White Album or Abbey Road?

WorsterMan

WorsterMan

10,000+ Posts
It is the off-season so.....

Both have some of the Beatles greatest material and both provide me with an incredible window into personal memories of my youth. For me it is hard to pick one or the other, but since I started the thread, I will pick one for the sake of argument... The White Album. There, I said it, even though I have probably listened to Abbey Road twice for every time I have listened to TWA. As you Beatles devotees know, TWA had 2 albums vs. 1 - twice as many songs. Outside of Sgt. Peppers, TWA & Abbey Road were considered other high water-marks by many. By Abbey Road, the Beatles were on the road to breakup due to many issues including Yoko Ono - however IT may have been the greatest of the Beatles works... even, dare I say surpassing SPLHCB.


Discuss...
 
There is some great music on the White Album, but they are all essentially one off works. Hell, most of the band wasn't in the studio at the same time for the production. Abbey Road is by far the more cohesive album.
 
I will go with Revolver over all the other Beatles albums.

If "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Only a Northern Song" were on Sgt Pepper's, as they were supposed to have been, I might have a different view.

I love about ten songs off The White Album and side two of Abbey Road is incredible, but the low spots drag them down a bit.
 
If those are my two choices, i pick Abbey Road.

But Revolver is the Best Beatles Album in my opinion.
 
Abbey Road, best album beginning to end. The best albums are, in my opinion, Rubber Soul and A Hard Days Night. I was burnt out on Sargent Pepper's by 11th grade.
 
It's hard not to like Revolver. If only because one can hear evolution taking place.

The Beatles became artists rather than rockers, and their playing/recording became sloppy, but their ideas flourished and expanded into creativity that remains fresh, even stunning, to this day (lately I have been amazed at the power pop tendencies of **** like 'Taxman' or '...Me and My Monkey'...punchy, fuzzed out, etc.). They literally forded the frontier and then sat around in studios contemplating the wide open spaces they themselves had exploded. Who can say when something like that will happen again.

Abbey Road.

Succinct. Great songs, great hybrids. Granted, Paul played drums on the only Beatles drum solo (they weren't a band for this one, either), but the brilliance is almost frenetic, and therefore intoxicating, as opposed to the very contemplative, indulgent quadruple sided White Album.

And then 'The End,' which laid to rest something unprecedented and unfollowed....

Except by a doddering 'Her Majesty,' who, it turns out, doesn't stay around long because she doesn't have all that much to impart.

Sad, really.
 
Abbey Road... just cause I love, and I do mean LOVE me some "Octopus's Garden"

Well.. actually, I love every single song on Abbey Road, and I cannot say the same on the White album.
 
I rank them like this

1. Abbey Road (most cohesive...Side 2 is just incredible)
2. TWA (produced best individual tracks than any other album)
3. Sgt. Pepper's (most ground-breaking)
4. Revolver (most significant)

I also love Magical Mystery Tour and Hard Day's Night. I'm not as into Rubber Soul as many of my fellow Beatle fanatics.
 
Abbey Road, (which I'm listening to right now..."She's so heaaavvvyyy....").

Back in the day, (and by that I mean the mid-70's) I thought The White Album was harder rocking and Abbey Road was more pop-ish. Abbey Road is, of course, now a timeless milestone of the era.

As someone, (or a couple of someones), pointed out above, The White Album was a great example of their individual talents, but for all intents and purposes, the party was already over.

Abbey Road represents that last burst of mutual creativity, the last flowering if you will, before the inevitable decay, decline and death.

RIP Beatles, RIP John and George.






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"Let It Be," if Spector hadn't ****** with it, could have been classic.

I put Revolver as my favorite Beatles album.

Between The White Album and Abbey Road, I go with Abbey Road.
 
Give me Abbey Road of those two. "You Never Give Me Your Money" through "Her Majesty" is my favorite string of songs on any album, ever.

More and more though, recently, I've become a fan of Rubber Soul. "In My Life" is probably my favorite Beatles song ATM, and straight through it's good stuff.
 
Abbey Road. As stated several times, side 2 is genius. I go thru phases though. I'll listen to nothing but White Album for a month or so, then won't touch it for a year and move on to another Beatles album. Early stuff, late stuff....it's all great.
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I have always had this weird thing where I listen to the White Album a ton around Xmas.

Off topic, a little, but my three-year-old daughter is a Beatles nut. At bedtime she always asks me to sing three songs -- "Lucy in the Sky...", "A Day in the Life" and "The Eyes of Texas."
 
I guess I play the White Album a little more, but I don't think you can top Sgt. Pepper's. Maybe there is a negative vibe remaining from the entry of Yoko Ono into the mix by the time they got to Abbey Road. Or I just like rock a little more raw and garageband-like.
 
Sgt. Peppers was originally supposed to have Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane on it. They were released early because the record company was hounding them for new singles, and as a result weren't included on the album. If those 2 had been left in, Sgt. Pepper's would have unquestionably been the greatest album of all time.
 
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