Tusk Vs The White Album

bwaaaahhhahahahhhahahahaahhaha. So wrong it hurts.

As for who wins the fight; I guess I've listened to Tusk a lot more than "The Beatles" recently, but c'mon: I Will. Martha My Dear. Blackbird. Good Night. Long Long Long. Er...actually that's about it as far as I'm concerned...

OK, Tusk it is, as it doesn't have anything as repellent as Piggies.

"Sara" is perfection!

But I agree, as much as I love it, Tusk has some iffy moments.

Where have I been?

I smile every time Lindsey says "Reeeeeeal savage-like."

But it's hard to deny The White Album, so I won't even try.

* A joke, but only in part!

"You can love me babytimmy but you can't walk out/
Someone oughta tell you what it's really all about"

The White Album is a meisterwerk!*

* IMO!!!

Tusk changes a fair bit the more I listen to it. For years, I went straight for the Lindsey songs, and ignored the rest. Eventually, I grew to like a fair number of the Nicks songs, and the odd McVie song. From my perspective, Buckingham is on fire, while Nicks and McVie aren't necessarily on the top of their game. Nicks was much stronger on s/t and Rumours, and so was McVie. McVie also went on to contribute perhaps the best songs on Mirage and Tango In The Night.

The White Album on the other hand, shows all members (save Ringo) on fire. Everyone misfires, but everyone also contributes multiple crowning jewels. Therefore, White Album!

Never heard Tusk.

"Never Make Me Cry" is the cruel aftermath. Everything she's predicted has come true: he's a liar, a cheater, a horrible disappointment. But she keeps her dignity. You feel all this in the wrecked pathos of McVie's voice, trembling and delayed and, finally, isolated thanks to Buckingham's production.

I have to think about it some more. Thse two songs have always seemed like the emotional core of an album that's often lauded as a "mere" triumph of a mad genius behind the boards.

As for Nicks' weaker songs, well, I must admit that "Sisters of the Moon" is one song about Rhiannon too many. "Angel" never did much for me either. But "Sara" - wow. It was Lester Bangs who defended Nicks as a songwriter of great insight, and he cited the line "When you build your house, then call me home" as an example.

Re Stevie and Christine: Sara and Angel are great, Sister of the Moon OK, Storms kinda boring. I'm also not such a fan of Brown Eyes. Beautiful Child is a much nicer song, but it would be even better if it didn't come after Brown Eyes and sound a little the same. But that's about it for stuff I don't like on Tusk.

Also, the "experimentation" on the White Album was very cliched even then; the freshest thing about it was its range, not anything they actually did. Tusk sounded like absolutely nothing else in 1980.

Mmmm well, on Tango yes (the peerless "Little Lies" and "Everywhere") but Mirage boasts "Hold Me," "Love in Store," and then two just awfully bland songs ("Wish You Were Here," "Only Over You").

Yes. And that includes the surviving Beatles and the estates of those deceased.

Still, I'll give the edge to The Beatles on the strength of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," "I'm So Tired, and "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey."

Kim Thayil circa Superunknown cops heavily from "Monkey," and that's no knock on Kim Thayil.

"Also, the 'experimentation' on the White Album was very cliched even then; the freshest thing about it was its range, not anything they actually did."

If you want to say that "Revolution 9" was "very cliched" because it was just more musique concrete, then fine, I guess. I actually like the way the piece works in the context of the album. But otherwise, the range of the album that you mention WAS experimental, in a sense. The White Album is a startling thing for a band to have created one year after they did Sgt. Pepper.

"Not anything they actually did," you say? They're the ones that made the music.

"I think Stevie's songs are great, or at least, just as great as her other songs. I mean, she's never been anywhere near the caliber of Lindsey or Christie as far as songwriting goes..."

What? What?!

Exhibit A:

"Dreams" written by a hot young Stevie Nicks:

Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness...
Like a heartbeat... drives you mad...
In the stillness of remembering what you had...

And just to give her the benefit of the doubt, let's consider the best work of McVie from the same album- "You Make Loving Fun" - Exhibit B:

I never did believe in miracles,
But I've a feeling it's time to try.
I never did believe in the ways of magic,
But I'm beginning to wonder why.

yeah, I never did either, and now I really don't...and it gets worse. I'll spare you.

(I haven't figured out the italics thing yet)

Fuuck yoooooouuuuuu

I'd have to go with the White Album though and i love it all. Part of the reason I like it so much is because it's imperfect and sprawling. People who want to split it down to a 'perfect' 14 track album or whatever are missing the point about what makes it so good.

I can understand the hating on Revolution 9 but again it's part of what makes this album great. What other band of their size would be sticking tracks like this on an album and sandwiched up beside an OTT string laden nursery rhyme. You could argue it's self indulgent and no one was questioning what they were doing but I'm glad it's on there. A real headphone treat and bringing something like this to the mainstream is defnitely not an expiremental cliche.

Tusk is great too though I am a recent convert.

I'll end up getting "Tusk" and listening and go "Mergh"

For Savoy Truffle!

I realized the other day that the song "Tusk" taps into the sort of primal rush that the Animal Collective have done so well recently.

I realized the other day that the song "Tusk" taps into the sort of primal rush that the Animal Collective have done so well recently.

Yeah, I've been noticing a massive similarity between Tusk era Lindsey and Animal Collective. Especially on Ledge and That's Enough for Me. Who's with me?

I've always imagined AnCo covering the song "Family Man" would be a really good fit. And also been trying to think if anyone current sounds like Tusk-era Lindsey.

Tusk isn't nearly as scary as The White Album

This is not in poll format but the answer is obviously TUSK at least on ILM.

(And it is one of the reasons I prefer this forum over many others)

the answer is tusk in real life too

tusk by the dead c is best
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 10:24 (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM!

I love Tusk and the White Album is far from my favourite Beatles album so I might go with FM on this one.
Still I'm not sure there's anything I love as much as "Dear Prudence" on Tusk... "Sara" would come close.

Unfashionable answer: White Album. I like Tusk a lot but to me it feels a bit like listening to four albums on shuffle, whereas WA is more of a lucky dip, like the best double-albums should be

WA is my favorite album of all time, pretty sure it's not going anywhere. even the tossed off tracks i consider legendary.

Tusk is really good though. i got into it last year. "Save Me a Place" and "Sarah" are so great. i love the sloppy diy feel of it all.

tusk

the appeal of a double album is it gives the artist an ability to stretch out, and if Rumours for example is the center of a wheel, Tusk is a collection of all these adventures up and down the various spokes of that wheel. I pick The White Album because it goes much farther out & it's so much stranger and scarier like I said, also longer... its working title A Doll's House makes perfect sense, reminds me of the Fassbinder quote about his filmography: “I hope to build a house with my films. Some of them are the cellar, some are the walls, and some are the windows. But I hope in time there will be a house.” The White Album is that house.

Tusk is one of the best Fleetwood Mac albums.

The Beatles isn't one of the best Beatles albums, and probably - when it comes to the crunch - their weakest "proper" studio album 1965-1969.

Well, that was easy.

there's at least 4 or 5 songs on TWA i don't care much for

i like all the songs on tusk

tusk wins, arithmetic

The Beatles isn't scary at all. Do people actually shit their pants to 'Martha My Dear'? I'm sure there's a name for that condition.

the schizophrenic sequencing of The White Album is what makes it terrifying. Mother Nature's Son followed by Me and My Monkey. Helter Skelter followed by Long, Long, Long. Glass Onion as third track! and of course Revolution 9 into Good Night. it's not scary like a horror movie, it's a vague unsettling paranoia, the comedown from the LSD dreams of Sgt. Pepper and MMT. it's the whiplash between styles & attitudes & personalities that makes it such a beguiling work. And fwiw I wouldn't cut a single song.

I shit my pants when I hear Red Rose Speedway-era Paul songs.

I agree that 'Good Night' sounds a bit strange coming after 'Revolution 9', but I don't really get that vibe elsewhere. Actually, I find a lot of the songs on The Beatles to be quite silly, including quite a fair bit of Lennon's stuff. Take Paul's stuff off the record and there ain't a lot of genre hopping going on there either.

there's at least 4 or 5 songs on TWA i don't care much for

i like all the songs on tusk

tusk wins, arithmetic

― brimstead, Friday, October 27, 2017 12:43 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

otm

I shit my pants when I hear Red Rose Speedway-era Paul songs.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 27, 2017 5:53 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hardly ever listen to Red Rose Speedway, bar 'My Love' ...

i love tusk to death but you can see how the white album could inspire murder when you listen to it. fucking blackbird man. that guitar has killed me for 40+ years. what are ya gonna do? there is majik there.

Actually, I find a lot of the songs on The Beatles to be quite silly, including quite a fair bit of Lennon's stuff.

that's exactly what I was saying. Silliness bookended by intense rock and crazy experiments and somber odes. Total emotional whiplash.

Take Paul's stuff off the record and there ain't a lot of genre hopping going on there either.

Julia / Me and My Monkey / Glass Onion / Revolution 9 / While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Long, Long, Long / Good Night / Piggies / Dear Prudence / Savoy Truffle / Happiness is a Warm Gun. there's a lot going on there

Fleetwood Mac suck this isnt even a contest

the beatles will always be spooky to me. the aura. the production. still bewitches me. me and a million other saddos i guess. but its otherworldly. i kinda can't believe that when they broke up that they all didn't just fall over and die. and when they broke up they just became dweebs. hiding out. pretending to be normal. pretending to be 70's rock stars. there was definitely witchy hoodoo in that band. three guitar line-up of fleetwood mac communed with hoodoo gods though. that's for sure. one listen to those boston tea party tapes will confirm that.

yeah I've always found all Beatles music spooky/scary for lack of a better word. The extreme highs and extreme lows unmatched by any other rock band. My first exposure to them was the 1 collection in 2000- I was 8 years old, and yeah it was instant, alchemical... I loved the music so much, and as my dad told the story and explained everything that happened, how they blew up and then broke up... I think a lot of that is John's murder though. I grew up in Manhattan, and we would drive past the Dakota every day on our way to school. I remember my dad pointing it out that fall and telling the story of what happened in 1980. and then a few years later, getting into Paul is Dead shit and listening to all the 'clues' or whatever... even if it's BS the end of Strawberry Fields is still really creepy.

and obviously this was all reinforced by reading countless Beatles books and bios later on...

Julia / Me and My Monkey / Glass Onion / Revolution 9 / While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Long, Long, Long / Good Night / Piggies / Dear Prudence / Savoy Truffle / Happiness is a Warm Gun. there's a lot going on there

No there isn't. Aside from 'Revolution 9', 'Good Night' and 'Piggies', that's just a series of folk or rock songs.

Y'see, I can't see why The Beatles would inspire murder. I leave that kind of thing to people who read things into music that aren't there. Or the legitimately mental.

Because I gorged on TWA and Beatle lore in my youth, I have more time for Tusk, but after the kids discovered the Wondrous Punkness of Tusk twenty years ago I pulled back from it too. What do I listen to now?

Kidding. I love them both but "Sara" more than anything on TWA.

What do I listen to now?

Tango in the Night, of course!

But yeah, Beatles lore schlore mythology schmythology.

i went to a beatles convention in 1978. the band Apple played. and they had a showing of Magical Mystery Tour. i bought a Black Sabbath record. the future was upon me...

I was big on Tango in the Night before the kids with their Balearic fetishes discovered synth pads.

tusk is great but for me it's hard to deal w/ the rest of the album after the heights of "sara." same goes with rumours and "dreams" tbh

i always just want to go back to those songs

my sister bought me Tusk for Christmas because i loved hearing that song on the radio and when i got the 2XLP i just used to listen to that song! so, it took me some time to be a fan of the rest of it. (i even remember thinking, you could have just bought me the 45...)

