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8.29am
26 January 2017
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Just read this original Rolling Stone review of the album, and it’s a very surprising read, yet ultimately accurate to my personal views on the album. What do you all think?
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sir walter raleigh, ewe2, vonbonteeI've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound.
7.17am
22 January 2014
Offline QuarryMan said
Just read this original Rolling Stone review of the album, and it’s a very surprising read, yet ultimately accurate to my personal views on the album. What do you all think?
Interesting review and still quite fresh and relevant even now. Good to read Ringo getting some plaudits ‘[the] drumming on this LP is his best, and among the very best to be heard on any rock and roll record.’
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sir walter raleigh11.31am
26 January 2017
Offline Ludwig said
Interesting review and still quite fresh and relevant even now. Good to read Ringo getting some plaudits ‘[the] drumming on this LP is his best, and among the very best to be heard on any rock and roll record.’
I agree, but I think his drumming on Sgt Pepper and Revolver era (Rain , She Said She Said , A Day In The Life ) was much better. Out of the two best drum performances on this album (Long, Long, Long and the ending to Dear Prudence ) one of them was played by Paul.
I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound.
11.51am
Moderators
15 February 2015
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QuarryMan said
Just read this original Rolling Stone review of the album, and it’s a very surprising read, yet ultimately accurate to my personal views on the album. What do you all think?
Wow. Impressive.
It’s amazingly relevant considering it’s fifty years old — particularly this:
Rock and roll’s longevity is its ability to assimilate the energy and style of all these musical traditions. Rock and roll at once exists and doesn’t exist; that is why the term “rock and roll” is the best term we have, as it means nothing and thus everything — and that is quite possibly the musical and mystical secret of the most overwhelming popular music the world has known.
And this.
Thus, the Beatles can safely afford to be eclectic, deliberately borrowing and accepting any outside influence or idea or emotion, because their own musical ability and personal/spiritual/artistic identity is so strong that they make it uniquely theirs, and uniquely the Beatles. They are so good that they not only expand the idiom, but they are also able to penetrate it and take it further.
That’s precisely what I’ve been saying all along!
This about Paul:
It’s embarrassing how good he is, and embarrassing how he can pull off the perfect melody and arrangement in any genre you would care to think of.
I’d better stop now.
It’s also funny that the reviewer bets that Eric Clapton is on guitar on WMGGW — he was right.
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12.48pm
26 January 2017
Offline Silly Girl said
Wow. Impressive.
It’s amazingly relevant considering it’s fifty years old — particularly this:
Rock and roll’s longevity is its ability to assimilate the energy and style of all these musical traditions. Rock and roll at once exists and doesn’t exist; that is why the term “rock and roll” is the best term we have, as it means nothing and thus everything — and that is quite possibly the musical and mystical secret of the most overwhelming popular music the world has known.
And this.
Thus, the Beatles can safely afford to be eclectic, deliberately borrowing and accepting any outside influence or idea or emotion, because their own musical ability and personal/spiritual/artistic identity is so strong that they make it uniquely theirs, and uniquely the Beatles. They are so good that they not only expand the idiom, but they are also able to penetrate it and take it further.
That’s precisely what I’ve been saying all along!
This about Paul:
It’s embarrassing how good he is, and embarrassing how he can pull off the perfect melody and arrangement in any genre you would care to think of.
I’d better stop now.
It’s also funny that the reviewer bets that Eric Clapton is on guitar on WMGGW — he was right.
My thoughts exactly. Interesting considering how atrocious some of the writing was on Rolling Stone in this period how good this review was. But yes, I completely agree on the Beatles’ personality making their variety uniquely theirs.
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Beatlebug, vonbonteeI've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound.
3.11pm
8 January 2015
Offline Interesting review, a bit breathless and amusingly dated with constant reference to “digging” things. I was surprised that someone hit the parody note so early in critical appreciation of the songs, but also that they appreciate the point of the parody, particularly in reference to Back In The USSR . Yet Paul is a bit too wonderful, John a bit too agonised, George too preachy and Ringo, well at least he drummed well. The tension between trying and failing to be objective wobbles along throughout. There’s a strong sense that so much is happening at this point in terms of the music and its relationship to the culture that it’s getting harder for the reviewer to exactly sort out who is where and what is cool: note the careful references to Dylan and the Stones and the whole baby-with-the-bathwater approach to the blues revival. But their generosity to the album as a whole is very welcome and almost prescient.
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Beatlebug, vonbonteeI'm like Necko only I'm a bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin and also everyone. Or is everyone me? Now I'm a confused bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin everyone who is definitely not @Joe. This has been true for 2016 & 2017 
but I may have to get more specific in the future.
4.26pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
Offline ‘The trendy transvestites of the English blues scene’
Robert Plant? 
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3.18am
8 January 2015
Offline Silly Girl said
‘The trendy transvestites of the English blues scene’Robert Plant?
Yes, that was a “Fogey spotted” moment. Imagine hating that glam came along.
The following people thank ewe2 for this post:
Beatlebug, vonbonteeI'm like Necko only I'm a bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin and also everyone. Or is everyone me? Now I'm a confused bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin everyone who is definitely not @Joe. This has been true for 2016 & 2017 but I may have to get more specific in the future.
1.52pm
1 December 2009
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I’m pleasantly surprised that writeup is as good as it is, considering the low opinion I have of Wenner’s writing or critical take (or the man himself). As noted, he makes a few good interesting points (and a few idiotic ones). And the prose itself isn’t bad, remembering how new a format *rock album reviewing* was at the time. (I especially like knowing that “hard rock” had become standard terminology by 1968, since the term itself had been discussed on the “Bad Boy ” thread weeks ago…)
As for correctly guessing Eric, I wonder if Wenner had advance knowledge? He seemed to know the backstories of Martha, Prudence and Sadie well enough.
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BeatlebugGEORGE: In fact, The Detroit Sound. JOHN: In fact, yes. GEORGE: In fact, yeah. Tamla-Motown artists are our favorites. The Miracles. JOHN: We like Marvin Gaye. GEORGE: The Impressions PAUL & GEORGE: Mary Wells. GEORGE: The Exciters. RINGO: Chuck Jackson. JOHN: To name but eighty.
7.34pm
1 May 2020
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11.14pm
4 February 2021
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In the 13 album Beatles canon I place The White Album at #5. “Indulgence of the highest order for creator and audience. Traverses the gamut of their artistic palette. Joyful.
Unless Paul McCartney knocks on my door I am unlikely to be impressed.
4.26am
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline I saw on discogs there was an unofficial White Album 30th.
There was a radio special planned in 1998 but I cannot remember if it went ahead in a changed format, going by the above maybe it did; it was originally going to tie in with a box set that would have featured outtakes and interviews. Apple scrapped it, instead issuing the CD reissue, which omitted the inserts and wasn’t remastered, and a limited edition pen and such. It is documented in the 1998 Beatles Book Monthly news sections which I cannot access as they are in my attic. Someone really should go thru those magazines as there is a ton of information that I have never seen on the net since.
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
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