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Class 6(66)

The Beatles: The Beatles

15/03/13  ||  BamaHammer

Introduction

Hold onto your penis. I’m about to review The Beatles for Global Domination.

Well, this is it: Teh Fucken White Album. The antithesis of all things kvlt and tr00. One of the most iconic and triumphant achievements in musical history. An album so pompously grandiose that two records were required to hold all its shit. One of the crowning achievements for the Fab Fuckos which would send shockwaves throughout the annals of all subsequent rock and roll history. An album so important that I can’t stop writing sentence fragments.

So, having said all that…

This album is an utter fucken trainwreck. In reality, “Teh Beatles” was an album that was produced more by four independent individuals than an actual cohesive band. Tensions within the band were reaching a rolling boil, and the members were noticeably splintering apart. This album is what it all sounded like. And this is exactly why it’s amazing.

Songwriting

9,5. Much of the material on “The Beatles” was written more like something for each member’s solo career rather than an actual Beatles track. You can barely hear a single trace of true songwriting collaboration. There is very little flow and no central direction to any of the tunes you’ll find anywhere. From track to track, you’re treated to immense disparities in the overall sound of what’s happening. Things open with “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, a straightforward raw retard rock and roll tune that sounds like thousands of others. Then shit gets weird.

The flow of the songwriting meanders through every form of rock that had been invented through 1968. You get acoustic folk songs about the crazy things you see whilst on a shitload angel dust (“Blackbird”, “Rocky Raccoon”, “Mother Nature’s Son”, etc.). You get pretentious quasi-proggy psychedelic rock tunes (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”, “Glass Onion”, etc.). You get what sounds like impromptu jam sessions with no clear underlying reason (the “Revolutions”, etc.). You even get completely inexplicable bullshit filler that you’ll then find yourself inexplicably liking (“Ob La Di, Ob La Whatthefuck”). And you get something like “Helter Skelter” which can only be described as heavy metal in its rawest and most primal state.

Yes, the songwriting here is like a trainwreck. And like any trainwreck, every time you scour through the wreckage, you’re guaranteed to find something new and interesting. This trainwreck is amazing.

Production

8. I barely know anything about what good productions sound like today, much less almost half a century ago. I know what I like and what I don’t. I feel like this album sounded decent for 1968. It sounds decent now. Some of the levels spike and get really annoying from time to time, but whatever.

Guitars

9,5. John Lennon and George Harrison did a lot to revolutionize what rock guitar meant and stood for. They weren’t particularly great players or the best riff-writers until Necrophagist or anything, but they are responsible for much of what we all know and love guitar to be today. Regardless of what you want to believe, that’s a fucken fact. The chorus riff from “Helter Skelter” may or may not have invented Satan-inspired metal. Okay, probably not. But that shit’s still heavy.

Also, massive bonus points for hiring some random fucko named Eric Clapton to handle the lead on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Holy shitballs, what a solo.

Vocals

7.625. As always with the Beatyourmeatles, you get a mixed bag of vocal work from a wide variety of vocalists who range from mediocre to downright ace on any given song. So, I’d give Lennon and McCartney a 9. They rule. George Harrison and his slightly honkier croon get a 7.5. Ringo, as always, fails and gets a 5. Fuck Ringo. That’s an average of 7.625, and that’s what I’m going with (And yes, I know they all don’t have equal singing parts, fuck you very much. Shut up or I’ll consider Yoko’s contribution.).

Bass

9,5. I never really listened very closely to the bass on here until this review, but it made me realize that Paul McCartney is a beast. Long before “Saltrubbed eyes” and Alex Webster’s three fingers ov dess and that one Gorgoroth album, Paul McCartney was destroying bass lines and driving his music forward. Just hearing some of his parts on tracks like “Dear Prudence” or “Helter Skelter” made me realize that this guy is a true musician. Epic work here.

Drums

3. Boom. Pop. Boom boom. Pop. Ding. Duh duh pop. Boom. Fucken Ringo.

Lyrics

10. Some of the most surreally ridiculous and stupid lyrics ever put to music can be found on this album. There aren’t enough drugs in the world to even pretend you could possibly understand what the fuck those lyrics may be referring to either. Some Beatles lyrics from other albums are admittedly inspirational or deep or just fun. The
lyrics on this album are fucken retarded:

Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye Rocky didn’t like that

Okay.

Looking through the bent backed tulips
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion.

Getting warmer.

When I hold you in my arms,
And I feel my finger on your trigger,
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun, mama.

Almost there.

Come on, let’s make it easy
Make it easy, make it easy.
Everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey.

Boom. Touchdown. Forsberg in the ’94 Olympics. British horse penis. Fucken 10.

Cover art

10. Just totally white and it says “The BEATLES” off center and off kilter. Kvlt as fvck.

Logo

4. The BEATLES. I’d say it’s fairly clear who we’re dealing with here.

Booklet

10. This is one of my favorite aspects of this album. You get a copy of the magnificent lyrics, sure, but you also have photographs of the band members. And in those photographs, you never see any two members together. That really says all you need to know about the state of the Fab Four at this point in their careers. Like it’s been said a thousand times by a thousand people, this is an album that sounds like it was created by four individuals and not a band. The booklet just reaffirms that suspicion. The photos say it all.

Overall and ending rant

Is this metal? Parts of it are, I guess. I don’t know. I had a fuck to give, but Ringo made me drop it and break it. The bottom line is that this is one of the absolute essential rock albums produced by human civilization. There are better albums out there, but there are none as unique as this one.

The whole experience can be summed up in that goofy fucken track I’ve mentioned a couple of times before, “Rocky Raccoon”. For the first thirty seconds of the track, it sounds like nobody being recorded could possibly give a shit about the track. It’s shitty, silly, and it just generally sucks ass. Then after 30 seconds, it’s almost as if everyone realizes, “Dammit, we’re the Beatles. Let’s get our shit together,” and the song suddenly, without any rhyme or reason, becomes something else altogether, magnificent and beautiful.

I present to you, Teh White Albvm.

9.5

  • Information
  • Released: 1968
  • Label: Apple
  • Website: www.thebeatles.com
  • Band
  • John Lennon: vocals, guitars, keys, percussion, harmonica, and other shit, I’m sure
  • Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, guitars, drums, percussion, recorder, and yet still other shit
  • George Harrison: guitars, vocals, bass, organ, even more ridiculous shit
  • Ringo Starr: drums, vocals, percussion, piano, additional stupid Ringo shit
  • Yoko Ono: random bullshit jobs, band-destroying shit
  • Tracklist
  • Disc one
  • 01. Back in the U.S.S.R.
  • 02. Dear Prudence
  • 03. Glass Onion
  • 04. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
  • 05. Wild Honey Pie
  • 06. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
  • 07. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
  • 08. Happiness Is a Warm Gun
  • 09. Martha My Dear
  • 10. I’m So Tired
  • 11. Blackbird
  • 12. Piggies
  • 13. Rocky Raccoon
  • 14. Don’t Pass Me By
  • 15. Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?
  • 16. I Will
  • 17. Julia
  • Disc two
  • 01. Birthday
  • 02. Yer Blues
  • 03. Mother Nature’s Son
  • 04. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
  • 05. Sexy Sadie
  • 06. Helter Skelter
  • 07. Long, Long, Long
  • 08. Revolution 1
  • 09. Honey Pie
  • 10. Savoy Truffle
  • 11. Cry Baby Cry
  • 12. Revolution 9
  • 13. Good Night

Class 6(66) -reviews

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