The one that I keep returning to on Tusk is 'That's All For Everyone' - it's not much of a song at its core, but the overall sound of it is incredible. Gorgeous harmonies.

and "Brown Eyes"

and "Over and Over"

McVie's on fire on this record.

They all are, I guess.

Yeah, 'Brown Eyes' is the same kind of thing... it's not really a great song, but the production is so incredible that it doesn't matter.

'Over and Over' is an utter classic - love the little drum fill that comes out of nowhere in the outro.

It might not be much of a song but I feel it’s the main influence behind Tame Impala.

what do you mean "not much of a song" turrican? repetition =/= lazy or half-baked. it's a mantra, a song you can live inside. there's a great anecdote in Carol Ann Harris' book Storms (which btw, documents a ton of horrible, horrible abusive behavior by Lindsey) where he had spent a few days off in between legs of the Rumours tour in early 1978 building his home studio. the first thing he did in there was 'That's All for Everyone' - when it was finished, they sat on the floor crying and listening to it over and over again.

When I say it's not much of a song, I mean that it's not much of a song. I said nothing about "lazy" or "half-baked" ... again, you're reading things into things that aren't there.

Turrican: "The overall sound of it is incredible. Gorgeous harmonies."

Flappy Bird: "Wahhhlazyhalfbakedwhatchumean?"

Turrican: "..."

No there isn't. Aside from 'Revolution 9', 'Good Night' and 'Piggies', that's just a series of folk or rock songs.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Friday, October 27, 2017 3:20 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's an oversimplification- those songs go WAY out into their own worlds, every song on the White Album feels like a separate room in a large house. the paranoid meta-mess of 'Glass Onion' is completely distinct from the clouds-parting optimism of 'Dear Prudence,' and 'Savoy Truffle' is just as much of a bizarre genre pastiche as 'Piggies,' with equally wild production choices (the overdriven horns). 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' is a cut-up masterpiece, and only 2:53 long (!!). even 'Julia' and 'Long, Long, Long', which feature mostly the same instrumentation, are imbued with the personalities and sensibilities of their authors. 'I Will,' 'Julia,' and 'Long, Long, Long' are so much more nuanced than simple folk songs. I could go on and on but the truly captivating and powerful aspect of TWA is its insane sequencing, and the deeply unsettling and unresolved feeling when it's all over. You don't know what to take from it or make of it all.

'Not much of a song,' what do you mean? Lacking in chords? more lyrics?

It's not an oversimplification at all - it's calling a spade a spade, rather than spouting received wisdom from the pages of some Beatle-fellating wankfest book/article, or buying into the mythology and all the bullshit surrounding the music that doesn't even matter.

Now, after forcing myself to read through your post which even fails at being elaborately worded bullshit, here we go...

the paranoid meta-mess of 'Glass Onion' is completely distinct from the clouds-parting optimism of 'Dear Prudence'

This has nothing to do with genre, and 'Glass Onion' isn't really paranoid, although I could perhaps understand why it unsettles the more unhinged end of the Beatle fan spectrum. In any case, a writer writes an uptempo song then a midtempo song... fucking mindblowing, man!

'Savoy Truffle' is just as much of a bizarre genre pastiche

There's nothing bizarre about this song at all. It sounds like a song written and recorded in 1968.

And what "wild" production choices on 'Piggies'? It's no 'Strawberry Fields Forever' ... Jesus, it's not even the outro of 'Itchycoo Park' or 'Bold as Love' ... Overdriven horns? Gimme a break.

'Julia' and 'Long, Long, Long', which feature mostly the same instrumentation, are imbued with the personalities and sensibilities of their authors.

Fucking hell! Songs are imbued with the personalities of their authors! In other news, grass is green! This, like, applies to every song ever written including The Beatles' own entire catalogue. Clutching at straws much?

I feel like you two have this fight every day

xpost:

It basically sounds to me that you've read too many Beatle books/articles and let it colour your perception of the music. Most of the time what you're describing isn't what the music is, but more what you want it to be. You're reading stuff into it which isn't even there.

I guess Charles Manson did the same, though.

On a related note, you do sure fucking use the word "insane" a lot.

shakey - me too. I respect your opinion turrican but I fundamentally disagree with your constant assertion that art can be "objectively good" or "objectively bad." this shit is all subjective. it's fun to talk and squabble about preferences but there is no universal truth to the quality of any piece of art.

xxp my opinion and impressions of The White Album as stated were formed years before I read any Beatles books. the record has always freaked me out.

Well, I suppose that says more about you than the record!

thanks for the analysis, who do i make the check out to

The idea of someone listening to 'Don't Pass Me By' while looking out through their keyhole with a bead of sweat trickling down their brow absolutely tickles me. Sing it, Ringo!

Remove Bookmark from this Turrican

is there really a turrican or just a bot that posts "personally, i find this song rather silly" over and over again

Photo of Turrican:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f2/ab/b2/f2abb266763ceacca25065bff1af30c1--monty-python-funny-people.jpg

btw i agree w/ flappy bird, the white album has a very spooky feel to it. it's full of abrupt changes in tone and sudden transitions and songs that just sort of clatter to a halt, and things like "cry baby cry" or "revolution 9" or "happiness is a warm gun" or the bizarre outro to "long long long" do feel quite sinister. even "don't pass me by" sort of falls apart in a weird, chaotic way at the end. i don't think of it as horror-movie scary so much as the uncanny, unsettling feeling you might get from looking at an old abandoned house or reading about unsolved crimes late at night or something. much of that is due to lennon, whose nonsense stories and drawings also have a very menacing, lewis carroll-esque feel to them, full of barely-buried hints of violence and rage, and this feels like the album where that side of him comes out most fully. the only other songwriter of that era who gives me a similar vibe is syd barrett, but his vision was much gentler.

It's rawer and rougher than the direction they seemed to be headed in.. there's a real "the house lights have been turned on" unvarnished/atmosphere-less thing going on. or maybe it's just more like hanging out with them in someone's living room

Helter Skelter is totally scary from a musical pov, absolutely sealed by Paul's (?) off-key pitch-bending guitar thing.

xpost:

It basically sounds to me that you've read too many Beatle books/articles and let it colour your perception of the music. Most of the time what you're describing isn't what the music /is/, but more what you want it to be. You're reading stuff into it which isn't even there.

I know, I'm one to talk

the living room comment... I mean that it's more folksy and casual but also you're seeing them de-romanticized and with zits and bad breath and stuff

agree w everyone's "spookiness" feels for the white album. it reminds me a little of old cartoons where Donald Duck is going insane and is paranoid or something. difficult to explain but yeah the album captures a whole spooky attic feeling to it.

the ending of "Long Long Long" is super spooky, the scratchy guitar noise and drone, that ghostly wail...

yeah, i've long advocated for the white album as creaky old haunted house. not actively jump-scare scary but yes, something uneasy or curdled or sick. there seems to be a lot of emptiness around the instruments and vocals somehow, like they were all recorded late at night and the studio was kind of cold and there were footsteps in the hallway.

on when i get to the bottom i go back to the top of the WHITE ALBUM POLL i compared it to "mouldy old dough" and that still clicks with me, in that that song probably doesn't read as creepy at all to lots of people - just a jaunty little britisher throwback - but once i heard it that way, it was permanently the soundtrack for a bad-trip scene in an imaginary movie. a lot of the white album is like that, and i think that feeling is only heightened by the parts that aren't like that, the songs that are genuinely warm and fuzzy and blanket-like, or happy and encouraging and upbeat, while you're listening to them.

i've only just started listening to tusk recently and can't comment tbh. so far it just seems like a crowd of fragments and underwritten songs that will occasionally part to make way for something much more fully-realized. i don't have a problem with that idea but it reminds me of like, a compilation of TMBG "dial-a-song" numbers with each pushed to a full three-minute length.

Just you wait.

The ending on 'Long, Long, Long' is, what, less than 30 seconds on a double LP? There's that and 'Revolution 9', which I guess takes it up to 9 minutes. On a double LP.

Boredom with the record making process is the vibe that I mostly get from The Beatles as well as boredom with being a group and individual egos spiralling out of control - which is why there was next to no quality control, each individual thought everything they were writing was fantastic, and they can't-be-arsed rushed production. Spookiness? Fuck no. It's a better recorded version of Let It Be with slightly better songs.

*they=the

Boredom with the record making process is the vibe that I mostly get from The Beatles as well as boredom with being a group and individual egos spiralling out of control

Most of the time what you're describing isn't what the music is, but more what you want it to be.

yeah no - these sessions were labored over and there are tons of overdubs and stuff. not lazy/rushed, and anything that feels ragged or empty is imho a deliberate aesthetic choice after the pepper/mmt era. especially given that they were overflowing with material. some of it conveys a sense of glumness and exhaustion but that's because they had some heavy shit on their minds.

^ point exemplified by the cover, if Turrican's seen that

xxpost:

'xcept I am describing what the music is. Play the record back to back with, say, A Hard Days Night or Revolver and it speaks for itself. You can hear the excitement is there in the tracks on those records, and the quality control is there and the band are all going in the same direction. All of those things are absent on The Beatles.

There may be overdubs aplenty on portions of The Beatles, but quite a lot of it is sloppy as fuck, and still undoubtedly rushed, and quite a fair bit of the songwriting isn't up to snuff. You could say that in some ways The Beatles was a reaction against psychedelia, but c'mon it was 1968 and pretty much everyone who wasn't Small Faces (who released their psychedelic record a year late) were going "back to basics" ... but bands like The Stones were at least understood that if you're gonna go "back to basics", the songs better be good.

CD Player: "Well, somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccooooooon-ah!"

Random Beatles Fan: "Fuck, man!" *bead of sweat drips off their forehead as they shut themselves in their wardrobe*

Outc, listen to "albatross"

I'm open to discussing the different things people get out of this record but strawmanning the "scary" argument to mock the posters making it doesn't really encourage me to do that tbh.

Having a sense of imagination is fun

there's also something to be said for not being an intransigent moron who can't stop doubling down on it

people on this thread should be kinder

fuck you kinder doesn't need to be in every thread

quite a lot of it is sloppy

I don't really think so. There are intentionally sloppy things but they tend to be confined to song endings ("Bungalow Bill," "I'm So Tired," "Don't Pass Me By," the edits on "Helter Skelter" and "Yer Blues") or beginnings ("Revolution 1"). I don't think it's really the case with the song performances themselves or the production, unless we're talking about the two throwaways that Paul did himself ("Wild Honey Pie" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road").

The production/mix on this record is quite shoddy in places, definitely.

quite quite, old bean

George Martin wasn't always around; the record's mostly self-produced.

flappy bird OTM throughout this thread.

you could take TWA apart, rearrange it, decontextualise it, critique its individual songs qua songs and argue (like Turrican) that there's nothing remarkable about it. Fact is, it exists as it does, as a first-of-its-kind genre-hopping double-album experimenting with a huge range of styles and textures following off the back of a series of increasingly idiosyncratic and musically border-pushing albums. And yes it is creepy and it is original and to people who care about the Beatles it is a great record.

I mean, Tusk has some lovely songs and Sara is beautiful and I love the riff on What Makes You Think You're The One, but it doesn't quite evoke that headlong, 'throw-it-all-at-the-wall and if it doesn't stick, keep it' rush that TWA does. It's a fairly safe-sounding record on the whole. 'That's All For Everyone' could be off The Beach Boys' 'Sunflower' album. The only time they get to being a bit daring is on the title track and it's not even the full song. Don't get me wrong, I like the songs and it is a classic but it's Rumours 'unpacked', innit?

If there's a 2018 remix of TWA (I think there will be?) it might do wonders for the clarity of sound but it might do away with the claustrophobia which I think is the source of creepy vibes that some of us are hearing on the otherwise throwaway or chirpy tracks.

