#8 The Beatles (White Album) by The Beatles
The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
- 2025 Album Rank
- 8
- 2011 Album Rank
- 1
- Total Points
- 2524
- Year Released
- 1968
- Genre
- Rock
- Billboard 200 Chart Peak
- 1
- Weeks at #1
- 9
- RIAA Sales Certification
- 24,000,000 (Multi Platinum)
- Buy Album
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White Album Album Details
Released on November 22, 1968, The Beatles, universally known as the "White Album" due to its stark, all-white cover, stands as the band's most sprawling and eclectic statement. A double LP filled with 30 tracks, it captures the group splintering musically, personally, and spiritually while paradoxically producing one of the most influential albums in rock history. Its songs range from acoustic ballads to proto-metal, avant-garde soundscapes to back-to-basics rock and roll, reflecting a creative explosion shaped in part by the band's experiences at a transcendental meditation retreat in India.
The sessions were marked by growing tensions. Ringo briefly quit the band, engineers walked out, it was also during this time that John Lennon first started to bring Yoko Ono to recording sessions with him, and most tracks were recorded with little collaboration. In his book Beatlesongs John Dowlding describes the album as, "essentially Lennon, McCartney and Harrison taking turns recording their own songs and using the others as backing musicians." Still, the album delivers an astonishing range: McCartney's melodic ease, Lennon's biting surrealism, Harrison's spiritual intensity, and Starr's underappreciated wit. Dear Prudence, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird, and Helter Skelter remain touchstones, but the deeper cuts and sonic experiments are just as revelatory. It is both a fractured masterpiece and a mirror of the Beatles' fading unity and unparalleled creativity.
Other albums by The Beatles on the chart: Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Revolver
Interesting Facts about the White Album
- The minimalist cover, designed by Richard Hamilton, was a deliberate response to the colorful psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper. Original pressings had individually serial numbers printed on the cover, Ringo owned copy 0000001.
- Many songs were written during the Beatles' stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, where they meditated and wrote upwards of 30 new compositions.
- Eric Clapton played the guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. George Harrison invited him to help ease tension in the studio, though Clapton was initially reluctant. The song ranks at #7 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of Greatest Guitar Songs.
- Helter Skelter was McCartney's attempt to create the loudest, rawest rock song possible, his answer to critics who thought he only wrote ballads. The track has been cited as an early influence on heavy metal.
- Revolution 9 is the Beatles' most divisive piece, an 8-minute avant-garde sound collage inspired by John and Yoko's interest in experimental art and musique concrète. It was heavily influenced by Yoko Ono's aesthetic sensibilities.
- Charles Manson infamously interpreted Helter Skelter and other White Album songs as coded messages predicting a race war, a grotesque misreading that haunted the album's legacy for years.
- Blackbird was inspired by the American civil rights movement. McCartney has said it was written in support of Black women struggling for equality in the South.
- Ringo Starr left the band during the sessions, feeling unappreciated. In his absence, McCartney played drums on Back in the U.S.S.R. and Dear Prudence. When Ringo returned a few weeks later he found his drum kit covered in flowers.
- Julia is the only Beatles song Lennon recorded completely solo. It was written about both his mother, Julia Lennon, and Yoko Ono, blending two central female figures in his life.
- Not Guilty, What's the New Mary Jane, and Junk were recorded during the sessions but left off the album. Some of these outtakes would appear on later archival releases.
- The working title for the album was A Doll's House.
- Don't Pass Me By is the first song written by Ringo Starr to appear on a Beatles album.
- Producer George Martin suddenly left for a vacation during the recording of the album, leaving engineer Chris Thomas in charge of producing.
- The song Sexy Sadie was originally titled Maharishi but John Lennon changed the title at George Harrison's request. John wrote the song about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after becoming disillusioned upon hearing the Maharishi had made a sexual advance toward one of the female members attending his course.
- The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 for its cultural and historical significance.
White Album Tracklist
- Back in the U.S.S.R.
- Dear Prudence
- Glass Onion
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
- Wild Honey Pie
- The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
- Happiness is a Warm Gun
- Martha My Dear
- I'm so tired
- Blackbird
- Piggies
- Rocky Raccoon
- Don't Pass Me by
- Why don't we do it in the road?
- I Will
- Julia
- Birthday
- Yer Blues
- Mother Nature's Son
- Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
- Sexy Sadie
- Helter Skelter
- Long, Long, Long
- Revolution 1
- Honey Pie
- Savoy Truffle
- Cry Baby Cry
- Revolution 9
- Good Night
