White Album v. Abbey Road, Round 3

This is the third portion of a three-part debate.

Click here for Round 1
Click here for Round 2
Click here for Round 3

Concluding Remarks: White Album

Colin: Some differences are irreconcilable, and unfortunately this seems to be one of them. I mean, I respect that. If that-thir’ Holy Bahble says’un tha earth’s not but a couple a’ hunnerd years old, then who’re all ‘em fancy college-boy scieeyntists to be blasphemin’ th’ good Lord?

A brief response: to claim that the White Album has no cohesion whatsoever is foolish. This is not a mixtape…this is a band recording a number of songs during a definite period of time, and so all the songs naturally bear a great deal in common. No song on the White Album bears any great resemblance to any song on Please Please Me, for example (from which I would certainly choose both “Twist and Shout” and “I Saw Her Standing There” for this hypothetical mix-CD you speak of), yet most of the songs on the White Album share common themes and preoccupations. Note, for example, the wealth of references to guns, animals and violence in the lyrics…again, a list of which I will gladly provide should you wish to face your mistake. They certainly didn’t fixate on this aspect of the music, because they were focused on writing good songs. You seem intent on faulting the Beatles for any type of diversity in their songwriting.

My main point stands: the quality of the songs on an album determines the quality of the album. This seems to me like such a ridiculously obvious tautology that there’s really little left for me to say. Your only remaining argument, then, is that the songs on Abbey Road are better than those on the White Album, which to me seems almost as ridiculous. By your own admission, the White Album contains the greatest song of all time. And I will go pound-for-pound with you, matching any song on Abbey Road with a better one on the White Album. You claim that three bad songs (“Goodnight,” by the way, is not a bad song, I’ll only concede “Honey Pie”) somehow negate twenty-seven good or amazing songs? Well then, throw out every good album ever recorded. Your beloved Blonde On Blonde? Oh, whoops, “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.”** Baby out with the bathwater. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust? Pretty much blew the world’s collective mind…meets your high standards of cohesion…no, wait: “Hang On To Yourself.” If I could just disregard that one song, the album would be amazing…but no. Can’t do it. Ziggy sucks, I guess. And Janine D’agati is so hot…except for that one mole on her lower left…OK. Sorry. That’s below the belt.

The mole, I mean.* Not my conduct.


*AUTH. Doug D’agati is now entitled to one free “Sarah Bennett” comment of the worst nature imaginable. That one deserves it. He should nevertheless bow down before the supremacy of my Beatles argument.

**ED. Wha what??

Concluding Remarks: Abbey Road

Doug: I’d expect an outburst about my younger sister from Adam, and perhaps even Luis after a few shots of rum. But never from such an upstanding gentleman as Colin. Then I realized I couldn’t really blame him. To do so would be like blaming a small rodent—trapped in the corner of a cage and being poked with a sharp stick—for trying to claw out my eyes in one last desperate attempt at survival. I would probably do the same in his position. Thankfully, I’m the one with the sharp stick.

Colin, I am very familiar with the story behind “Her Majesty.” But I could care less if Ashley Simpson put the track at the album’s end. It works. I love it, and you love it. Now, the White Album is a great album, arguably one of the best of all time. But Abbey Road is better. Far better. the White Album, admittedly full of great songs, is also full of not-so-great songs. I count at least 7 (and I’m being quite fair, as I think “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” are atrocious, but nonetheless will concede due to irreconcilable differences). Also, many songs that pass as decent surely cannot pierce the shining armor of Abbey Road. Let’s be serious, do you really believe “Yer Blues,” “Savoy Truffle,” “I Will,” and “Glass Onion” are among the Beatles’ good songs? If so, I’m fine with your admitting that. Now let’s consider Abbey Road. There is at most one BAD song—“Because”—and that’s debatable. Then there is one mediocre song: “Sun King.” Unfortunately, this is not debatable. It’s very mediocre. However, every other song would qualify as great, particularly if Colin considers a whopping 19 songs on the White Album “absolutely phenomenal” and only 3 songs “so-so.”

Much can be said for experimentation. Experimentation is interesting, unique, and by its very nature, new. There is no doubt that without their successes and failures on the White Album, the Beatles could not have produced Abbey Road. The Beatles took what they learned from the White Album (and others) and produced their final masterpiece, Abbey Road, which solidified their position as the best band that ever lived. But, experimentation is not always great. It may be necessary, it may be interesting, but it is not always great. Take, for instance, Crystal Pepsi, a beverage that I’m sure my opponent liked.

Colin, go listen to the White Album while enjoying a refreshing glass of Crystal Pepsi. I’ll be sipping Chardonnay* while listening to Abbey Road.