There was a flurry of excitement after some comments by Giles Martin in June that suggested it was next - unfortunately he clarified that no, it's not happening. Idk I really hope he was covering his ass after spilling secrets.

Two 10/10 records, but it seems to me like anybody saying that only one of them (TWA) features some at-times-"shoddy" (or whatever) mixing has never even listened to Tusk. And certainly not on headphones. That's not a knock on Tusk, either!

George Martin wasn't always around; the record's mostly self-produced.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 30, 2017 4:07 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Indeed, and you can absolutely tell.

At least Tusk sounds like they spent a lot of money making it. The production team on that record really worked hard to make everything sound the best it possibly could, even on the Lindsey stuff.

this is like if geir became fixated on recording budgets instead of chord changes

Paul's stuff on The Beatles basically covers the same ground he would in his solo career. The token rocker, the token granny music one, the token acoustic ballad etc.

John and George's stuff is far narrower - mostly basic rock or blues with the exception of a couple of deviations from that.

lol Doc

xp

you left out token rocksteady jam

mostly basic rock or blues with the exception of a couple of deviations from that.

lol yes Revolution No. 9 just a "deviation"

"Goodnight" eh just a slight "deviation"

"Bungalow Bill" just another deviation

why am I bothering

the totally rocking blues progression of "Julia"

let's not forget poor Ringo's lone bluegrass contribution

The only flaw with Tusk is on the drums to 'Walk a Thin Line', otherwise it's impeccable. The flaws of The Beatles? Shit, where do I start?

Well yeah, 'Revolution 9' and 'Good Night' are the exceptions, but I said as much days ago.

'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill' is nothing more than a bad campfire song with rock backing. One of Lennon's worst and utterly silly.

I wasn't arguing about song quality

it just seems weird to deny the sprawling genre experiments of TWA

I'm surprised George didn't sneak an Indian one onto the record, but he went all "back to basics" as was the fashion in '68.

"The Inner Light" would've worked

If you play "Savoy Truffle" backwards, it sounds like a boss raga (iirc).

This period is basically the beginning of John wanting to do stripped down rock music, George rediscovering the guitar and Paul's solo career.

Tusk is my favourite record of all time so this isn't particularly close for me but dog latin's last post there really nails the appeal of the White Album. The sequencing really does enhance it.

The big similarity with these albums is the relation they both have to the couple of records that came before them - the sense of a loosening up, a withdrawal from something, a blurring of the edges which yeah, does sound sloppy at times but in a pleasing way. I love them both a lot but TWA just has a handful of songs I've got no time for.

they also both signal the beginning of the end - two more relatively safe records by the same lineups, and then a split

I remember when I first heard The Beatles - I actually found it quite disappointing. It felt that they'd just thrown everything on there whether it was any good or not. One of the first things I did was try and condense it down to a single LP that I felt was of the same quality as Rubber Soul or Revolver. I still think that some of the bands worst songs are on The Beatles.

Abbey Road, on the other hand, blew my mind on first listen and is still one of my favourite LP's of all time, Beatles or otherwise.

It's not that The Beatles an unsafe record, it's just patchy.

*is

is sexy sadie basic rock or blues

It's a typical Lennon song performed with piano, guitar, bass and drums. Psychedelic or avant-garde it ain't.

ah

so why is this discussion happening again

there’s one avant garde song on this record. super weird that none of the other songs are avant garde

Well observed!

i just think you’re bad at listening to and describing music

like who gives a shit if you think the white album is patchy. that’s part of its appeal for the ppl who love it

I think you're bad at reading, comprehending and drawing conclusions.

But since you asked, this discussion is happening because some folks have read far too much into The Beatles' self titled album from 1968.

I'd much rather be talking about how great Tusk is, but there you go.

As far as I'm aware, The Beatles was generally considered to be a patchy record on release. So I guess this is like Gaucho in the sense that people got it right in the first place.

The Gaucho was Paul, BTW.

-----George Martin wasn't always around; the record's mostly self-produced.

Geoff Emerick was though, the sound/roughness is all as intended.

Brad totally otm above

Not even Geoff Emerick was around all the time.

divining intent re: "sloppiness" is a fool's game

Luckily we have a fool to hand.

quite

Guys, it's 2017 and not all of you are baby boomers clinging onto the notion that things were, like, soooooo much better back in the day - it's fully acceptable to admit that not everything The Beatles did was/is great and you can call out these records for what they are instead of listening to 'em through the layers of bullshit mythology that's accumulated over the decades.

Spoken like a true Fleetwood Mac fan.

hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Aside from 'Revolution 9', 'Good Night' and 'Piggies', that's just a series of folk or rock songs.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Friday, October 27, 2017 3:20 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on dude you can say this about literally any album

tusk? that's just a series of pop songs.
a love supreme? that's just a series of jazz songs
to pimp a butterfly? that's just a series of rap songs

Well, y'know, I don't think about the break-up's and affairs when I listen to Rumours or Tusk - the music stands strong apart from all that backstory stuff, as great music should.

strong disagreement from me there

http://www.manowar-gallery.com/Gallery/Other_Recordings/Death_To_False_Metal/death_mc_II_g.jpg

esp given how willfully built around that mythology something like Rumours is, what with Stevie using her diary entries to compose lyrics etc., so much self-absorbed "confessional" crap all over the place.

I know I am in the minority as a Mac hater (see also: Bruce Willis, Michael Jackson) but I have a hard time peeling back the layers of bullshit from the Nicks-Buckingham era to get to anything interesting

xp

tusk? that's just a series of pop songs.

Hmmyeah, I don't think anyone is disputing this.

i am very open to contrarian opinions that try to undo received wisdom and canonization, unfortunately this opinion is the product of like, inattentive listening and bullshit posturing (just like the opinion about gaucho expressed pointlessly upthread and throughout several threads about that record) bc the white album is a great record, it sometimes feels like listening to three albums at once, even when i don’t like a song on it i’m drawn in by the vibe and atmosphere which yes is v shambolic that’s why it’s good

like my answer to the thread’s question is tusk bc that album is v v important to me and shaped my taste v early on but i don’t feel the need to be a huge shithead about it, telling truths about how the white album isn’t actually that good or whatever. how dumb. why listen to or think about music like that ever

'Go Your Own Way' and 'You Make Loving Fun' would still be perfect pop that is impeccably produced and well written and performed even if the lyrics to the songs were complete fantasy. It's actually quite easy to ignore the backstory and not invest in the soap opera element, which doesn't really interest me. What interests me more about that era of Fleetwood Mac is the vocal blend, Lindsey's guitar playing and the hooks.

(xxpost)

also gaucho slaps front to back, you’re wrong, log off

i am very open to contrarian opinions that try to undo received wisdom and canonization, unfortunately this opinion is the product of like, inattentive listening and bullshit posturing

...or in other words: "Wahhhhhh! I don't like what I'm reading, so I'll throw my rattle out of the pram!"

One of the benefits of being gay is I don't listen to music and hear biography. It's quite easy to listen to TUSK without the Mac mythos, thank you.

It's actually quite easy to ignore the backstory and not invest in the soap opera element, which doesn't really interest me.

EVERYBODY, EVERYBODY, IT DOESN'T INTEREST TURRICAN, LETS NOT DISCUSS IT

the vocal blend, Lindsey's guitar playing and the hooks

idk these just don't do it for me, they just feel of a piece with any number of lite/country-rock 70s bands like the Little River Band or the Doobie Brothers or the Eagles or some shit. there's a gloss and some competent harmonizing and everything's clean and smooth but I just don't give a fuck about it, much less think it's *amazing* And I've never really read any effusive praise of Mac that *didn't* go into the mythology/backstory, I feel like that's always brought in at some point - as a selling point for how emotionally impactful and "deep" the songs are, the pain and complex emotions being conveyed - and it feels like weak sauce. There's any other number of 70s classic rock dinosaurs that engage me on just a technical and performative and compositional level (Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Heart, ZZ Top, Steely Dan on and on) and the Mac don't cut it.

xp

dude listen to "albatross"

And I've never really read any effusive praise of Mac that *didn't* go into the mythology/backstory

oh give me a break, try ILX threads praising FM for starters

and if you're talking about rolling stone magazine or something, who cares

they just feel of a piece with any number of lite/country-rock 70s bands like the Little River Band or the Doobie Brothers or the Eagles or some shit.

dude seriously

turrican doesn’t read this board, he just posts here

oh lol sorry that was shakey. shakey you’re wrong

Hopper's breakdown of Rumours here goes explicitly into the autobiographical nature of each song

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17499-rumours/

xp

also i’m pretty pro little river band and the doobies

Shakey, if you don't hear what distinguishes the British blues rhythm section + and their husky-voiced emollient anchoring a pair of Californian weirdos with odd senses of harmony and one of whom had a ear for the possibilities of the studio as sharp as Eno's, then, yeah, Fleetwood Mac sound like Little River Band and Pablo Cruise.

fleetwood are definitely no zz top, lol

wait LITTLE RIVER BAND?!? oh dear

He opens the record with the libidinous "Second Hand News", inspired by the redemption Buckingham was finding in new women, post-Stevie.

... "Second Hand News" is followed by a twist-of-the-knife Stevie-showpiece, "Dreams", a gauzy ballad about what she'd had and what she'd lost with Buckingham.

... "Songbird" starts as a plaintive ode of fealty and how total her devotion-- until the sad tell of "And I wish you all the love in the world/ But most of all I wish it from myself," (an especially heart-wrenching line given that McVie's not quite ex-husband was dragging a rebound model chick to the sessions and Christine was sneaking around with a member of the crew).

... and so much more

I'm pretty smug about never once using their relationships as a key to unlock those deeply strange pop albums.

ok.. that's not why people care about those songs... they're just great songs. people aren't critics.

that certainly is one piece of writing about fleetwood mac

xxp

but why does a critic's weakness for the mythos affect your enjoyment? I don't get this conflation of biography + music, it's so bizarre to me.

bc the white album is a great record, it sometimes feels like listening to three albums at once, even when i don’t like a song on it i’m drawn in by the vibe and atmosphere which yes is v shambolic that’s why it’s good

Y'see, I don't agree that it feels like listening to three albums at once either, even if you can hear hints of their future solo work (particularly Paul's, not so much George's) ... it sounds like a Beatles record, although an at times substandard one.

I'll never be convinced that the band set out to make a shambolic record, I think it just turned out that way. I do believe that they were big headed enough to think that everything they were writing was great, so just threw it all in there, and to ensure they could get a double album out that year, rushed the recordings. I think it was as simple at that.

you're getting too imaginative

how many times have you expressed this same opinion

Perish the thought. (xp)

husky-voiced emollient

oh you think you can turn my head with yr bon mots

turrican doesn’t read this board, he just posts here

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, October 30, 2017 9:07 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Brad, if you're going to fantasise, at least go to town. Pretend you're writing about Zayn Malik and geodes again.

but why does a critic's weakness for the mythos affect your enjoyment?

I just get annoyed when people bring it up, and it happens *a lot* w the Mac. Generally (like you) I don't find conflating biography w music helpful or interesting when it comes to appreciating something

oh you think you can turn my head with yr bon mots

― Οὖτις, Monday, October 30, 2017

What do I have to do to make you love me?

xp it happens a lot with the mac if you hang out with like jann werner or something, everybody else if just like "fuck yeah the mac!"

I was in a hotel room w some friends a couple months ago and a live Fleetwood Mac thing was on TV and I actually had to listen to one of them recount the soap opera to me so yes, it happens.

Jann Wenner was not present at this gathering.

Alfred and brimstead are OTM, it's quite possible to appreciate the Buckingham/Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac without dwelling on the soap opea element. The music transcends that sort of thing, I think.

