a bad track on the album. Some of the more experimental moments still sound groundbreaking and ballads such as ‘Long, Long, Long’ are still heartbreaking.

Where the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s turned out to be more memorable than most of its songs, here the Beatles contacted Britain’s leading pop artist, Richard Hamilton, whose minimal design turned out to be as iconic as Sgt. Pepper’s.

‘Paul never liked it because, on that one, I did my music, he did his, and George did his,’ said Lennon of The Beatles. ‘First, he didn’t like George having so many tracks, and second, he wanted it to be more a group thing, which really meant more Paul. So, he never liked that album. I always preferred it to all the other albums, including Pepper, because I thought the music was better. The Pepper myth is bigger, but the music on the White Album is far superior, I think. I like all the stuff I did on that and the other stuff as well. I like the whole album.’