*AUTH. This writer would like to note that he cannot afford Chardonnay, and will instead content himself to shotgun multiple cans of Milwaukee’s Best. But you get the point.

White Album v. Abbey Road, Round 2

This is the second portion of a three-part debate.

Click here for Round 1
Click here for Round 2
Click here for Round 3

Rebuttal: Abbey Road

Doug: Number9. Number9. Number9. Number9. Number9. Number9. Number9. Number9.

Pretty annoying, isn’t it? No? It’s just “genre-warping,” you say? Well then, please allow me to continue:

Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

Okay, that’s what I thought. Perhaps “genre-warping” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While I can stop this nonsense, you’d have to endure another 8 minutes if you were to listen to Colin’s beloved album. And, lest we forget, those excruciating 8 minutes are followed by the Beatles’ second-worst creation (I hesitate to use the word “song”): “Good Night.” Game. Set. Match.

I thought I’d be generous; I thought I’d be compassionate; I thought I’d make this contest interesting and give Colin a fighting chance by excluding Disc 2 from our little debate—if you can even call it that. But no, Colin got greedy—and now I’m going to make him pay for it, in blood. He says Disc 1 of the White Album is better than Abbey Road. Admittedly that’s a tough pill to swallow, but I can do it with a strong chaser. But to have the audacity to state that the entire White Album is superior to Abbey Road, well that’s like taking a shit in a cup of Dubra, swishing it around in your mouth as if it were a fine wine, and then spitting it out just to get the flavor. Or, if you will, like swallowing a slice of “Honey Pie.”

Still, when I first read Colin’s argument, my reaction wasn’t anger; it wasn’t sorrow; it wasn’t even disbelief. It was pity. In fact, I prayed for the poor soul.

The good news is Colin can still be saved, but the path to redemption is long, rocky, and barren. Further, it requires him to embrace every single word I write as if it were a divine proclamation. Except for this one: bogart. I just like the word. It’s a funny word. Okay, now let’s begin.*

Colin—in his futile attempt to reason with me—stated that “Happiness is a Warm Gun” was enough to propel the White Album far above Abbey Road. To be sure, I’m sexually attracted to the brilliant Lenon track. It’s the greatest song ever recorded. Unfortunately, being an abstract entity, it lacks the proper organs necessary for me to express my love. Score one for Colin—he’ll need it. But, if one song is enough to elevate the White Album, surely the two most heinously awful Beatles songs hold equal weight? At best, they negate “Happiness.” At worst, they completely eliminate the album from contention. True, Colin, God may be on your soccer team, but you also have that overweight, pale kid with the hiked-up shorts, thick glasses, and acne-scarred face playing goal. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

After all, it is Abbey Road—not the White Album—that allowed each Beatle to shine. It includes George’s two best songs, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” as well as Ringo’s hit “Octopus’s Garden,” which is far more interesting than “Don’t Pass Me By.” And let’s not neglect Paul’s very best song, “You Never Give Me Your Money”—or John and Paul’s final medley, which is the greatest stretch of songs ever recorded in pop history. While John’s best may appear on the White Album, so do some of his worst. Perhaps this is my point. The White Album is a great album. But when the fantastic four missed, they missed badly (something apparent on Disc 1, but even more so on Disc 2).

I’d like to conclude by examining Colin’s laughable premise that individual songs are more important than a cohesive album. Colin, let me pose a question to you: if you could vomit all of your favorite Beatles songs onto a CD, would your soggy, multi-colored chunks of songs be better than Abbey Road, or, if you must, the White Album? Of course not. To do so would destroy all continuity, theme, and emotion. That’s why even you—in your obsessive song worship—never listen to a “greatest hits” album. And before we get too carried away, let’s keep in mind that the White Album is far from a collection of greatest hits. If anything, it is a collection of greatest hits AND MISSES.


*ED. “Don’t bogart the can… man.”

Rebuttal: White Album

Colin: Fine…let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that there is some sort of overriding value to the “meta-structure” of the album—that is, the relationships between songs. I suppose I could just use the term “structure,” but “meta” makes it sound like I actually know what I’m talking about. Anyway, Abbey Road certainly isn’t the shining example of such meta-structure.

First of all, notice how different in style and substance the A- and B-sides of the album are: this is because John and Paul (with George Martin on his side) were basically at each other’s throats by this point, and had to divide the album straight down the middle with a chalk line, I Love Lucy-style. To be conciliatory, they mixed-and-matched some of each other’s songs, but each side was essentially a one-man show in terms of song selection.