The band (at times) have been guilty of pandering to some people's grim fascination with the backstory - they shouldn't.

It's like when the Beatles wrote songs in their solo career about the Beatles - they were just knowingly adding to the mythology while pandering to those that believed in the mythology. If there ever was a band that believed their own hype.

if there were more than only five total things you thought about

Record Player: "Yes we're going to a party party! Yes we're going to a party party!"

Random Beatles Fan: *puts their hands on their head* "Arrrgh! Impending doom!"

I worry about you

not as much as carpet kaiser but still

If there ever was a band that believed their own hype.

LOLz

If only Elvis hadn't started believing his own PR.

iirc Rakim's work started to suffer as soon as he began to believe he really was the greatest rapper of all time

can't blame rakim for "rappy raccoon," though. that was eric b's fault.

listening to music is a zero sum battle. although certain songs and albums like the white album can be naively enjoyed by those who do not know how to correctly listen and feel emotions, their pleasure is ultimately empty and inauthentic and wrong. it is one poster's quest to make sure that everyone knows exactly where the lines of taste are drawn and dose the water supply with red pills of musical truth

What has always bothered me about FM was the slick production. It distracts from the fact that the songs are often musically quite poor. The "sloppy" production of the White Album on the other hand is almost its trump, the Beatles do their own thing and don't care too much about the make-up. The white album has one of the most awful, annoying songs of the universe on it, I am talking of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and it also has Julia the greatest and most tender love song in pop music. And Helter Skelter, afaik the first hard-rock song. The scope of the white album is so amazingly huge, whereas Tusk just has some glossy quite similar boring mostly MOR songs on it. It hardly ever touches me. I would save one song from it, Sara which is sublime. I must admit that I only have listened once to Tusk but I don't need to listen again. I grew up in the 70s and I had my fair dose of over-produced FM. The white album

What has always bothered me about FM was the slick production. It distracts from the fact that the songs are often musically quite poor.

you aren't serious, are you?

and how are "Save Me a Place," "That's All For Everyone," "Not That Funny," "Think About Me," and "Sisters of the Moon" MOR? They sound like Kenny Rogers and Air Supply?

Helter Skelter, afaik the first hard-rock song

no

Hold fire on that till Turrican confirms whether it is or not.

I maintain that the sloppiness basically amounts to the handful of beginnings and endings I mentioned, the weird edits on "Helter Skelter" and "Yer Blues" and the two McCartney throwaways. Take any other songs/moments from the record and they are comparable to other '68-era Beatle recordings ("Lady Madonna," "The Inner Light," "Hey Bulldog," "Across the Universe," "Hey Jude") and could have been a part of an album where *intentional sloppiness* never came into the discussion.

Add "Revolution 9" to the mix as well, particularly the weird edits of HS and YB.

turrican has accomplished his mission, shakey played right into his hands, thread has become a complete free-fire zone and no shambolic half-finished boomer double-album is safe

also i know I've made multiple turrican-geir comparisons in the last year or so, but seriously it is starting to feel like some kind of megatron:galvatron or cypher:douglock thing, not the same personality by any means, and yet...

like man i'm interested in people who have other opinions on the beatles believe me, but just repeating the same things with this tone of objective truth being delivered, and being utterly dismissive at a playground-mockery level of people sincerely trying to articulate their love of something... like what is even the point?

Not in the same league as Geir. Not even remotely.

lmao great timing from alex in manhattan, comin in like an aftershock

I just wish there wasn't such a dearth of strident opinions in this thread, not enough people "telling it like it is" imo

https://s1.postimg.org/475v8d4v1b/turrican.jpg

would rather listen to Tusk at almost any conceivable moment, but white album is good i guess

While Joan Didion makes some good points, she's no match for the comedy-horror stylings of Kevin Smith.

re: enjoying Fleetwood Mac w/o knowing any of the mythology- I heard Rumours for the first time in late 2012. my parents hated FM and never exposed them to me or gave me their records (unlike the Beatles, Dylan, Stones, Joni, Prince, Nina, etc etc etc...). I fell in love with the songs. I thought "Go Your Own Way" was a song about 'being yourself'! And it ruled! Of course I had heard many of these songs in the wild through my life, Rumours is impossible to avoid completely, but I had no idea that the songs on Rumours were responding to each other or whatever. Same goes for Tusk, which I got around the same time. But that's just my opinion, I dug the songs, Shakey & many others didn't. which is great. art is beautiful & there is no objective truth to any of this

flappy otm. ime lots of the hipster millennial FM fans powering their critical revival dont know jack shit about who was on cocaine during the recording of what album or who fucked each other. honestly i've read about it but i don't even really remember, it just didn't matter to me cuz i think of them as just, like, a band with a whole bunch of great songs. my ex didn't even know stevie and mcvie were 2 different ppl when we first met, yet would also sing their songs at karaoke or put it on the jukebox at the bar

seriously it is starting to feel like some kind of megatron:galvatron or cypher:douglock thing, not the same personality by any means, and yet...

Even when focusing strictly on Galvatron's most well-known incarnation — the G1 animated series — there has been considerable debate through the years. Some fans believe Galvatron is a psychologically distinct and discontinuous entity from Megatron, almost, or equally, as much as Scourge and Cyclonus, who demonstrate no continuity of memory or personality with their former Decepticon selves. This remains a topic of heated debate in some circles, in spite of a fairly unambiguous canon.

In the Generation 1 cartoon continuity, Galvatron evidently still self-identifies as being the same person as Megatron, albeit with greater power and a new name. Although not seen to be making a point of revealing this former identity to his troops at large, Galvatron makes his sense of self clear when Starscream asks "Megatron? Is that you?" to which he replies, "Here's a hint", before obliterating him.[1] Later in The Transformers: The Movie when Galvatron is poised to crush Hot Rod's neck, he boasts: "First Prime, then Ultra Magnus, and now you. It's a pity you Autobots die so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now." Again, Galvatron is obviously speaking with no sense of discontinuity of identity or personality as he refers to past and current acts as both Megatron and Galvatron without qualification or distinction. Some might contrast this statement with his earlier line, "I, Galvatron, shall crush you, just as Megatron crushed Prime", interpreting that such a statement implies a disconnect from his former life.

tbf i may have also been thinking of the Eradicator's role in the "reign of the superman" crossover

hey it's okay -- the overlap between Galvatron and Megatron obsessed me as an adolescent

I don't remember Scourge/Cyclonus demonstrating any character traits, tbh

Some beautiful thoughts re white album here. Since my 12-year-old post, I've not only heard but own Tusk. It will never come close to displacing the white album for me, though, and tbh, I never listened to it as much as s/t or Rumours. Really enjoyed a lot of those songs live, though.

i don't think i've listened to this album since i was 16. it was never my favourite of their albums

Back in the USSR - passable musical comedy

Dear Prudence - insanely good, kind of revelatory as i remember this one being more of a pleading

Glass Onion - possibly the worst John song ever?

Ob-La-Di - childrens music

Wild Honey Pie - this is the kind of shit that makes it onto a double album

Bungalow Bill - execrable, smug musical comedy

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - would be good if it built up to a full doobie bros blue-eyed disco stomper, not feeling the horny guitar solo dirge; i don't know hooooow is the only redeemable moment but fuck some of those lyrics rhyming 'perverted/inverted/averted' stfu dude

Happiness Is A Warm Gun - scared to listen to this because i used to LOVE and--*sigh* yeah i p much hate this now. have we polled the sections of it?

Martha My Dear - always liked Paul's genre pop nerdery, but this fails quite badly as a piece of music anyone would ever want to listen to, despite some clever ideas in the arrangement

I'm So Tired - this one i used to adore; i've always loved the hypnagogic state, sleeping in, sleeping, sunday mornings, late night snacks, really everything about and around sleep. one time around the end of my beatles phase my best friend friend and i took a 50 hour busride to texas and his mother gave him some prescription sleeping pills; we took them during an overnight stretch and kept each other awake for as long as we could, listening to music and speaking in slurred, woke up in each others' arms with a busdriver ushering us off at a transfer 2 states over and 14 hours later. the song holds up for the most part

Blackbird - a beautiful, clever, perfect composition that i would pay to never hear again before i die

Piggies - more children's music. why did they make so much of this shit

Rocky Raccoon - this one's ok; the production on this is really sloppy sixties in an awful way

Don't Pass Me By - lol this is a ringo song, right? actually one of the better songs on here. who the fuck is playing that godawful fiddle tho. really in general the band on the whole album sound like shit

Why Don't We Do It In The Road - this is the kind of thing that makes it onto a double album

I Will - don't remember this one. forgettable

Julia - pretty great song; one of the only songs on here that is kind enough you feel it may have been written for an actual person

so side one is hot garbage, i'm afraid. so much here is so smug and too-clever and messy-fussy in an awful way people must have thought was 'artsy' in the late sixties but is so clearly just lazy megalomaniac arrogant males making bad jokes in the studio

Why Don't We Do It In The Road - this is the kind of thing that makes it onto a double album

otm, i hate this song, only because Paul didn't give it to John to sing (in retaliation for John doing Revolution 9 when Paul was on vacation). Paul doing it sounds silly, but i can imagine John fucking screaming this one and making it good

Birthday - more musical comedy

Yer Blues - i mean, john's voice is great, but there's really not much here because the band isn't quite up for it

Mother Nature's Son - this is ok; paul's take on Paul Simon, i suppose? would be tenth percentile in Simon's catalogue

Me And My Monkey - just bad

Sexy Sadie - lol this one i actually kinda like. another great showcase for John' voice (the best instrument in the group) also shameless horniness in song goes a long way, for me

Helter Skelter - the concept of Paul having the hardest rock song where he goes all out and shreds his vocal chords is hilarious but, i mean, he totally did it, right? the build-release is fantastic. you gotta give it up for this song, imo. i used to be able to make myself cry laughing at this moment from the U2 battle and hum cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hTBVDx7QQ&feature=youtu.be&t=10s

Long Long Long - this one is like, ok someone finally gave them some good drugs lol

Revolution 1 - can't bring myself to knock this chorus (i will say the 'shoobie-doo-wops' don't ring sincere and imo they should) but the arrangement drags to a halt on the verses

Honey Pie - prob best slice of Paul genre pop on the album, and it's a good lead vocal but the arrangement just kind of dithers; something that sloppy would never make it onto a decent ragtime or concert hall 78

Savoy Truffle - holy shit this sucks lol; lyrics would be great self parody of John's loungey psychedelia but i feel like they are not so self aware

Cry Baby Cry - was going to write something about the sloppy accordion that is just audible in the first few bars of this but this is a great song. John is at his best when writing things that sound like they should be underwritten yet just aren't. some choice harmonies. ending is lazy as shit

Revolution 9 - LOL

Good Night - feels insincere, but well done

so this side was better but still, lots of straight awful songs and overall the rebellious sloppiness and kitchen sink arrangements didn't age well

i disagree with a lot of that but i loved reading it all the same. i agree with "Blackbird - a beautiful, clever, perfect composition that i would pay to never hear again before i die" so so much.

my white album top hits:

long long long
i'm so tired
cry baby cry
everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey
dear prudence
mother nature's son

me and my monkey gets so much hate, idk why, it's a better yer blues

i can accept disagree on the particulars track by track, but everyone MUST agree Tusk is the superior album. i mean,

wow some real hot white album takes itt

flopson otm about the strengths of “sexy sadie” and “i’m so tired” though, they’re my two favorites

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55fee672e4b033763a57ccae/t/58f3afb86b8f5b4f71b1c1f9/1492365257983/

^me putting on Tusk after slogging through White Album to dig up some challops to entertain me ilxor chums

