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

I don't think it should have replaced The Beatles' White Album. But, the perfect painter's master stroke for this would have been to release Kinfauns/The Esher Demos back around 93-95 when acoustic versions of albums/songs were huge. This would have basically been The Beatles' version of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged, and I think it probably would have had enough interest from the casual-Beatles crowd to be a big seller. Maybe even #1. But at least we did get high-quality versions of a sampling of these songs on Anthology 3. Also, even though it hasn't been officially released, I had no idea Sour Milk Sea existed as a Beatles' song (well more or less) as it wasn't on the Lost Lennon Tapes show as far as I can recall, and who knows what else the Harrison Estate might have on tape.

 

Come Together is one hell of a leftover!!

 

And correct

 

I don't know about that. They could be from earlier in May.

Absolutely true. It may be that by 1968, that wast he type of atmosphere necessary for the group the relax and enjoy themselves? For example, Yoko and Pattie were both in attendance at the Birthday session, and coincidentally or not, that sounds like one of the more enjoyable sessions based on the finished product - there's a certain "tightness" or tension heard on other tracks that's not present to my ears on Birthday.

 

"Beatles need to play faster! I never even heard of Beatles until I met John."

 

...just to add...wasn't this the basic premise for the Get Back "project"..??

 

Listening to the Kinfauns demos on YouTube recently ... I had some of the same thoughts...many are quite engaging alternate takes on the songs and song fragments that compose the final phase of beatledom. Would a truly stripped down,acoustic approach have made for a better more engaged Beatles Album with a lighter touch? That is a valid question. Certainly Lennon had that in mind when evaluating the results of the Strawberry Fields sessions. It's hard to imagine Don't Pass Me By passing muster in a room of acoustic guitars and naturalistic recording methods. A more naked aural presence would have placed the acoustic songs more to the fore and might have placed the more "stunt oriented" parodies at the margins... privileging songs like junk, piggies, Julia, while my guitar,child of nature OR bringing forward the singalongs like obladi, rocky and bungalow bill.

It would have been a sweet little album...might have sounded more dated if it sounded too much like the music of the times or it might have included some truly arresting performances.. think of here comes the Sun or let it be instant karma or for you blue. One thing is almost for sure...anything that could have shortened that session by half would have been helpful be it a 16 track deck or a Revolution 1/Ob-La-Di single issued immediately after recordings were mixed!

 

I have to say that an "alternate white album" composed of interesting demos from Kinfauns like the way led zeppelin just mirrored the released album with the outtakes might work very well for the White Album reissue.

 

I don’t know what a Kinfaun is, but if it’s a type of sushi I’m not really for it.

 

I'm a huge Beatles fan, but: I don't think the band had the musical talent at that point to record an acoustic album that wouldn't have sounded amateurish. The high take numbers during the WA sessions were probably due to the fact that they gave up the live shows, and never played together unless they were recording. The demos are fascinating, but not particularly well played, if we're being honest here. The Get Back project was a disaster, and I don't think having that mindset a year earlier would have made any better results.

 

Where did you come up with the 40% figure?

 

I was briefly in a band that made a hard rule of only recording live in the room together, no overdubs (save for lead vocals after the fact). None of us were pro-level, even though we practiced as often as possible and had a fairly regular local show schedule.

To say that method of recording was difficult for us was an understatement. It can be done if you've consistently played live and keep up your instrumental chops on your own time.

And not to compare that project to the Beatles. But at the time, it got me thinking a lot about the fiery young live band on Please Please Me, versus the distracted studio-only entity they had become by Get Back/Let It Be. The "playing live, no overdubs" was aiming too high at that point, so no wonder they got frustrated - nothing betrays supposed musical skill like hearing how out-of-practice you really are on unadorned, straight recordings.

As for the Esher demos, those were basically the 1968 equivalent of banging out four-track demos 30 years later. Except this was the Beatles with an amazing batch of songs, unlike the rest of us dorks trying to be songwriters in our bedrooms.

 

The only thing lacking on the White Album is sound quality (esp noticeable when you play it after MMT).

 

Here is a picture of a proper Kinfauns (castle and hilltop folly) taken a few weeks before the Beatles would have driven past on a visit to Dundee, Scotland.
The folly is a real landmark along with the one called Kinnoul on a neighbouring hill.

 

I find the perky, bubbly Beatles a touch annoying vs the dark and troubled Beatles.

 

The ominousness is part of what I love about the WA.
The lush but bone dry production makes it jump out of the speakers. Love it.

 

In places, Lennons work on the white album indeed feels heroine drained, but I get that feeling almost on the entire Revolver. Rubber Soul and Abbey Road feels different.

 

I love the demos, and desperately want them in better quality. But no, I don’t they are better than the fully realized studio versions. Really, any of them. Which is saying something.

I guess that the question really is, what if they made more fully realized versions at George’s House, somewhere in between. Sort of like the Beatles making CSN’s couch album. It’s an interesting idea. But to me, given the material, the white album totally works. The flaws are when the songs don’t work. Like Bungalow Bill or Rocky Raccoon or Don’t Pass Me By. The recordings of the songs are pretty great.

So, no.

 

I'm sure that is part of it but I think the significance of high take numbers during the White Album is slightly overstated.

Prior to the WA they would record scores of un-numbered 'rehearsal' takes until they felt they were tight enough to start the proper takes. These pre-take 1 rehearsals were usually erased by the proper takes but sometimes bits of them are preserved at the end of the reel or peak out between takes. The instrumental bit of I'm Only Sleeping with vibes is an example of this. Another is the 30 seconds of John's solo acoustic SFF (Giles missed that one)...

For some reason during the WA sessions they stopped this practice so suddenly what would have been a 30 minute reel of rehearsal takes soon to be taped over is now 15 proper takes. Paperback Writer was captured in only 2 takes but they recorded loads of rehearsal takes before Take 1. If PW was recorded in 1968 Take 2 would be something like Take 22.

 

I love the white album. I don’t feel darkness and tension from it. I like the demos I’ve heard and I’m sure I’d like a basement tapes style album as well, but I love the album as released, Revolution 9 included.

 

To my ears the White Album has much crisper sound quality than MMT, which is more murky and hissy.

 

Yeah, that’s what I meant in the OP - what if they had made a “couch album” at Kinfauns, something done in a more informal environment, and perhaps more quickly. But honestly, the more I think about this, the more I think they would’ve ended up decamping to Abbey Road anyway. John and Paul were both having terrible summers (Jane left; Yoko arrived, but with a bag of heroin), and nothing was going to change that.

 

Depends on your version of MMT. I have a Capitol mono pressing of that album that sounds light years better than the stereo pressing, so there's that. And, I have the mono remastered TWA which sounds better still than the stereo version. Not positive, but I don't think EMI moved to a transistorized mixing desk until AR, so would presumably still be a tube type desk in use for TWA.

Looking at pics from the sessions, I do notice quite a few more dynamic mics in use versus the usual compliment of Neumann condensers. The Sennheiser MD 421 dynamic is especially prevalent. This may account in part for some of the perceived differences in the sound of the recordings.

 

Playing the mono in sequence and the White Album sounds really poor.

 

One listen to MMT on the Blu-ray of the film will tell you that the sound on the multi-tracks is pristine. So the mixing may account for some of the difference in sound as well.

No doubt the fidelity will improve on a remixed WA, but I have a feeling it will also show that some of the tracks weren't as well recorded as most of the 1967 material.