In-Car Entertainment

This is another one of those mighty albums, made all the more mightier by its size, for it is one of those rare treats - a double album. I realised when I bought it (£10 in Fopp - mispriced, surely - bargain of a lifetime!) that Id' need more than my regular commute to work to give it a full listen. So it's sat waiting to be played until now: a journey back home to Durham.

There's a nice analogy here. The drive to Durham is nearly all on the A1, but it's one of those roads that varies from roaring four-lane motorway, through bustling urban dual-carriageway, through winding rural stretches. In the same way, this album is all The Beatles, but the number of bases covered is vast. Today, such genre-hopping is more common place; then, it was virtually unknown. The White Album certainly broke a few musical taboos.

The first disc presents 17 tracks, which even on its own was a huge number for a single album. This is permitted mainly because most of them are short pieces (I thought of the word 'vignettes' in the car) covering blues, Beach Boys parodies (the opening 'Back In The USSR') and Britain, mining the rich seam of song the Kinks visited so often. I was quite surprised: I'd actually never heard most of these tracks (you think you know it all...), and yet they still seem familiar because of that essential Beatles sound. You even get 'Glass Onion', a neat summary of several previous Beatles story songs.

So onto album two. With fewer tracks, there's more space to breath, and the jaunty pace is slackened somewhat. The pieces are more consistent in style, with the roomy 'Mother Nature's Son' given time to find its sound, and rock anthems 'Helter Skelter' and 'Revolution 1' extending over four minutes. Each of The Beatles contributes to the songwriting - although, of course, Lennon and McCartney's compositions are always co-credited. There's plenty been written on their writing talents that's far more authorative than anything I can say here, so suffice it to say that all four are on form, although you'll have to have an open mind to appreciate some of the more esoteric pieces.

And then we have 'Revolution 9'. This is a track that you'll either love or loath, consisting of over eight minutes of random 'found audio'. I thought I'd hate it, but having now heard it in context, it really is something of a revolution. Again, sound collages are now common (the Avalanches have made an entire career out of it), but this surely must stand as one of the earliest examples of such an audio composition reaching mainstream music. It's one of those things where even if you don't appreciate the content, you've got to respect the art.

As the album draws to a close with Ringo crooning his way through 'Goodnight' (I mean, come on - Ringo - whose idea was that?), you realise that The White Album is a truely great work. Not necessarily something you'll listen to often, not necessarily something you can sit back and enjoy, not even necessarily something you'll call music. But it is quite some achievement in itself, and well deserving of its classic status.