[THREAD]: Go Behind The #BeatlesWhiteAlbum as it celebrates its 50th anniversary tomorrow. Check out the playlist featuring newly released remixed tracks, demos, and interviews from the iconic 1968 masterpiece. 
The rock icons jolted fans around the world with their 1968 double album. A massive new reissue featuring a superb sound upgrade looks at how John, Paul, George, and Ringo put together the sprawl of a pop landmark.
Piano ditties about sheepdogs, guitar freak-outs about paranoia, health warnings about pastries, birthday anthems, vaudeville foxtrots, symphonic lullabies…and an invitation to public sex. Vevo salutes the music’s scope, imagination, and craft.
A follow up to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, the album’s real title is ‘The Beatles.’ It’s called the White Album because of its image-less blank cover, embossed only with the band’s name.
Pop Art heavyweight Richard Hamilton was behind the stark design, a visual antidote to the psychedelic collage of ‘Sgt Pepper’s.’ Thirty tracks deep, it’s the Fabs’ first double album, as well as their first on their own Apple label.
The group wrote the bulk of its songs while studying transcendental meditation at the Indian ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in February 1968. Armed only with acoustic guitars, George, Paul and John individually sketched a scad of tunes.
Back home, they made demos of the new stuff at George’s mansion, south of London. Known as the Esher Tapes, the tracks have long been bootlegged with inferior sound. Now a key part of the reissue, their superb fidelity reveals fresh aspects of the songs’ early life.
It’s a common belief that the White Album is where each Beatle went his separate way, arguing about a song’s direction and sound. Partially true. During the sessions, producer George Martin ducked out for a bit in frustration, and Ringo was a no-show for almost 2 weeks.
But Giles Martin, George Martin’s son, oversaw the production of this new package and says the demos and outtakes (six CDs-worth) tell a tale of autonomy mixing with camaraderie.
A spirit of teamwork marks the way they interact on several tracks. This new wealth of outtakes reveals that they often had fun helping each other sort out arrangements.
When Paul was frustrated by the way “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” wasn’t jelling after several attempts, John strolled in and knocked out an opening piano part that brought a perfect logic to the track.
Ringo was wooed back when his mates sent him a telegram that said, “You’re the best rock ’n’ roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you.” George had lined Abbey Road studios with flowers for him.
The first track Ringo took a shot at was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” George’s tune was inspired by the I Ching’s references to the “power of coincidence.” He randomly opened a book, saw the phrase “gently weeps,” and starting writing.
By the time they got to the master take, all four Beatles AND Eric Clapton were playing on the track. Later, the band added extra sonic textures to Clapton’s guitar to make it, as it says in the box set’s booklet, more “Beatley.”
Sgt. Pepper’s had been a production-heavy affair. From “Helter Skelter” to “Yer Blues” to “Back In The USSR,” the White Album had more immediacy and rocked out much more.
Paul has said that they cut the raucous “Helter Skelter” with the goal of being louder and wilder than the Who, and perhaps the song was the start of heavy metal. The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr says that listening to the track’s new sonic upgrade almost gave him a “panic attack.”
The foursome cut “Yer Blues” in an equipment closet adjacent to the main studio, crammed together like they were onstage, as Ringo told Rolling Stone, like “a little club band.”
Songs that were scrapped sometimes showed up later. “Junk” became part of McCartney’s first solo album. George’s “Circles” didn’t get to fans until 1979’s ‘Gone Troppo,’ and John’s “Child of Nature” demo received all new lyrics and arrived as “Jealous Guy” on ‘Imagine.’
“Revolution” had a few iterations. The bluesy romp on the album initially had an extended ending that ultimately became part of the experimental sound collage, “Revolution 9.” The guys also cut a wilder version, the famous flip side of “Hey Jude.”
Some critics contend that the double disc was a bit grandiose. The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot admits it features some of their best songs, but wonders if it's "a wildly erratic hit-and-miss hodgepodge that could’ve been better served as a single album?" chicagotribune.com/entertainment/…
Ambition is definitely part of the album's appeal. The shifting styles from track to track gives 'The Beatles' an artistic reach that has helped define it for a half-century. In its 1968 review, Rolling Stone called it a “history and synthesis of Western music.”
If there’s a message at the music’s center, it’s summarized in the refrain from “Dear Prudence”... “look around.” On the White Album, the Beatles asked us all to “come out to play,” a reminder that they were always fascinated with the world at large and its endless allure.
