Tusk Vs The White Album

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

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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.