The White Album: The Best and Worst Album of All Time

I'm generally not one to rank works of art against each other, but if I had to rank Beatles albums, I would probably put The Beatles -- conveniently known as The White Album -- somewhere in the middle. It contains a great amount of what made The Beatles the best rock and roll band in history, but it also has a lot of nonsense.

In this post, I will try to prove that within The White Album is both the best and worst Beatles albums recorded. With a roughly 90-minute playing time, it could easily be made into two, even three full-length albums. So, for the purposes of this experiment, I shall choose the best 35 minutes (average album length), as well as the worst 35 minutes of the album.

The Best:

1. Back in the U.S.S.R.
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
3. Happiness is a Warm Gun
4. Martha My Dear
5. I'm So Tired
6. Blackbird
7. I Will
8. Julia
9. Birthday
10. Sexy Sadie
11. Helter Skelter
12. Long, Long, Long

If The Beatles had released just these 12 songs, they would have made, in my opinion, the finest album of their career. There is some of the best songwriting from Lennon and McCartney here, with "Sexy Sadie" and "I Will" being their respective standouts. With "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Long, Long, Long", George Harrison makes his case for the Best Songwriter in The Beatles title. I feel this collection of songs, unlike the actual release, features a much healthier mix of the aforementioned ballads and rockers like "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Helter Skelter." In my opinion, this would-be album would have surpassed Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, and Abbey Road in terms of quality.

The Worst:

1. Glass Onion
2. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
3. Wild Honey Pie
4. Don't Pass Me By
5. Why Don't We Do It in the Road
6. Yer Blues
7. Mother Nature's Son
8. Revolution 1
9. Honey Pie
10. Revolution 9
11. Good Night

This collection of songs is just about as bad as The Beatles can get. First of all, you have "Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution 9" -- a pair of anti-songs that make you want to tear your ears off. Lennon and McCartney hit new lows here with duds like "Yer Blues" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road". And Ringo's first attempt at songwriting, "Don't Pass Me By", is one that should have been locked away and never spoken of again. If The Beatles released these 11 songs as an album, they would likely have to go into hiding.

There you go. You may disagree with me on my song selection, but hopefully you can agree that the album has by far the largest range in quality of any album the band recorded. I still love it, as I do every Beatles album, but it's not an easy one to listen to in one sitting.