On this day in 1968, The Beatles began recording “The White Album”

By 1968, The Beatles were cemented as the biggest act in the world, and were still riding high form the release of their previous album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For their next project, the band decided to take a more stripped back approach with both the music and the art direction. The album would simply be called The Beatles and would feature a plain white cover, with only the bands name appearing in a basic font. This led to the album being commonly known as The White Album. 

On the 30th of May, the group returned to EMI Studios and began recording for the new album, using a number of demos they had written during their stay at a Transcendental Meditation course in India. The first track to be properly recorded was “Revolution”, written by Lennon to be a fast and loud rock song which was released as a B-side to “Hey Jude”. This was then slowed down to the more bluesy version that appears on The Beatles. 

The recording continued until mid-October, and was plagued by problems during that time. Examples include producer George Martin taking an unexpected holiday, engineer Geoff Emerick quitting mid-session and Ringo Starr leaving the band for two weeks in August. Several members of the band were also frustrated by Yoko Ono’s attendance at the sessions, violating a “no wives or girlfriends policy” that had been in place for several years. The tensions between the band built during recording and continued into the following year, culminating in the break-up of the group.

The Beatles released to highly favourable critical reviews to the majority of critics, with many praising its fragmentary style and the variety of genres utilised, such as folk, country, blues, ska and avant-garde. Interestingly, this would also be the feature highlighted in the few negative reviews drawn by the album, as well as the length. Commercially, the album was a huge success, reaching number one in multiple countries around the world, and in the years since has been certified twenty-four times platinum in the US alone and become one of the band’s most recognisable releases.