Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious but flawed, just like The White Album
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Ambitious but flawed, just like The White Album
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: "Average" is overdoing it
Review: I bought this book thinking it was written from a different angle and would be an interesting, informative read. Factual errors too numerous to count put the entire book in question for me. Burps of the writers opinion presented as facts abound. For a book that is supposed to be a detailed, microscopic look at the White Album there were just too many errors for me to enjoy it. When discussing the Manson Family's infatuation with the album he mistakenly calls Susan Atkins (aka Sadie Mae Glutz) "Tex Atkins" mixing her name up with Tex Watson. My advice: Do your homework and hire a proofreader! PS I love Wild Honey Pie. So there!
Rating:
Summary: "Average" is overdoing it
Review: I bought this book thinking it was written from a different angle and would be an interesting, informative read. Factual errors too numerous to count put the entire book in question for me. Burps of the writers opinion presented as facts abound. For a book that is supposed to be a detailed, microscopic look at the White Album there were just too many errors for me to enjoy it. When discussing the Manson Family's infatuation with the album he mistakenly calls Susan Atkins (aka Sadie Mae Glutz) "Tex Atkins" mixing her name up with Tex Watson. My advice: Do your homework and hire a proofreader! PS I love Wild Honey Pie. So there!
Rating:
Summary: Ambitious but flawed, just like The White Album
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst Beatles Book I've Read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Beatles Book I've Read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Biased Author
Review: Quantik's book is a collection of generally known anecdotes, along with some questionable speculation. Annoyingly he feels duty bound to weigh in repeatedly with his personal opinion in a very unjournalistic way: "The theme of their (Patti H. and Eric C.) unrequited love had already inspired Clapton's only great song, "Layla" (While Boyd and Clapton's realized relationship was responsible for the apalling "Wonderful Tonight.)" p. 94 "Described by its author as a 'little experimental piece,' Wild Honey Pie is no such thing unless the experiment in one involving horrible torture." p. 86 Some of the details are interesting but Quantik's writing style is obnoxious. The book is carried solely by the intrinsically compelling nature of the subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: a very poor effort
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: More amusing than revelatory, but still enjoyable
Review: This was the second in the Vinyl Frontier series that I read, the first being the making of Pet Sounds. That one led me to believe that all of the books in this series would be thoughtful and informative descriptions of the songwriting, recording, and production process. "Revolution" is not that in the slightest, though it is still a fun read. There is little about the actual recordings, still less on the process of writing each song, and essentially nothing on mixing, production, or the technical details of releasing a record. Instead, Quantick focuses much of his attention on the individual songs themselves, primarily the lyrical content and to a lesser degree the music (e.g. styles, dynamics, etc.).
What apparently annoyed many readers is Quantick's highly opinionated style, particularly as his opinions are often peculiar (if not bizarre). I certainly disagree that "Layla" was Clapton's only great song, or that "Wonderful Tonight" was appalling, and I'm surprised by the hatred Quantick has towards U2. More relevant, I do not see the white album being even close to being The Beatles' best work. However, this style also allows the author to abandon a neutral stance and take very funny shots at the Beatles (and others). For example, he HATES "Wild Honey Pie," and notes on personnel that other than Paul McCartney "No other Beatles were harmed in the making of this song." The caption to a photo of Clapton notes that Clapton is "about to play on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, have an affair with George's wife, become a junkie, etc." These barbs are sprinkled throughout the book and keep the book light and enjoyable.
I also enjoyed the article regarding Charles Manson's relationship to the white album. I knew generalities about the Family's reliance on the album, but Quantick gives fascinating details that most "respectable" critics would have ignored.
On the other hand, Quantick does not come across as particularly knowledgeable about music or The Beatles. He was exceptionally unconvincing in his rapturous take on Revolution 9 (and did not even address whether such noise can actually be considered "music," since it lacks rhythm or melody). He seems to have written the book in discrete sections without considering the whole, such that adjoining songs will have almost identical wording regarding specific points he wants to make, which makes the reading repetitious at times. Finally, he apparently recently learned the definition of the word "pastiche," as it crops up repeatedly to the point of distraction. David, find a thesaurus!
Despite these quibbles, this was a fun and informative book. While more superficial and less educated than many critical works (including some in this series), it does provide an interesting detailed examination of the album, the times in which it was released, and the Beatles themselves before, during, and after the record.
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