Granted, the crux of your argument is the medley…you sort of disregarded the entire A-side, which I think is kind of foolish, given the strong showing by John. But even the medley is more fractured than you would like to admit: Paul didn’t conceive of the thing as a medley…all of the songs were written individually (most of them, by the way, during the fertile period in which they were composing the White Album). He reworked the order again and again before the final release…in fact, “Her Majesty,” which you refer to as an “appendix to the record” was originally cut from the record by Paul. It was in the middle of the medley, and a sound engineer, upon receiving instructions to cut it out, and having received previous instructions to never ever erase anything the Beatles recorded, moved it to the end of the reel, 15 or 20 seconds after “The End.” The effect seemed sufficiently whimsical that they left this mistake in. And a good mistake it was, but certainly not planned.

The medley effect, therefore, is secondary to the songs within the medley. I mean, what if I wrote a medley? Certainly no one would listen to it, even if it might have a great deal of this zen-flow you seem to be referring to, because the songs that made up this medley would suck.

I must reiterate: the basic unit of pop music is the song, not the album. That being said, we are debating on the topic of best Beatles album, not song. But nonetheless I contend that a pop album, being a collection of songs, must be judged on the merit of the individual songs of which it is composed. And I personally count no fewer than nineteen absolutely phenomenal songs on The White Album (a list of which I will gladly provide to my opponent) and eight others that no mere mortal could write. This leaves only three so-so songs. One-tenth of a two-disc album falls flat…certainly not the “skip-skip-skip” arrangement you spoke of.

An album is not a novel, as you claim it is. An album is an album. To say that the definition of a good album is one in which “each song is connected to that which precedes and follows it” is unnecessarily narrowing the scope of all the things a good album can be. Take a live album, for example: the best albums of many bands (the Velvet Underground comes to mind, or just about any jazz musician for that matter) are recorded live, and are essentially a reassembling of their previous studio work, usually in a radically different order from that originally set down. Please, Douglas, admit the profound error of your ways.

White Album v. Abbey Road, Round 1

This is the first portion of a three-part debate.

Click here for Round 1
Click here for Round 2
Click here for Round 3

Does anyone remember the Q101 Cage Match? Long before interactive media was a common phenomenon, back when Lance and Stoley were still on the air, Chicago's jammin' alternative radio station began pitting two songs against one another. Listeners would call in to vote for a winner, and the victor would move on to face another song the following week. The Cage Match has since inspired a host of similar programs, including the Pillow Fight on 94.7, the Zone.


Today, we embark on an entirely new journey. Instead of facing Spacehog against Hagfish, we are forcing the Fab Four to fight amongst themselves. Instead of one mediocre alternative tune against another, we are throwing two of the all-time greatest pop albums into the ring. In one corner we have Abbey Road (1969) defended by our very first guest writer, Doug D'Agati. Douglas, we welcome you. In the other corner we have The Beatles (aka the White Album, 1968) defended by WPNOB veteran and founder, Colin Bennett.

What follows is never polite, often personal, and yet always sophisticated. In sum, the two opponents have prepared their very strongest arguments, which will be presented here over the course of three days. During this time, we urge you to comment and share your own thoughts. By the end of the week, we hope the people will have declared a true winner. For now, let the match begin.

Opening Statements: Abbey Road

Doug: There are many questions that deserve careful thought: Is there a god? What profession am I best suited for? What’s that growth on my toe? However, one question trumps all others, and deserves the thought and attention of every discerning mind: What is the Beatles’ greatest album, Abbey Road or the White Album?

To begin, one must ask yet another question: What is an album? Some would assert that an album is a series of recordings issued together by an artist or group of artists. These people are jackasses and should be ignored. I would argue that a great album—much like a great novel—flows cohesively and logically from section to section. Just as a great novel guides us from chapter to chapter, a great album guides us from song to song in a deliberate fashion. Each song is connected to that which precedes and follows it. In short, a great album contains some sort of underlying structure. The White Album lacks such structure. I mean, what kind of copout ending to Disc 1 is “Julia”? Furthermore, what holds “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “Wild Honey Pie,” and the “Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” together? Nothing. Skip-Skip-Skip. Play.

Abbey Road, on the other hand, flows effortlessly from start to finish. Beginning with the potent “Come Together” and culminating with the tender and muted, “Her Majesty,” Abbey Road is an unparalleled musical odyssey, changing tone and speed in segments, rather than by song. The highlight of the album is the final 10-minute medley, which merges almost imperceptibly and includes such—dare I use the word—masterpieces as “Mean Mr. Mustard,” “Polythene Pam,” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window,” “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and “The End.” Conversely, if any kind of marriage exists between songs of the White Album, it is a J-Lo-esque marriage.