“children’s music”

i'm not gonna do this for Tusk but i mean 3 songs in and already: 'Over and Over' is better than any song on the White Album; 'Ledge' is better than any of the goofy WA outtakes; no truer more perfectly distilled sentiment than 'i don't hold you down, but MAYBE THAT'S WHY YOU'RE AROOOOUND' so so so no contest, for me. also no clue what 'spookiness' you guys are talking about; i heard a grinning smarminess that evinced an ennui with pop, mostly loveless flapping about a studio with more budget than brains. No spooky. i mean, Tusk is an album you can fall in love to

WA is my favorite album of all time
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, October 27, 2017 9:08 AM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*feels vindicated*

“children’s music” is interesting to me because i think a lot of people on this board like stuff that i think is too childish for me and i wonder where people draw the line.

like what makes this stuff children’s music and lil peep not

ya i f/w a lot of juvenilia but i meant like, pre-K; when i listen to obladi or piggies i imagine like, 4 year olds clapping

Fleetwood Mac adult af

but what’s the criteria that makes one ok but the other not? what’s the line that gets crossed when you become a toddler that unlocks Fleetwood Mac?

on another note i would rather dress like a toddler than a teenager tbh

infants and kids actually have way better taste in music than teenagers (by far the worst demographic) but Children's Music is music made by adults trying to reverse engineer what kids like is with few exceptions extremely bad

ok, i think that’s a more interesting angle to argue from, that there’s something wrong with the intention or method of the songwriter

I love Ob La Di Ob La Da, but I understand the hate for it. fwiw was never exposed it thru to constant radioplay. catchy as fuck and really well arranged and produced

i can see how that applies to like, singing born again vegetables but do you really think the intended audience for the white album is children?

xp

i thought on ilm being catchy was not a bad thing?

just a cheap zing on 2 songs mate, rest of the album sucks in different ways. Ob La Di isn't even the worst song on there but i would still never put it on; Piggies and Rocky Raccoon it's more the lyrical content than the music

fair enough

it bears repeating that a big part of the uneasiness and uncanniness of TWA is the sequencing. it's emotional/narrative whiplash w/e i'll do Side 1:

Back in the USSR: satirical high energy rock fakeout
Dear Prudence: beautiful song soaring in the clouds, easy to categorize
Glass Onion: minor key meta-textual dissonant rocker, a beguiling song to put before
Ob La Di Ob La Da: a parody of a single, so catchy most people hate it
Wild Honey Pie: weird spidery studio experiment, a good transition into
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: what a death march of a song, sinister lyrics & a trudging pace
While My Guitar Gently Weeps: another 'real song,' no conceit or pose or genre exercise, ends with an incredible guitar solo
Happiness is a Warm Gun: manages to combine all the elements the songs that precede it- collage aspect, humorous/'clever' lyrics, ominous chords, then earnest emotion & passion at the end

good post

otm, i hate this song, only because Paul didn't give it to John to sing (in retaliation for John doing Revolution 9 when Paul was on vacation). Paul doing it sounds silly, but i can imagine John fucking screaming this one and making it good

― flappy bird, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 4:39 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Again, this is backstory getting in the way of the actual reason the song isn't very good, which is that it's a tossed-off 12 bar that has no real reason to exist, and given what the man is capable of, it's not good enough.

me and my monkey gets so much hate, idk why, it's a better yer blues

Heh, I always thought of it as a superior 'Birthday'

Again, this is backstory getting in the way of the actual reason the song isn't very good, which is that it's a tossed-off 12 bar that has no real reason to exist, and given what the man is capable of, it's not good enough.

Backstory has no bearing on my opinion that the song would've sounded better if John sang it. and i like the song, but Paul's delivery is bad & doesn't suit the song- in my opinion

Helter Skelter, afaik the first hard-rock song

no

― Karl Malone, Monday, October 30, 2017 10:37 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hold fire on that till Turrican confirms whether it is or not.

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Monday, October 30, 2017 10:41 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, but the mistake that people truly make when talking about 'Helter Skelter' is pretending it's in any way top tier Beatles as a song.

It's up there with bringing up Geir out of desperation when you've got nothing left to say.

Flappy, of course it does - you even mentioned it yourself.

I really struggle to see how anyone can describe 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill' as a "death march" ... Firstly, it's not a "march", and secondly, it's (as said before) basically a bad campfire song.

I always liked the song & thought John would've done a better job singing it. The backstory, which i found out years later, merely confirmed my thought.

I'd believe you if you were talking about 'Oh! Darling', but I find it really difficult to believe you've made so much fuss over the vocal on a minute and a half throwaway 12 bar on a double LP.

is it that hard to imagine opinions other than your own

It's hard to imagine you having a Beatles-related opinion that isn't coloured by backstory/biography/mythology, yes.

Flopson OTM about 'Good Night' feeling weirdly insincere, also OTM about 'Blackbird' which is one of the songs on The Beatles that is a legit great song, but one which I could happily never hear again.

also no clue what 'spookiness' you guys are talking about; i heard a grinning smarminess that evinced an ennui with pop, mostly loveless flapping about a studio with more budget than brains. No spooky.

YES! This is so on the money that using the abbrieviation seems inappropriate.

I think that detached irony is part of why I like it: a bit like the Beatles playing Zappa or something? Ennui is a pretty justifiable response to pop imo.

"Sexy Sadie" and "Happiness" are the album's best rockers for me, but then again I don't hear the spookiness that y'all do.

uh sorry I mean "Savoy Truffle," not "Sexy Sadie"

Yeah, those are two of my favourites.

"White Album" gets referenced in all sorts of fun places. I can't hear "Oh Darling" without thinking of the Replacements, or "Sexy Sadie" without thinking of "Karma Police."

the fun place that is "Karma Police"

The stuff that flopson calls 'bad musical comedy' mostly does seem funny or clever to me and the 'children's music' stuff mostly feels enjoyably silly or manic.

"Oh Darling" is on Abbey Road iirc, which I'm thankful for, because I never liked it.

lol ok "desperation" - so where should i file your "random beatles fan" pantomimes of other posters' opinions then? like does it really surprise you that i would come to the conclusion that you're not participating in this conversation in good faith?

File 'em under "unlikely scenarios", if you must file 'em anywhere.

I remember when I first heard The Beatles - I actually found it quite disappointing. It felt that they'd just thrown everything on there whether it was any good or not. One of the first things I did was try and condense it down to a single LP that I felt was of the same quality as Rubber Soul or Revolver. I still think that some of the bands worst songs are on The Beatles.

Whenever anyone tries to do this, I feel like they're missing the point. They take out all the fun, ridiculous songs like Bungalow Bill and Piggies, and keep all the proper rock songs like Back In The USSR. It's like trying to put a tether on the album, when half the reason to listen to it is the feeling of never really knowing where it's going to go next. If anything TWA is the truest representation of the psychedelic experience - it's vivid, messy, emotionally all over the place, wondrous, creepy, nostalgic, hilarious and most of all unpredictable.

As a teenager first getting into the Beatles it was these dafter songs that appealed to me the most. Bungalow Bill is more than a 'campfire song with rock backing'. For a start it's about as far from rock music as the Beatles had come thus far. The chorus is happy-clappy, deliberately so, but you'd have trouble getting boy scouts to sing along to the verses. It's more like a fried, dream-logic Disney song but with grotesque Tex Avery characters playing the individual characters. I love it for the same reason I love the Beach Boys' 'Smiley Smile'. I'd take it over many of the straighter songs on TWA, but then I wouldn't change TWA because to do so would be to alter the strange whimsy and character of that album as a whole.

CD Player: "Well, somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccooooooon-ah!"

Random Beatles Fan: "Fuck, man!" *bead of sweat drips off their forehead as they shut themselves in their wardrobe*

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Sunday, October 29, 2017 6:23 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL @ CD Player. Yeah that song ends in a gruesome death. For a pastiche, it has a high amount of peril and melancholy. 'I'll be better Doc, as soon as I am able'. Again though, the creepiness of TWA is felt in its flow, not necessarily in one specific song or line. Turrican, you're reminding me of that Peep Show scene where Jeremy rifles through the first book he sees in the university professor's library, reads one line and asks 'And that's meant to be good is it?'

I'd say that Glass Onion is definitely creepy in that it refers back to the Beatles' own Walrus-mythos, like a flashback to a weird nightmare you thought you'd put out of mind.
But so many songs paint pictures that are incomplete. Who is this Rocky Racoon? This Bungalow Bill? Do they know each other? Are they cartoons? Are they violent killers? These Piggies who are eating with forks and knifes - it's not made explicit but they're eating people, right? And what's happening in Cry Baby Cry? Who are these baroque people singing songs of sixpence and slaughtering blackbirds to put in pies? These songs are superficially frivolous but there's a dark undertone to all of them. Number 9, number 9. 'Wild Honey Pie' - a bunch of braying animals trying to emulate a rock song. And what's the relationship between Wild Honey Pie and Honey Pie?

TWA is quaint and creepy, perhaps because it seals the Beatles myth. It at-once self-references and expands the universe created on MMT, Yellow Sub and Peppers, but shows it in a more fracture way, like examining this colourful world through a snowglobe or a glass onion.

i wonder if different masterings affect how one receives this album. so much of what i like in it is atmosphere and vibe and i could see that being really vulnerable to a too-bright or too-punchy sound. would bring out the "kid" thing overmuch potentially. like "cry baby cry" is one of the key points in my spooky/creepy take on this record, those haunted-house piano lines banging down the stairs in between these dead-eyed doll children acting out century-old games in slow motion while miss havisham's cake rots under cobwebs in the corner. but if i'd first heard it on those awful 80s CDs it's possible i'd just hear it as some cutesy pastiche of the wondrous imaginations of children or something... like the lesser end of the elephant 6 version of this material. but my mom's vinyl copy, that's got the vibe.

if TWA is a film, it's Monty Python's Meaning Of Life, a sprawling rollercoaster of sketchy vignettes permeated by an undertone of disgust and violence

This album is exactly like a glass onion in the sense that I can see straight through it. There's nothing in there, which essentially is what the song itself seems to be about.

Whenever anyone tries to do this, I feel like they're missing the point. They take out all the fun, ridiculous songs like Bungalow Bill and Piggies, and keep all the proper rock songs like Back In The USSR. It's like trying to put a tether on the album, when half the reason to listen to it is the feeling of never really knowing where it's going to go next.

You mean that they take out the patchier, written-in-a-cigarette-break stuff and leave in the genuinely great stuff, which is an approach that makes complete sense. I think at this stage I've heard the LP enough times to know exactly where it's going to go, so fortunately I know when to have my finger ready on the skip button, or to lift the stylus.

I've always enjoyed the dark undertones of 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', though, if we're continuing to talk about things that aren't there.

There's a bit in 'Sexy Sadie' during the outro where the piano goes slightly out of tune and I just think to myself "fucking hell, you couldn't be arsed to get someone to tune the thing!?"

Also, there's quite a fair bit of material on The Beatles that needed a bit more work, if not cutting altogether. Nowhere is this more clear than on 'Dear Prudence', where it was Siouxsie and the Banshees that hit upon the definitive version.

i wonder if different masterings affect how one receives this album.

i have a half-baked tin foil hat theory about this, w/r/t a lot of old music that gets "remastered"

Turrican is right that "Bungalow Bill" is a load of pony. As is much of this album. At least it's interesting though, I mean, people rave about "Abbey Road" and that's got some real garbage on it. By the way, the piano is out of tune all the way through the Beach Boys' "Wild Honey" and it sounds great.

