The Beatles Album Producer George Martin Didn’t Like Making
While many refer to The Beatles as the fab four, producer George Martin was an essential fifth member. He was vital in ensuring every Beatles song and album sounded as good as it did. Martin had a role in every one of The Beatles’ albums. However, there was one album Martin wasn’t thrilled about, even though it’s one of the band’s most popular records.
‘The White Album’ is the longest album by The Beatles
1968’s The White Album is a double album consisting of 30 songs. 19 songs were written during The Beatles’ trip to India for a Transcendental Meditation course. The album came after Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album where the band worked together closely on the story and concept. The White Album consisted of many different sounds and styles, with each member contributing their own songs to the track listing.
Still, The White Album is one of their most successful albums, and it produced hits like “Blackbird” and “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” The Beatles weren’t all on the same page about it. In a 1971 interview, John Lennon said it was one of his favorite Beatles albums, but Paul McCartney didn’t have the same reaction.
“[Paul] wanted it to be more a group thing, which really means more Paul. So he never liked that album,” Lennon explained. “I always preferred it to all the other albums, including Pepper, because I thought the music was better. The Pepper myth is bigger, but the music on The White Album is far superior, I think.”
George Martin didn’t like ‘The White Album’ because there was too much material
In a 1971 interview with Melody Maker, George Martin explained why he didn’t like making The White Album. According to The Beatles’ producer, each member came back with songs they had written in India and wanted them all on the album. Since no one was willing to leave anything out, the album became an assortment of sounds and styles with no cohesion.
“I didn’t like it because there was too much material. They’d written an awful lot of stuff while they were out in India, and they’d come back just wanting to put them down. I said, ‘Okay let’s put them down and issue the best.’ But when we’d got them all down, they didn’t want to ditch any of them, they wanted to make it a double album. There was such a varied selection of styles … there were obviously John songs and Paul songs and George songs … and there was no unity in the thing.”
The producer wanted The Beatles to be more united
Tensions between The Beatles began brewing in the late 1960s. The White Album was evidence that each artist wanted to go in separate directions creatively. Martin said he enjoyed the unity the band had while recording Sgt. Pepper’s and much of that was gone during recording for The White Album. He wanted to keep the album more coherent, but McCartney was the only one interested in doing that.
“I was rather sad when we did the White Album that we’d chucked that out of the window,” Martin shared. “I still wanted to do a coherent work, and I didn’t really persuade them to get down to it until Abbey Road, and even then, John was very against that. It was only Paul who really wanted the unifying bit.”
