Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		5.0

The Beatles Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 12, 2018

In a way, maybe the veritable handwriting was on the wall, and fans at the time were simply either unwilling or unable to see it. An album without a “real” title, a cover so nondescript that the titleless product ultimately became known by its sole color, and a marketing strategy that eschewed what was then a staple of selling albums — a hit (or at least a potential hit) single. Maybe the pop psychology pundits should have known as early as 1968: The Beatles were going to be disappearing, at least as an "official" band, sooner rather than later. After one of the most memorable titles and covers of all time, namely 1967’s Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, one might have reasonably expected The Beatles to have followed up with something at least somewhat similar. After all, that was the way things were done even back in the “revolutionary” (numbers 1 or 9 notwithstanding) sixties, but The Beatles were at the point in their careers where they were no longer content to let the bean counters in record label offices dictate to them how things should be done, and in fact 1968, the year that the so-called “White Album” was released was in many ways the year that the Beatles’ own label, Apple, really started to take off as well. (As Giles Martin mentions in his essay contained in the book this release features, the then recent death of manager Brian Epstein also played into the sea change in the Beatles' general zeitgeist at the time.) The White Album has always been a bit of an enigma wrapped inside a mystery even for some diehard Beatles fans, with a somewhat motley assortment of tunes and styles that nonetheless features what are now considered to be all time classics by the Fab Four, even if they were less understood and/or appreciated at the time of their release. This is an album (or a double album, as LP collectors would want to remind you) that traverses an incredible variety of genres, from quasi-Chuck Berry (“Back in the U.S.S.R”) to what are almost Music Hall ditties (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”) to songs that would ultimately attain whole new, and in some cases, significantly sinister meanings (“Helter Skelter”) to songs that are among the most ravishing pop confections of their era (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Blackbird”). Now fifty years after its original release, The White Album is back — and then some, in an incredibly packaged release that contains a wealth of spectacular material, including some never previously (officially) released tracks that are already creating a major stir among the Beatles’ still diehard fan base.

It’s hard to even know where to begin with this package, but let’s maybe starting with packaging, with this release coming in a huge oversized book that is, like the original album cover, all in white, with an embossed “The Beatles” and the limited edition numbering (though I frankly didn’t know this, I guess the first pressing of the LP also had a similar numbering scheme). The book measures 10 1/4” wide by 12 9/16” long by 1 1/8” deep. The inside front cover holds the first two CDs while the frontispiece holds the Blu-ray disc. The back cover and the corresponding last page hold the final four CDs. On luscious glossy stock paper throughout, there are first some opening photos and the various sections of the volume (with authors) are then detailed as follows:

• We The Beatles (Paul McCartney)


• Introduction (Giles Martin)


• The Way to White (Kevin Howlett)


• Can You Take Me Back, Where I Came From? (John Harris)


• Lyrics (The Beatles)


• Track by Track (Kevin Howlett)


• The Mad Day Out (Kevin Howlett)


• White on White (Andrew Wilson)


• It’s Here! (Kevin Howlett)

There is frankly so much text here I’m probably going to be reading well into next year, but what I’ve consumed so far has been nothing short of revelatory, with both Sir Paul and Giles Martin offering rather candid assessments of where The Beatles were in their personal and professional lives at this stage of their career(s). The book is stuffed full of archival photos (in some interesting if understandable synchronicity, the Hendrix release I link to in this review has a ton of photos by a certain Linda Eastman), and I can’t imagine any diehard Beatles fan not being over the moon with the sheer amount of material included. After all the text, there’s a heavy stock envelope which contains a reproduction of the original album insert along with four oversized cardstock color photos of the boys.

There is a complete listing of the track listings of all six CDs on Amazon's page, available by clicking on the Buy Now button above, so I won't repeat them here, other than to say the "non White Album" CDs comprise some of the most incredible "behind the scenes" tracks that I've personally listened to in the overall Beatles canon. The Esher Demos disc is fascinating and I frankly had to laugh that I may have been reacting to it in much the same way that the focal character does in the film I just reviewed, Juliet, Naked, when he discovers an early "naked" demo of a rare recording by his favorite musician and is basically transported to some sonic nirvana (no, not that one). But even the rehearsal and alternate take tracks are a revealing example of how The Beatles continually refined their approach, utilizing what they felt was working and not being afraid to jettison what they deemed wasn't.

The Beatles Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There isn't really video content per se available here, other than the menus I've documented in the pictures (actually screenshots) uploaded with this review. The menu is kinda sorta animated, in that the pics of the guys cycle through in various combinations and formulations. I've shown a couple of those variations in the pictures included here.

The Beatles Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beatles' Blu-ray disc offers the original album in a variety of mixes, including two surround mixes in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD 5.1, a stereo mix in LPCM 2.0 and a relatively rare mono mix in LPCM Mono. As I suggested in my recent The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland Blu-ray review, this is another release that warrants listening in all of its variant versions, though I have to say there's a kind of odd amplitude difference between the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes, with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix sounding significantly louder. That oddity aside, while I'm frankly a little overwhelmed at the sheer amount of even "just" the sonic material on this album, there are a number of standout moments the surround mix provides (due to the amplitude difference, I just defaulted to the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix), including really spacious accountings of elements like the special tape effects and other sound effects utilized in some tunes or even the massed guitars and screams of "Back in the U.S.S.R." Some fans were relatively disappointed by the surround mixes on Sgt. Pepper's "deluxe" release from last year, but I found the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix here to offer regular engagement of the surround channels, with no real "weighting" toward the front (to be fair, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, while weirdly soft, also features consistent surround engagement.) But even the stereo mix offers new clarity and support from some surprisingly layered instrumentation. The White Album has at times been compared, supposedly negatively, to the overdubbing hyperbole and massed backups that were part and parcel of Sgt. Pepper, but there are some amazing "vertical" listening opportunities in tons of songs here, and Giles Martin's mixes often are able to divulge previously unheard (at least to me) nuggets of sound. Even "simple" songs (in terms of instrumentation and/or orchestration, not to mention added "special effects") like "Blackbird" sound almost resplendent in the stereo mix. I know there are fans who love the various mono mixes of Beatles material, but I personally found the mono mix here more of a curio than a totally satisfying listening experience. While the prioritization of various elements is handled very smartly throughout, at times the narrow channelization tends to make some songs, notably the ones featuring "tape" elements (a la Stockhausen), a bit "thick" sounding to my ears.

The Beatles Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements? Supplements? Well, the Blu-ray disc doesn't have any, but I'm still scoring this a 5.0 for the unbelievable assortment of both audio "extras" (courtesy of the "non-White Album" CDs) and the unbelievably gorgeous and informatively written book.

The Beatles Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I mentioned in our The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland Blu-ray review how if the future of Blu-ray audio is a little iffy, at least its present is kind of exciting, given releases like the Hendrix album and now this epochal release of The Beatles' White Album. Now it's arguable of course that is not a true "audio Blu-ray" release, or at least is not just an "audio Blu-ray" release, but for both Beatles fans in particular and fans of lossless audio presentations of classic albums in general, this is a new high water mark for the format. Yes, this is spendy (to say the least), but in my estimation it's worth every penny (lane?). The book itself is a marvel and the 4 "bonus" CDs (i.e., the discs not containing the original album) are, to put it mildly, mind blowing. If you have a Beatles fan in the house, consider your holiday shopping completed. Highly recommended.