I love the pencil sketches on this album as much as the technicolor of Sgt. Pepper, etc. Just the sound/timbre of their voices, the personality in their singing, the distinctive drum fills, bass lines, etc., apart from how accomplished or not the songs are as compositions. The pleasure of listening to this particular group of musicians. Obviously that won't appeal to everyone.

i get the same kind of pleasure from Let It Be/Get Back, i know what you mean

fyi looking through a glass onion would actually be difficult and bizarre because each unpeeled layer of glass would introduce further refraction and scattering of the light. so yes i agree it is a good summation of the album.

that is a much better reply to the glass onion comment than the one that i came up with

Also, there's quite a fair bit of material on The Beatles that needed a bit more work, if not cutting altogether. Nowhere is this more clear than on 'Dear Prudence', where it was Siouxsie and the Banshees that hit upon the definitive version.

I like some of the Banshees' stuff OK but this is a truly incredible comment!

making incredible comments is easy if you try

It's hard to imagine you having a Beatles-related opinion that isn't coloured by backstory/biography/mythology, yes.

fyi looking through a glass onion would actually be difficult and bizarre because each unpeeled layer of glass would introduce further refraction and scattering of the light. so yes i agree it is a good summation of the album.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 8:04 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

haha I had the same thought

i always pictured a lighthouse fresnel lens

i have some original thoughts about the white album which were published in the NYT back in 1968:

The Beatles' album is nothing. It's titled simply The Beatles (S W B O 101), it comes in a plain white cover and it covers 30 songs lasting for almost 90 minutes. It ranges wide, from classic rock through country and Western through avant-garde electronics to mock 1930, from the city blues through schmaltz through English music-hall and back to mainline pop again. It is, by turns, solemn and facetious, despairing and camp, maudlin and uproarious. Quite obviously, it's been put together with endless care and tenderness and, finally, it's boring almost beyond belief.

What's gone wrong basically, the trouble is, simply that rather more than half the songs are profound mediocrities. They're not new, the lyrics aren't sharp, they're not even felt. Mostly, they're rehashes of stuff that the Beatles have already done much better elsewhere. This album is exactly like a glass onion in the sense that I can see straight through it.

Even worse, faced by such deadwood, the Beatles haven't played it open but have covered up with a tortuous network of cross-references, in-jokes, pastiches and throwaways, a dreadful sniggering at their own sources. And, as they said they would, they've returned to their roots in fifties' rock but they haven't gone back hard, they don't mash out anything really loose and raucous. Instead, they hide behind send-up: the middle eight of "Back in the U.S.S.R.," for instance, is pure surf-age Beach Boys but it's all half-hearted and limp; the Beach Boys themselves did it ten times better.

In this way, scattered through the album, there is mock-cowboy ("Rocky Racoon"), mock-West Indies ("Ob-La-Di, Ob-La_da"), mock-blues ("Yer Blues"), mock-Muzak ("Goodnight"), even mock-Beatles ("Glass Onion") and none of it works, it all loses out to the originals it all sounds stale.

What survives in all this? Not very much: "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" is cheerful homicide, with an instantly hummable melody and some good Lennonesque lyrics ("Hey, Bungalow Bill, what did you kill, Bungalow Bill?"). "Don't Pass Me By," Ringo Starr's first published composition, is the Beatles five years back, straight ahead and clumsy and greatly enjoyable, backed by a beautiful hurdy-gurdy organ and made perfect by Ringo's own vocal, sleepwalking as ever. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" is a fragment, a nice one; "Revolution," taken much slower here than on the single, has excruciatingly smug words but remains a brilliant melody line. "Helter Skelter" is solid hardrock, the very first hardrock song ever actually, and "I'm So Tired" harks back to "I'm Only Sleeping," not nearly as good as that but not bad either. For the rest, it's dross almost all the way. The only track that I've found myself actually playing for pleasure has been "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," which is obviously mostly by John Lennon and which stands in roughly the same tradition as "A Day in the Life" and "I Am the Walrus."

As usual, "Happiness" includes more than its share of half-baked poeticisms ("she's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane") but, toward its climax, it breaks into a marvelous parody of high school rock in the mid-fifties, of groups like the Diamonds and the Monotones, and Lennon keeps repeating the title phrase, "Happiness is a warm gun," and the Beatles sing "bang bang--shoot shoot" in back of him. Just this once, the take-off has edge, it's not pure self-indulgence.

About the album as a whole, I still think it's bad but I don't think it matters much--The Beatles are going through a bad patch right now and their ego trip it out but they're too restless, to self-critical and too clever to stay like that. Next time around, no doubt, they'll make it good again.

This album is exactly like a glass onion in the sense that I can see straight through it.

uncanny

i couldn't resist adding it in

i'm always surprised by the lack of attention that "long, long, long" gets. even in Nik Cohn's 1968 review which takes the time to criticize just about every song, it only merits a half-diss by getting lumped in with the "dross almost all the way". it has always struck me an other-worldly song, a very odd composition that is still very easy to hum along to, with one of the best cathartic releases on the album ("so many tears i was searching, so many tears i was wasting"). it also sounds contemporary, or rather, it just sounds timeless (except for the backward sound crescendo at the end which used to ruin it for mixCDs unless you edited the ending out)

I heard it playing in a record shop years ago and thought it was Pink Floyd.

fyi looking through a glass onion would actually be difficult and bizarre because each unpeeled layer of glass would introduce further refraction and scattering of the light. so yes i agree it is a good summation of the album.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 3:04 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What you've described is not what the album sounds like, but okay Sheldon.

The closest any Beatle came to sounding like Pink Floyd was McCartney on 'Loup' from Red Rose Speedway, particularly the part where it drops down to the organ and the ascending bassline.

lol okay I am glad you have finally arrived in my life to tell me what an album I have been enjoying for twenty years objectively "sounds like"

Nik Cohn otm

"okay Sheldon"

I'm gonna have to find that Nik Cohn review...

glass onions are usually translucent but not transparent btw

oh i now see that other sheldons have covered that.

Guys, it's 2017 and not all of you are baby boomers clinging onto the notion that things were, like, soooooo much better back in the day - it's fully acceptable to admit that not everything The Beatles did was/is great and you can call out these records for what they are instead of listening to 'em through the layers of bullshit mythology that's accumulated over the decades.

Can I just say - I'm not a baby boomer (born in 1997) and while listening to Sgt Pepper/The White Album/Abbey Road it was The White Album that was by far the most captivating listen - Sgt Pepper felt overegged and Abbey Road was just a dirge.

I'm gonna have to find that Nik Cohn review...

Take as long as you like. Even if it takes a year or two.

xxpost:

If you were born in 1997, that means you probably started to pay attention to music around the end of last decade/beginning of this one. The Beatles has, unfortunately influenced a lot of shit indie so it figures.

If you were born in 1997, that means you probably started to pay attention to music around the end of last decade/beginning of this one. The Beatles has, unfortunately influenced a lot of shit indie so it figures.

Nope, started paying attention when I was 5/6. Fair play for standing by your intial points, though.

Well said, Sheldon Jr.

turrican you make such wild & blind assumptions about people you don't know at all beyond a username and a birth year

more like Turrican-you-not

"profound mediocrities"? "boring beyond belief" ... seems like Nik Cohn had a point.

Also:

Sgt Pepper felt overegged

It is!

Abbey Road was just a dirge

It isn't! (There's about as much resemblance to a "dirge" as 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill' has to a "march")

What has always bothered me about FM was the slick production. It distracts from the fact that the songs are often musically quite poor.

i'm still wrapping my head around this one

Flappy bird, I don't need to know you on a personal level to reach the various conclusions I have.

i hate it when i am distracted from music's quality by good production

The beatles

https://i1.wp.com/gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/leaving-now-grandpa-simpsons.gif?ssl=1

Sure, there are a couple of moments on Tusk that you could point to and say that the songs are more production exercises - 'That's All For Everyone', 'Brown Eyes' etc. but one of the big reasons why that incarnation of the Mac were so successful was the songwriting. If the songwriting hadn't been strong, they probably would have been as successful as the Welch era Mac.

Flappy bird, I don't need to know you on a personal level to reach the various conclusions I have.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Tuesday, October 31, 2017 2:45 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks professor

The self-titled album from 1975 was successful long before all the soap opera crap, and was far more successful than a lot of the Welch era albums.

http://lovebeingretired.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Thoughtful-Gnome.jpg

Guys

Music isn't that interesting

It is but not right at this moment.

The beatles

― Gary Synaesthesia (darraghmac), Tuesday, October 31, 2017 11:45 AM (four hours ago)

Great post. Reminds me of the Aram Saroyan book:

http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/BEATLES/html/contents.html

Turrican give me the time on the alleged bum piano notes on "Sexy Sadie."

I might have to plunk down one of these days for one of the mono White Album reissues you still see around. Was listening the other night and wondering what "Glass Onion" sounds like in mono with that cool bass part.

it's worth hearing if you like TWA, but I can't think of a single song that sounds better in mono vs. stereo on there. TWA was the first album they made in stereo (blah blah blah), and they were new to it, so the mixing sounds rough, almost amateurish, especially the hard panning on almost every song. it's another thing that adds the record's weird/shambling/chaotic feeling.

Cool bit though: pan your stereo all the way to the left on Happiness is a Warm Gun, and all you hear are the harmonies and bass, I think. A glorious sound

i have love for all ilx posters mostly but turrican's posts on this thread are bad

he doesn't find this album creepy? wtf

That's fair enough, he's welcome to his opinion, the problem is he doesn't seem to think anyone else is welcome to theirs.

i have love for all ilx posters mostly but turrican's posts on this thread are bad

― Treeship, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 8:08 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he doesn't find this album creepy? wtf

― Treeship, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 8:09 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

neither do i or alfred

i think that's crazy. the nursery rhyme songs are ominous as fuck.

I don't find it creepy either, but who cares anyway?

Great post. Reminds me of the Aram Saroyan book:

http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/BEATLES/html/contents.html

― timellison, Tuesday, 31 October 2017 23:47 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks Tim

I dunno if you spotted it but I typed in in ed sullivans staccato style

Nursery rhymes aren't always creepy.

The creepiest thing is the tunelet on side three or four sung by McCartney ("Can You Take Me Back?" or whatever).

The mono version has loads of notable differences - the outro to 'Helter Skelter' which cuts off the end of the song, a different ending to 'Don't Pass Me By' etc.

Turrican is a mean dude; not sure why people give a fuck

i liked it when he called people 'Sheldon'

The creepiest thing is the tunelet on side three or four sung by McCartney ("Can You Take Me Back?" or whatever).

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 1, 2017 12:41 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The very end to 'Long, Long, Long' I'd say, but in either case we're talking a few seconds of a double LP that lasts over an hour and a half.

Ah so now you're saying it IS creepy!?

A few seconds of a double LP that lasts over an hour and a half =/= the whole album. I also said this, like, a zillion posts ago.

Secondly, something about lousy comprehension abilities.

The mono version has loads of notable differences - the outro to 'Helter Skelter' which cuts off the end of the song, a different ending to 'Don't Pass Me By' etc.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Wednesday, November 1, 2017 2:56 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's true, there are lots of differences (one song is pitched up a semitone, a la "She's Leaving Home"), I was just saying I don't think any of the songs sound better in mono.

A few seconds of a double LP that lasts over an hour and a half =/= the whole album. I also said this, like, a zillion posts ago.

Secondly, something about lousy comprehension abilities.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Wednesday, November 1, 2017 2:54 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh this is gold

Yes, it's absolute gold that you're not good at either maths or reading.

that's true, there are lots of differences (one song is pitched up a semitone, a la "She's Leaving Home"), I was just saying I don't think any of the songs sound better in mono.

― flappy bird, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 4:54 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it might be 'Don't Pass Me By' that's actually the one that's pitched up - there's also different blackbird noises on 'Blackbird' and some other things here and there that I've possibly forgotten about... it's been a while since I've heard the mono version!

