The Beatles (White Album)

The Beatles is the ninth studio album and only double album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 22 November 1968, and their first LP issued on Apple. Featuring a plain white sleeve, the cover contains no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed, a deliberate contrast to the band's previous LP, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). [Wikipedia]

Recorded between May and October 1968, The Beatles (universally called The White Album) is the record made after the band's collective trip to Rishikesh to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Forty-eight songs were demoed at Harrison's Esher home in May 1968; thirty made the final running order. The sessions were the most fractious of the band's career: Ringo briefly quit (returning to find his drumkit covered in flowers), Geoff Emerick walked off, George Martin took an extended holiday mid-album, and Yoko Ono attended every session.

The Beatles (White Album) is a Beatles EP issued in the United Kingdom on 22 November 1968 by Parlophone under catalogue number PMC 7067/8. It sits in the band's The White Album (1968) period. It was issued the same day as the parent LP The Beatles (White Album).

Sessions were produced by George Martin (with Chris Thomas covering) with Ken Scott (early), Geoff Emerick walked off — replaced engineering, working at EMI Studios + Trident Studios (Soho). The signal chain ran through the Ampex AG-440 8-track (Trident); 3M M23 8-track at EMI from late 1968 (J37 four-track until then) • REDD/TG12345 prototype; Sound Techniques 20/8 (Trident), with vocals captured on U47/U48, AKG C12, U67 introduced. This combination of room, tape format and outboard chain is the same one heard across the band's other releases from the era — meaning the release shares its sonic identity with its parent LP rather than departing from it.

The release features Back in the U.S.S.R., Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Wild Honey Pie, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps ★, Happiness Is a Warm Gun.

Documented alternate masters and remaster passes can be found via the linked entries above; the editorial position throughout Beatles Answers is that the original UK mono master is the canonical point of reference for any EP from this era, with the 2009 and 50th-anniversary stereo remasters treated as documented variations rather than replacements. Catalogue numbers, label copy and matrix data are taken from EMI/Parlophone primary documentation and cross-checked against Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (1988).

Most of the LP was cut at EMI on four-track until Trident Studios (Soho) was used for Hey Jude in late July, allowing the Beatles their first sessions on 8-track tape. EMI's own 8-track machine was finally installed in mid-September, while The White Album was being completed. The band frequently worked in three of the EMI studios in parallel, with each Beatle leading separate sessions: McCartney's Blackbird and Mother Nature's Son cut entirely solo; Lennon recording Revolution 9 with Ono and George Martin; Harrison's Long, Long, Long laid down with just Paul on bass.

Thirty tracks across four sides. Genres: Beach Boys pastiche (Back in the U.S.S.R.), nursery-rhyme menace (Cry Baby Cry), proto-metal (Helter Skelter, Yer Blues), old-time music-hall (Honey Pie, Martha My Dear), country-and-western parody (Rocky Raccoon), folk fingerpicking (Blackbird, Julia), avant-garde tape collage (Revolution 9), lullaby (Good Night). Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was rerecorded so many times that Lennon eventually crashed in on piano in frustration to give it the riff that opens the released version. While My Guitar Gently Weeps brought Eric Clapton in to play lead — the first non-Beatle credited (or rather, deliberately uncredited) on a Beatles record.

Released 22 November 1968 in the famous embossed-white sleeve by Richard Hamilton, with serial-numbered first pressings. Eight weeks at UK number one. Sold three million copies in its first month in the US. Reviews were politely puzzled by the LP's deliberate stylistic incoherence — that incoherence being, of course, the point.

The White Album invented modern indie-pop's permission structure: a record is allowed to be a wardrobe of unrelated rooms, each track its own world. Lennon felt by 1970 that it was his favourite Beatles LP precisely because it was the four of them as four songwriters rather than as a band; McCartney later regretted that it could not have been edited into a single LP. The mono mix (UK only, PMC 7067/8) contains so many distinct edits, mixes and effects compared to its stereo counterpart that some collectors consider them effectively two different albums.

• BPI certification: Platinum (British Phonographic Industry)
• RIAA certification: Platinum (Recording Industry Association of America)

Chart positions and certifications sourced from the relevant Wikipedia article infoboxes and citation footnotes.

Recognition mentions extracted from the Wikipedia article. Verify against the linked source before quoting.

• A Hard Day's Night
• Abbey Road
• Beatles for Sale
• Help!
• Let It Be
• Please Please Me