Would the White Album Have Worked Better as the "Kinfauns Basement Tapes"?

Throughout all human history, respective cultures and economic strata, there has been lots of piggies.
"You're nearly a good laugh
Almost a joker
With your head down in the pig bin
Saying "keep on digging"
Pig stain on your fat chin
What do you hope to find?
When you're down in the pig mine
You're nearly a laugh
You're nearly a laugh
But you're really a cry."
-Pink Floyd

 

Quite ironic considering far more time was spent recording The Beatles than Sgt. Pepper's, or any other album in their catalog for that matter.

A Bar Graph Comparing Studio Time Required Per Beatles Album

 

...with their piggy wives:

 

Pearls before swine?

 

Interesting:

 

^^^The jump in studio time from Rubber Soul to Revolver is also notable.

 

George and Pink Floyd loved their bacon. Lived for the dough.

 

Makes sense. The Beatles has twice the amount of material than, say, Pepper, and with all the edits, sequencing and overdubs, it stands to reason it's take twice as long.

 

Yes. That's why the jump at Revolver shows the real shift. It is almost 3x as much studio time as Rubber Soul.

 

With such busy schedules where did they find the time?

And how did they convince the higher ups that tripled studio time was worth it?

 

That's pretty handy!

 

1966 was a relatively un-busy year. One tour in North America. That was the only big activity, besides the Revolver sessions (and the Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane/When I'm 64 sessions near the end of the year).

 

Well yes, but still, it's evidence against those who say the WA was a simpler recording, which I keep hearing.

 

The White Album lacks the perfected polish/bells and whistles of Pepper, but had twice as many songs. Also, weren't they also setting up Apple at that point? The Beatles' 1968 timeline is ridiculous when you think about all they had going on, professionally and personally, in addition to recording TWA and "Hey Jude"/"Revolution".

 

With so many hours I'd characterize TWA as "highly polished raw" or so it seems.

Hopefully there's another comparison chart out there clocking how many takes it took per song per album.

 

Well, "longer" or "longer to make" doesn't necessarily mean more complex. Shorter doesn't necessarily mean "simpler." There are a whole pile of different things that could make something take longer to make beside relatively simpleness or complexity of what's being made.

 

Absolutely, of course. We'd need to define what we mean by "complicated".

However, this is an arrow in the quiver of those who reject the idea that recording the WA was less complicated than Pepper.

 

I'd think the Beatles were one of the few pop acts that could command such production needs, especially with the arms race of pop music heating up with Brian Wilson's and Phil Spector's activity of the time.

 

They could basically camp out at Abbey Road during this period, not many others had that luxury.

 

Not to mention a month or so in India. Plus John and Paul’s relationships imploded. And John’s drug bust. And johnandyoko’s Two Virgins.

 

In fact, 1966 was the least busy year for the band from 1962 to 1969. It also produced the fewest new songs, and had the least product: 1 album (Revolver) and 1 all-new single (Paperback Writer/Rain) in the UK. Every other year had multiple albums and multiple singles. But NOT 1966.

1966 will be an interesting year for Lewisohn to analyze in his next volume.

 

Also 1966 did not have a film, unlike 1964 (A Hard Day's Night), 1965 (Help!), 1967 (Magical Mystery Tour), 1968 (Yellow Submarine---although they only had to do the bit at the end for "All Together Now), and 1969 (Let It Be, although not released until 1970).

I think people tend to overlook how LITTLE that they actually did in 1966, mostly because it was the tail-end of the Beatlemania years.

 

In hindsight, I would characterize Sgt. Pepper's as their Hollywood Summer Blockbuster whereas The Beatles "White Album" was their Independent Fall Film.

 

***Just to be accurate: And a handful of shows in Germany, Tokyo, and the dreaded Manila, Philippines.

 

Their "chill" period could account for John's I'm Only Sleeping when he actually had time to do so.