But yeah, generally everything up to 1968 sounds better in mono and almost everything after in stereo. There's exceptions: I prefer the mono Ogden's Nut Gone Flake to the stereo, for one.

I don't think there was a mono edition of Abbey Road unless it was just some shit fold-down.

I think....I'm coming around to Turrican tbh. At least it's a style.

oh stop, you're coming around to him because he irritates teh music nerds

Absolutely

There's no wrong way to be right

gary must be really fucking bored with ilx/ilm

Aw, look at Ross trying to be provocative.

Anyway, ignoring that (a.k.a. "insert stock response here") - this thread actually got me to have a listen to The Beatles again, and while I still don't think it's anywhere near creepy, I found enough to enjoy amongst the lesser tracks.

So, let's focus on the good stuff, then: 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' and 'Sexy Sadie' are both wonderful, and 'Birthday' may be a generic rocker, but it fucking rawks.

Actually:

Search: all of side 1 (except 'Glass Onion', 'Wild Honey Pie' and 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill') and all of side 3, plus the version of 'Revolution' released as a B-side.

Destroy: all of side 2 (except 'I'm So Tired', 'Blackbird', 'I Will' and 'Julia', which can replace 'Revolution' on the B-side of 'Hey Jude') and all of side 4 (except 'Savoy Truffle')

Side four of The Beatles is the weakest side of vinyl the band ever put out.

You would destroy 'Cry Baby Cry' (and 'Revolution 9', no less, the eye-of-the-duck of the album)?

I tried listening to this album yesterday and it just flew right past me. I must have listened to it so much as a younger person it no longer registers

plus the version of 'Revolution' released as a B-side.

That's not on the album?

Side four of The Beatles is the weakest side of vinyl the band ever put out.

Off-the-top-of-my head nominations for that title:

Side 2 of Help
Side 2 of With the Beatles
Either side of Let It Be

Sexy Sadie is filler

'Cry Baby Cry' sounds like a bit of a potboiler/"work song"/song that was forced out.

Ooh, side 2 of Help! has some stinkers on it, but also about 3-4 great songs. One of 'em being one of the most covered songs of all time.

a lot of these white album tunes have slower, sparser alternate versions on anthology 3 that i like way better:

sexy sadie
helter skelter, this one especially, apparently the one on anthology 3 is an edit of a much longer slow-burning jam that i'd love to hear
cry baby cry
while my guitar gently weeps, acoustic version is haunting and doesn't deal with all the clapton bullshit

when i first got into the beatles i was 13 and the anthology series were coming out, so i heard all these versions before i ever heard the white album

'Cry Baby Cry' sounds like a bit of a potboiler/"work song"/song that was forced out.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican),

that's what Lennon said

Always thought of it as a highlight myself.

Then again my tolerance for the Beatles' nursery rhyme songs and errant studio experiments is much higher than most

Cry Baby Cry and Sexy Sadie are both highlights for me. The former is one of the few songs that took a while to become a favourite (this thread has made me realise that my opinions on nearly all of the tracks haven't really changed since I first heard the album 17 years ago).

I can imagine kids in the '70s and '80s learning to play guitar listening to "Cry Baby Cry"

Kids called Sheldon.

Bombshell, my real surname isn't even synaesthesia

finally dmac outs himself as a russian agent

lovin anthology 3 sexy sadie, thx marcos

cool!

there's lots of good stuff on anthology 3 (also some strange omissions) but it's crazy how much of it has this draggy and drained vibe, they were really sick of being the fucking Beatles towards the end of '68 an don.

Or on heroin.

well that was just one of them, no?

Ringo.

Octopus' Garden = shooting gallery (8 arms = all four Beatles)

"You said that you would be late
About an hour or two
I said that's alright I'm waiting here
Just waiting to hear from you"

... obviously The Man is being referenced here.

there's lots of good stuff on anthology 3 (also some strange omissions) but it's crazy how much of it has this draggy and drained vibe, they were really sick of being the fucking Beatles towards the end of '68 an don.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, November 2, 2017 5:20 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah - draggy, drained and bored is pretty much the vibe I get from The Beatles and Let It Be period - the excitement of the likes of 'It Won't Be Long' is near-absent. I'm surprised Abbey Road turned out so well, tbh.

that being said the hungover vibe has its own strange appeal imo. TWA benefits from them still having some interest in studio experimentation as well imo.

y'all heard the Esher Demos right? a lot of those were cleaned up and put on Anthology 3, but I prefer the lo-fi sound of the bootleg, double-tracked vocals and guitar gloriously riding in and out of phase... 'Junk' in particular is beautiful...

Tusk Vs The Orange Album

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Beatles-White-Album-ORANGE-COVER-USA-APPLE-Embossed-Numbered-INSANELY-UBER-RARE/182841679894?_trkparms=aid%3D777001%26algo%3DDISCO.FEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D49102%26meid%3D1704c700623e43129906ebf10fe16612%26pid%3D100651%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26&_trksid=p2481888.c100651.m4497&_trkparms=pageci%253A308d1e5b-c00a-11e7-b611-74dbd1800321%257Cparentrq%253A7e5d500c15f0a9c446b20580fffeadb1%257Ciid%253A3

"Junk" has a strong Pixar vibe.

Man, I've been listening again and to me TWA is really the last gasp of Beatle brilliance. The last section of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," the dynamic contrasts of "I'm So Tired," the final verse of "Piggies" - beautiful and intense stuff.

Listen to the first disc of TWA today. What really stood out to me for the first time is how easily "I Will" could be slotted in alongside the Paul ballads and "'Til There Was You" stuff on the early LPs, even down to the performance and instrumentation.

Yeah, that's true! I think McCartney actually owns the copyright to 'Til There Was You' these days.

ok i like the white album again now

some ppl have said they like, and even attribute some Artistic Ah-Intention to, the sequencing. but my preferred way to think about it is as 3 or 4 different albums, and then to discard the 1 or 2 worst. Alfred was otm 12 years ago that

it's the first post-modern album released at the mass-cultural level: an album as much about a band's ability to absorb any genre and spit it out in its own image

happiness
so tired
birthday
dear prudence
yer blues
monkey
helter skelter
long
revolution 1

in the alt universe where this was released, it would be the obvious rockist beatles album of choice (currently abbey road or revolver?) and def the most /punk/. it's the other 2 bands that throw off the scent. and i imagine these songs are the ones they actually identified with at the time, as blasé stoned 27 year olds. next is a sit-on-the-floors lower east side spoken word café ep:

julia
i will
blackbird
rocky raccoon
mother nature's son
cry baby cry

and round it out with a couple 78s worth of gaudy genre-pop

sexy sadie
martha
honey pie
good night

This is a tricky choice for me because I loved the white album as a kid, but it's diminished for me over the years. Not really one of my favorite Beatles albums despite a bunch of classic tracks. OTOH, I have never truly connected with Tusk, and have only given it any time much later in life. It may well be a better album, but I have more sentimental affection for TWA.

Also, TWA is not a particularly spooky album for me, it has so many silly songs. But I don't know that I could ever feel anger or disgust towards people for finding it spooky. Don't know why it is so important to dismiss or attack what are inherently personal reactions to a piece of art.

that's a good way to organize, it flopson!

and if they would have been in the spirit to make another trippy/experimental magical mystery kind of film in 1968, these songs would be leftover:

Bungaloo Bill
Don't Pass Me By
Glass Onion
Piggies
Ob-la-di
Savoy Truffle
Rev 9

also USSR. as maybe the song you find in the vaults and release sometime in the 21st century

organize, it flopson!

i don't know how that happened

Put "Savoy Truffle" on the rock record for crying out loud

I was about to say.

i don't like it though

same for glass onion

a friend pointed out that if you play only the lennon-composed or mccartney-composed songs from this album, you've just about got a hypothetical solo album for each of them. haven't actually tried this yet but it'd be fun to come up w/ a tracklist that flows well.

savoy truffle is a ridiculous song, and then he decided to put horns on it, my god, man, stop.

NICE APPLE TART

they already had solo albums out, at least John, Paul, and George. every member was more than capable of coming up w material and this is part of what drove them apart. TWA is special because even in a state of crisis and constant flux - Ringo leaving, Yoko joining - they were ultimately really good at playing music w each other, the chemistry was there, even silly things like Birthday and Helter Skelter are far better than the jokes they probably started off as.

spooky moment on the album for me was the tail end of "Back in the USSR" where there is the white noise of the plane takeoff, it always sounds like someone was calling my name in the distance. i suppose it is a trick of the ear. the first time i heard the album i remember left the room to see if my brother had called me but i realized i was home alone. i rewinded it and heard it again. lol it was just the record or the harmonics/noise convergence of whatever is happening in the noise at the end of that track, some weird a weird accident

another spooky moment is Yoko Ono having a solo vocal in "Bungalow Bill". it is kind of a shock imo. she had influenced John for a year, the two of them making noise records, tape collages, experimental film. the album was another part of that expression. the Beatles themselves, a world class rock n roll band, presented a sound and a a structure that could be played with. this is the first solo vocal on a Beatles album by someone not of the Fab Four and it is done very intentionally. production wise the song is just a live performance. it is untreated, untrained, investigative of stereotypes - much like Yoko's performance art. contrary to all the psychedelic stuff they were known for this song was recorded very DIY.

my third spooky moment is "Cry Baby Cry", the song itself talking about seances in the dark and the piano doing the lightning crashing thing. it's very dark fantasy, Sing a Song of Sixpence, that kind of dark. when the song ends, it ends on this weird suspended bass note (there are some weird endings on TWA i love, "Glass Onion" maybe most) and then Paul's "Can you take me back?" sung in a spooky falsetto. come on, you have to admit that is spooky. he sounds worried. he sounds like one of those old Donald Duck cartoons where he has insomnia and is seeing skeletons and shit.

horns on Savoy Truffle are rad af. this is proto glam here. he is doing a futuristic plastic version of 50s rock n roll.

yeah it's cool. the stinging guitar leads are the best.

the horns are so blown out its almost distorted. it is kinda a little joke to Eric Clapton anyways, why not poke fun at the whole British blues thing? doesn't mean it can't rule at the same time.

it ends on this weird suspended bass note

It ends on E minor when it's always gone to G major at that moment. I think the bass ends on the root, but the vocal melody ends on the suspension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7EOffsFv24

just what i think of when i think of distorted glam horns

now i'm thinking those might be strings.. carry on

the horns are super distorted on Savoy Truffle. song rocks

they already had solo albums out, at least John, Paul, and George

not really... paul didn't, george had instrumental 'wonderwall music,' and 'two virgins' came out 11 days before the white album. neither are 'solo albums' in the sense that the 1970 ones are

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a6/Thefamilyway1967.jpg/220px-Thefamilyway1967.jpg

Paul did this movie soundtrack in '67, which he later adapted into one of his classical pieces.

and if they would have been in the spirit to make another trippy/experimental magical mystery kind of film in 1968, these songs would be leftover:

Bungaloo Bill
Don't Pass Me By
Glass Onion
Piggies
Ob-la-di
Savoy Truffle
Rev 9

also USSR. as maybe the song you find in the vaults and release sometime in the 21st century

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 12:58 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Am I a heathen for liking this stretch more than the others?

what this thread has reminded me is that if you try to compare anything to the Beatles, everyone just ends up talking only about the Beatles and not that other thing - what was it that Half Japanese said - NO MORE BEATLEMANIA / ONCE IS ENOUGH!

Maybe Tusk is just a boring album after all?

