THE MASSIVE INFLUENCE OF THE BEATLES' "WHITE ALBUM"

The album is an album for all people, rockers, folkies, new balladeers, prog rock-like bands...
Even its melodies crop up sometimes in later music by a select number of very famous bands (two anyway--now that's a select number)...

Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt lists the album in his top five "must buy in vinyl format" albums.

System Of A Down: The "Ariels" melody is close to the beginning of John Lennon's melody to "Happiness Is A Warm Gun".

 

Radiohead: the album is clearly a major influence, as their albums sometimes seem to be all about reorganizing bits of melody from the "White Album"--"Faust ARP" from the "In Rainbows" album is based on "Julia", while another track from the album has a sung melody at the start that is like McCartney's "Let me take you back, let me take you back." Meanwhile "Karma Police" from "OK Computer" has the Lennon piano exactly the same as in "Sexy Sadie".

"Back In The USSR" has been described as "probably the best Beatles rocker"... it's track one (The quote is from "The Beatles: An Illustrated Record").

There are more covers of "Blackbird" than "Yesterday" among current singers, particularly female singers, by a ratio of probably 100:1

"Helter Skelter" has an extraordinarily wide appeal: it has been covered by bands as diverse as Siouxshie And The Banshees and U2

Paul McCartney's current gigs focus largely on tracks from the album: "Blackbird", "Helter Skelter" and "Back In The USSR", for example. Certainly, he plays a lot of numbers from 1968-1969.

Numerous covers by new Brooklyn jazz figures--and Brooklyn is said to be the centre of jazz in the word right now: artists such as guitarist Marc Ribot, singer Lola Danza, and others have recorded tracks from the album.

Lennon's "Dear Prudence" has probably been ripped off by more bands than the times Frank Zappa played in Pomona...

George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is possibly the main jam tune for first time-together school rock bands ever.

In early interviews, Abba said they listened to late Beatles, no doubt referring to the "White Album" and "Abbey Road". It's true that the recording quality was better by 1968, but the tunes match it.

And finally, It's the album where Ringo got "blisters on his fingers"... What more can you say?

 

Copyright Simon Jay Harper 2009