Abbey Road is one; the White Album is thirty.

Even when Abbey Road does make the occasional abrupt transition, it is deliberate and provocative. For instance, from its start Abbey Road slowly gains momentum, until climaxing with the hard-hitting and emphatic “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”—only to be followed by the gentle strumming of Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun.” To place the two most disparate tracks back-to-back is a bold move, but one that certainly paid off. Similarly, the deceptively titled “The End” begins with a raucous drum solo by Ringo—his only such solo—and then fades into the song’s final lines, which signal the album’s ostensible end. The perfect ending to a perfect album, you think. I guess I’ll pull up my pants, pry myself out of my lazyboy, saunter over to my CD player, and put in another disc, you decide…

Whoa, slow down there, chief!! The Beatles have one last surprise for you—but do pull up your pants anyway; it’s getting weird.

After a lengthy pause, the 17-second gem “Her Majesty” roars in, as if it were an appendix to the record. One word, two syllables: sublime. Okay, now it’s safe to pull up your pants and make your way to the CD player—though when you get there, you may want to hit “repeat.”

Opening Statements: White Album

Colin: To begin: there are almost as many “favorite” Beatles albums out there as there are people on this planet. How is this possible, you ask? The Beatles released some 20 albums and there are almost 6.5 billion people on the planet…surely there must be overlap? The answer is no. There isn’t. I don’t know how this works, it’s f-ing crazy. But I’ve never met anyone who agreed on a favorite Beatles album. Unfortunately, there are wrong choices to be made. This is not simply a matter of taste. I once met a man who said his favorite album was Help!. I punched this man in the face. You crazy man, I said. Help!, he yelled again. I pulled back for another punch, until I realized he was being mauled by a bear and was actually crying for help. Oh, I said. Later, in the hospital, he told me his favorite album was Rubber Soul.

Anyway, enough preface. My point is just that Abbey Road is not my opponent Douglas’s favorite album. He might think it is, and say it is, but he’s wrong. That poor little man hiding inside of him that I’ve seen with the aid of special drugs is screaming with all his heart “White Album! White Album!” Listen to that little man, Douglas. For he is your father.

First of all, I already know, thanks to other special drugs, what my opponent is going to say: Abbey Road stands as a cohesive whole, a shining, multi-faceted blah blah blah blah. Fine. Abbey Road has a “medley.” Big whoop. This is nothing extraordinary: Paul simply took a genre (classical symphony) and put his own unique pop stamp on it. And when you get right down to it, what’s so amazing about any of it? The fact that they rework musical “themes” throughout the record? Yeah, fifteen seconds of “You Never Give Me Your Money” in the middle of “Carry That Weight.” Wild.

If you’re looking for genre-warping, look no further than the two discs of The Beatles, my friend. It’s a history of every genre that led to the development of pop music, rolled into one and then smoked: slave spirituals, country-western, blues, soul, folk, rock and roll of every stripe, even reggae. There are, of course, more. There are almost as many different genres present on this double-album as there are songs (thirty). It’s as if they set out to write a better version of every song written in the fifty-odd years preceding the album, and pretty much succeeded. And with the possible exception of Paul, it contains the best songs individually written by each Beatle: Ringo with “Don’t Pass Me By” (undisputedly better than Abbey Road’s “Octopus’ Garden”), Harrison with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and John with “Happiness is a Warm Gun” (more on this shortly). And in the case of Paul, I think you could even make a strong case for “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” although admittedly I’m partial to “Rocky Raccoon.”

This was a perfect-storm situation: each Beatle was simultaneously at the absolute pinnacle of his creative potential. The result is an album that seems schizophrenic only because a pantheon of gods was clawing at the insides of its creators’ minds. You say that the album lacks cohesion? Any sort of pattern? Well, good, I say. They weren’t sewing a pretty dress. They were writing songs. Remember: the basic unit of pop music isn’t the album. It is the song. Pop music was around long before the album, back when you could only fit three minutes of music onto one side of a record. And the Beatles were pop musicians…the best that ever lived, but pop musicians nonetheless. The Abbey Road medley is a wonderful achievement, but it’s a gimmick…it just doesn’t stack up to the best works in the symphonic genre it is trying to imitate.

Finally, the atom bomb: “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” Hands down, no question, the BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN in the last 12 million-or-so years. I happen to know Douglas agrees with me on this point. This is sort of like having God on your soccer team.* Even if he were the only player, I still think your team would have a pretty good season. So, I say, if they had put out an album called the White Album that contained only this ONE song, it would still be in the running for best album ever recorded. It just so happens another twenty-nine great songs are grouped around it. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.


*ED. ...or Michael Jordan on your basketball team.