I've been listening to it for 38 years and I put it on last night and still got something new, so no.

a friend pointed out that if you play only the lennon-composed or mccartney-composed songs from this album, you've just about got a hypothetical solo album for each of them.

ah yeah, I have done this for Lennon (with only a little editing)and I enjoy the result :

Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Happiness is Warm Gun
I'm So tired
Julia
Yer Blues
Sexy Sadie
Everybody's Got Something to Hide
Revolution 1
Cry Baby Cry
Good Night

not really... paul didn't, george had instrumental 'wonderwall music,' and 'two virgins' came out 11 days before the white album. neither are 'solo albums' in the sense that the 1970 ones are

― flappy bird, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 4:33 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're still solo albums.

I just want to point out that Adam has been OTM throughout this thread.

I am kinda coming around to Turrican's theory that if you removed Paul's genre exercises, "Revolution No. 9", "Goodnight", and Ringo's country song, you p much just have a collection of fairly conventional rock and folk songs. Miraculously, the album is also about 2/3rds shorter.

I'm still working on the logistics of this but also if you remove every track except "Revolution 9" you p much just have a collection of fairly conventional Stockhausen-derivative, dissonant sound collages, to which the 1968 pop-buying public was thoroughly inured thanks to the avant-garde boundary-pushing of Dickie Goodman and Dave Seville.

lmao

I don't find any of Adam's examples spooky at all. If he's evacuating his bowels over 'Cry Baby Cry' and 'The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill', then I'd shudder to think of what happens when he hears 'Blue Jay Way' ... that probably eradicates his bowels, and in the big scheme of things that isn't particularly spooky either, but it has a "bad vibes" feel that pretty much every track on The Beatles lacks.

seriously are you eight years old or what

dude just stop it with this "wahh what a widdle baby" schtick, it is the most boring possible response to people describing what they hear in a record

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Well firstly, I registered here in 2011 so technically you're not far off.

Secondly, I seriously can't help being amused when something is described as something that it clearly isn't and when people read things into things that aren't there - it makes me seriously question their abilities as a critic.

Turdican isn't interested what people hear in a record, they're interested in what THEY hear in a record, and they NEED you to be interested in that too

fortunately there is a way to avoid them

Everyone's a critic, oy! (xp)

it makes me seriously question their abilities as a critic.

i seriously questioned your abilities as a critic after you spoke favorably about a bunch of shitty music for several years straight

is it cool to post on this thread if i'm not a critic? oh please, just let me be a silent observer of these hallowed grounds where those who can hear The Way occasionally gift us commoners with a glimpse of their wisdom

I mean, there's some decent songs on The Beatles in amongst the crap, and there's some enjoyable moments, but if you're spooked out by Desmond and his barrow in the marketplace, then there's professional help available for that.

shut up dork

I mean, it's 2017... if the Beatles cult can't accept by now that not everything they did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

glad we've circled back to this

flopson hating on the white album is at the very least entertaining and interesting

I mean, there are some decent scenes in The Shining in amongst the crap, but if you're spooked by two girls wanting to have a playdate, then there's professional help available for that.

Seriously. Seriously.

I mean, people keep talking about the hotel being cursed by Native Americans, but there are no Native Americans in that film. When something is described as something that it clearly isn't and when people read things into things that aren't there - it makes me seriously question their abilities as a critic.

Nobody ITT said that they were frightened of Obladi Oblada. However plenty of people have cited multiple specific moments on this record they found creepy in tone. Love it when Turrican reads into things that aren't there

I mean, it's 2017... if the Kubrick cult can't accept by now that not everything he did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

I mean, it's 2017... if the Kubrick cult can't accept by now that not everything they did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

Oh for fucks sake, Tom D :( FP.

if we can get him tempbanned for a while i promise to listen to tusk again and come up with some thoughts

turrican, i mean. not tom. or fred even.

I mean, it's 2017... if the Kubrick cult can't accept by now that not everything they did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

Also, Stanley Kubrick was a funk band.

I don't hear "bad vibes" in "Blue Jay Way" personally. it's (yet another) Beatles song about being sleepy/tired!

Also, Stanley Kubrick was a funk band

^^^winner

worth it for seeing tom d. and fred collapse into one person

some of the greatest directors ever are funk bland

The Shining is the wrong example. See The Beatles as being more like Despicable Me 3, if the film was nearly 50 years old and had a dedicated cult fanbase over-analysing it over numerous years to the point where the myth has spiralled out of control.

Frederik, you'll have to point me to some posts you've made on funk threads... all I seem to see you talking about is the Arcade Fire.

Yes, god forbid the myth of The Shining ever spiraled out of control...

off topic, but

I mean, it's 2017... if the Kubrick cult can't accept by now that not everything he did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Tuesday, November 7, 2017 1:51 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, it's 2017... if the Kubrick cult can't accept by now that not everything they did was up to par and that quite a fair bit of the mythology is bullshit, then fucking hell...

― Frederik B

frederik changing only the word "he" to "they" was a surprising move

More surprising than anything Turrican has ever posted.

There was that thread about famous funk and Talking Heads who are the musical equivalent of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 had it bombed at the cinema in 1933 but grown a passionate cult following to the point that in the mid-80s meatball sales sky rocketed

*band

creepy/spooky/eery =/= frightened

Anyhow, I'm pretty comfortable in the knowledge that those lining up to "defend teh Beatlez honour, maaaaan" look far more ridiculous in their OTT losing-their-shit reactions than anything I've posted, so...

hmmm

no

oh yeah we're sure embarrassing ourselves in front of that imaginary audience

the juvenile namecalling shit is all you, Turrican

xp

http://twi-ny.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/king-of-comedy-1-e1466704758571.jpg

Dear Turrican,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjTPZW7GCU

Talking Heads- Classic or Dud?

Frederik is all over this thread fyi

Another car crash of a thread.

Yeah, I know he is, but you're gonna have to search long and hard to find his posts on the thread for any other funk band.

Glad we're all finally admitting it, though.

hi, so is the White Album any good

Too artsy to be funky, so that's a no.

Indeed. None of this has anything to do with The Beatles or Tusk, I guess this means that the Beatle cult struggle to stay on topic when challenged.

FYI the White Album is better than Tusk

https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-17-2015/lNO8dg.gif

https://68.media.tumblr.com/c375dbe8e9f678af0c3ff0ed54a64b8c/tumblr_oua4zzNyhJ1rvlgz8o3_500.gif

LOL that my revive kicked off a whole nother cycle of Turrican trolling

also stop calling it The Beatles it's called The White Album ffs

Turdican Strikes Again!

what's the funniest part of the white album, i think it's when paul wails "OH NO IT'S HELTER SKELTER" in a high pitched voice

"they are -standing- stilllll"

Hehbub zeebubbhahbub zebub

Always gets a chuckle

"Back in the USSR" is the funniest thing on the White Album!

ha yes, especially being the opening track!

with tusk maybe it's more about "what's the moment that makes you feel most vulnerable" or something, there are so many.

^ probably Over & Over for me

which is such a bizarre song to open an album with, it's such a 'middle of side 3' kind of song. the sequencing of Tusk is really interesting too, I always thought the album sounded like a loop, in kinda opens in media res. TWA is much more of a journey with a solid beginning, middle, and end. listening to Tusk is like walking in on a party that never started and never ended

there are a good number songs on TWA that, had they been released as private press 45s from some unknown band in ohio or florida or something, i imagine they'd fetch three figures on the secondhand market, be anthologized on "pebbles" or similar, and be regarded as stone cold classics of the psychedelic genre.

otm, i could easily see some of the songs on TWA having the appeal of someone like Harvey Sid Fisher in another universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLfe3dBb69k

whoops sorry this is the hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3LcfkYHV4

my personal favorite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecvNT5OGnMg

The funniest moment on The Beatles? Probably one of the moments where it's not trying to be funny ... the ending to 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' is a great example of this, the "when ah hold yooou in maaaah arms" part made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it.

i don't think you have a soul

I suspect there's more than a few songs on The Beatles that would have been swept under the carpet and forgotten about by now if they hadn't appeared on a Beatles album. A lot of these tracks have been over-scrutinised for this exact reason.

Donald Trump vs The White Album

i don't think you have a soul

... or understand the concept of 'funny'... or 'spooky'... or anything else really.

Probably one of the moments where it's not trying to be funny ... the ending to 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' is a great example of this, the "when ah hold yooou in maaaah arms" part made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it.

Given the provenance of the song, the idea that the band (and John specifically) were not trying to be funny here is . . . "mind-boggling" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it. Deliberately obtuse, but in a Dunning-Kruger kind of way.

yeah that shit is funny and i’m pretty sure they knew it

they're definitely not trying to take themselves seriously on that song. or pretty much any song on that album save for, like, Julia or something

The Beatles as a series of jokes. Hmm, yeah... I can get on board with that assessment.

Take one of "Happiness, BOOM BOOM hrah ah ah ah"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/875000/images/_879875_basilbrush_300.jpg

Funniest is Yoko's line in Bungalow Bill. I always thought it was John doing a silly voice.

Also the version of Obladi on Anthology at the end of which John is mocking Paul with, "Obladi blada, brother."

Yeah it never occurred to me that that was Yoko. Bungalow Bill's Beach Boys analogue would be 'Little Pad'

Ooh good connection

Arent Yoko (and Patti?) also on Birthday?

Yoko also appears on Revolution 9 'you become naked...'

Speaking of which, I wouldn't mind hearing Turrican's opinion of Smiley Smile, which is one of my favourite albums of all time and for similar reasons to White Album.

I guess the unifying things between all these, including Tusk and also Sandinista and countless others is that they're 'burn out' albums with cult followings.
Band reach what is largely regarded as the peak of their work. They've worked hard, put all their creative powers into their album. They've sweated and worked and collaborated with each other and argued and drugged themselves and had love affairs and the world loves them.
They set out to make a follow-up, but find it impossible to summon the patience to go through these motions. They're still brimming with ideas, their egos suitably lubricated, but the sheer effort involved with working like that and living with each other again is too much.
So they work fast and get a bit scrappy - 'we know what we're doing this time, we're The Beatles, we don't need to sweat over this like we used to cos we're pros'.
They take shortcuts, pump out the songs, preferably with as few of the other members around as possible.
And so you end up with these big, dopey, mishmash albums that are weirdly appealing but tonally all over the place. They don't quite compare to their predecessors because they're in a different league. Critically, they come across as flawed but in an endearing way.

FYI the White Album is better than Tusk

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 2:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably but I only listen to Tusk anymore

The Smiley Smile version of 'Wind Chimes' is a zillion times creepier than anything on The Beatles. I've said this before on a Beach Boys thread, but the thing about Smiley Smile is that it's a far less commercial/inviting record than Smile would have been, and more uncompromising too.

You mean "Wonderful" yeah?

Xp Well I wasn't asking about which was creepier. I agree, Smiley Smile has some very eerie moments on it - Fall Breaks and Back To Winter is another.
Would you say the same about Peppers/TWA as you would about Pet Sounds/Smiley Smile?

I take it TWA didn't start off as originally intended either.. did the Beatles have another concept in mind before choosing on a double album of genre exercises?

Bungalow Bill is garbage, Little Pad is transplendent, I don't see the connection.

You mean "Wonderful" yeah?

― Mark G, Wednesday, November 8, 2017 4:13 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That too. The Smile version of 'Wonderful' is stunningly beautiful, but the Smiley Smile sounds like a paranoid episode set to music.

*version

Would you say the same about Peppers/TWA as you would about Pet Sounds/Smiley Smile?

No. I'm also unconvinced that The Beatles ever had a concept in mind for The Beatles beyond them having a lot of material between them and seemingly being unwilling/unable (for whatever reason) to work out what to record and what not to record.

Yeah, I think it's significant that there is only one tiny photo of them altogether on the poster inamongst the other pics

i love the mouse on mars track that samples "wind chimes"

Woah, what now?

harvey sid fisher was on my radio show a few weeks ago!
tusk is better

xp It's on vulvaland, samples a bit of the vocals and speeds them up, it sounds really cool