Revolution: The Making of The Beatles' <I>White Album</I>: Amazon.ca: David Quantick: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Beatles fans know more about the Beatles than the Beatles know about themselves. Thus any addition to the hundreds of Beatles books needs an angle-some inspired criticism or a little new dirt-to make it necessary. Sadly, author Quantick (The Clash; Beck) delivers no such hook in his short, dull tribute to the band's White Album, his all-time favorite record. Quantick tells the well-known stories behind each of the 30 songs on the sprawling double-player. Fans will recall that McCartney wrote "Martha, My Dear" for his Old English sheepdog and that Lennon's "Dear Prudence" was about Mia Farrow's sister Prudence, who was apparently spending too much time indoors, meditating. Quantick fails to clearly articulate why he thinks the album's so brilliant, but rather tosses out impenetrable nuggets such as: "Like all great albums, the White Album is both a snapshot of the time it was recorded and a piece of music that stands alone, outside time and fashion"; and that the White Album is the only Beatles record "that would be superb if it had been recorded by any other greatest rock and pop band of all time."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A fascinating expose . . . will amaze Fab Four devotees" -- MWE3

"Conveys the true genius and magic behind the Beatles . . . Will encourage readers to listen . . . with new, apprecitive ears." -- Daytrippin' magazine

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
THERE WERE HINTS THAT 1968 was not going to be a great year for the Beatles. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

2.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Beatles Book I've Read, Oct 20 2003

By

Andrew Kruczek (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Revolution: The Making of The Beatles' White Album (Paperback)

My girlfriend got this book for me for Christmas. I read about half of it and we ended up taking it back for a different book. One reviewer here wrote, "This book was written for Beatles fans and in particular those who have more than a soft spot for the 1968 opus 'The Beatles'." Well, make sure you don't like the album TOO much, because this author repeatedly talks about how bad some of the songs are. It's hard for me to believe this guy likes anything at all. He said Clapton had only one good song, he likened "Wild Honey Pie" to torture.. and he mentions how other songs are pointless and throwaways. He didn't have anything positive to say about the album at all.

Recently, this same Vinyl Frontier series put out a book on Pet Sounds and I was leary to pick it up, thinking that might be an anti-Pet Sounds book, but that one is brilliant. It's written by someone who truly loves the music. Avoid this author at all costs. If you have the soft spot for the album, this guy will anger you.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious but flawed, just like The White Album, April 27 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Revolution: The Making of The Beatles' White Album (Paperback)

First, let me say that "The Beatles" is my favorite overall album from any artist. I can remember first discovering it when I was 12 or 13 and thinking I had connected with another world that was speaking to me alone. "Bungalow Bill" amazed me, "Long Long Long" scared me to pieces, "Birthday" made me laugh out loud and play macho air guitar, and even "Revolution 9" helped annoy the heck out of my parents. It was and still is something that defied description.

So here comes David Quantick, whoever he is, and he's trying to put into words what isn't easily done. Yeah, we all know the "typical" stories that he runs through here about the sources of the lyrics and the influence of the Indian trip and the whole Manson thing. And yeah, he gets pretty opinionated about the album and its songs, even defending Yoko Ono to no end in a sort of overly enthusiastic way. And his wittiness can grate in alot of ways. But I for one would rather have read it than not. It's an enormous undertaking about an album whose germination seems less discussed that "Pepper" or "Let It Be", and the book includes many little-known facts and interesting trivia (like the thing with Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and the influence of the Rishikesh throwaway "Happy Birthday Mike Love" on several tracks).

Personally, I share his opinion of "Wild Honey Pie", Eric Clapton, and Paul's having to record "Helter Skelter" to shake a public perception of him as a pansy. But even if I didn't I still would have enjoyed this trip wholeheartedly. It's quite a good companion to the album; although not the literate investigation many would have wanted, and it echoes an attitude not unlike a British Christgau. I liked it.

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2.0 out of 5 stars a very poor effort, May 9 2003

By

P. J. Walstra "pwalstra" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Revolution: The Making of The Beatles' White Album (Paperback)

The introduction to this book promises that it takes a new approach to a piece of Beatles' history. Where most books first deal with the bigger picture and get to detail later, this book looks at the career of The Beatles by relating it to the author's favourite album - The Beatles (or the White Album as most people know it).
It also promises a fresh and often funny look at their career in crisp and witty prose.
So, I was really looking forward to review this one!
Sadly, I was bitterly disappointed. You might have a different taste as to what's funny & witty or not, but that aside, this book sheds no new light on either The White Album or The Beatles. It is full of well known anecdotes and personal opinion (for instance: page 163 - The Sergeant Pepper inner sleeve was a piece of rubbish according to the author. A matter of taste I'd say, but the point was that the coloured inner sleeve was the first of its kind!). Where there are no facts to go by, the author resorts to unsubstantiated speculation.
The book is also full of errors that would have been easy to avoid (just one example: page 115 - Jimmy Nicol played with The Beatles in 1964 - not 1965).
When there are many of these errors, it's hard to believe anything "new" in such a book. All in all a very poor effort.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Biased Author
Quantik's book is a collection of generally known anecdotes, along with some questionable speculation. Read more

Published on Feb 8 2003 by Kelley S. Jensen

2.0 out of 5 stars "Average" is overdoing it
I bought this book thinking it was written from a different angle and would be an interesting, informative read. Read more

Published on Jan 20 2003 by Brian Delaney