Choice Is Yours Vol. 82: The Wall vs. The White Album
Pink Floyd – The Wall (1979)
Vs.
The Beatles – White Album (1968)
The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be? What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…
- My Pal the Crook
June 15th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
THE WALL was remarkable album… but “The White Album” was so much more important.
The Beatles obviously had a huge influence on Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine, The Smashing Pumpkins, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Nirvana, The Chemical Brothers, Radiohead, and David Bowie.
June 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Wait. WAIT. Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?!
June 15th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Seriously? Two replies?
June 15th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
white album, happiness is a warm gun is my jam!
June 15th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I’d have a harder time if it was White v. Dark Side, I think. The White Album probably wins, and it probably wins hands-down, but I can’t say that I really know why. I’m now flipping through the possible pair-ups between these two bands and Abbey Road is beating pretty much everything…Animals and Wish You Were Here are hard to bout, however.
Sorry–too–for not answer your ACTUAL question.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Influences aside, the question is if only one could exist. Based only on playthrough’s and repeat purchases, I have had way too many copies of The Wall… LP, tape, CD, digital… same with white album however. But once my white album tape got stuck in an Oldsmobile, my cd got scratched… I didn’t replace the white album. I did replace The Wall… countless times. I still have 4 double cd cases of it… only one with cd’s in tact. What was the first cd I put into my new Sony D-50? The Wall. Sorry… beat me up hipsters.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:38 am
@esoterik
Yeah, if the 13th Planet was bearing down on us all and I’m only able to save one album for the human race then I’d probably grab the White Album. If I was preparing to go on a long journey through space then personally I’d bring The Wall.
June 16th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
white album… no dert abert it
June 16th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
beatles did NOT have a “huge influence” on the VU, esp John Cale.
MBV, Pumpkins, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Nirvana all had bigger influences than Beatles.
Nice laundry list tho.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
@ RN
if you ever REALLY listened to Siouxsie and The Banshees… you would know they made a cover song of “Helter Skelter” and even released another cover of “Dear Prudence” as a single.
and if you LEARNED anything about Kurt Cobain you would know that he wrote “About a Girl” after listening to MEET THE BEATLES for three straight hours.
if you EVER listened to the song “Candy Says” by the Velvet Underground, you would notice that it sounds very similar to “Julia” by The Beatles
anything acoustic by The Smashing Pumpkins reminds me of early Beatles
MORON.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
The Beatles also had a huge influence on BLACK FLAG
without The Beatles; Pink Floyd might not even exist.
Don’t get me wrong… Pink Floyd has made major contributions to Progressive Rock, and Electronic Psychedelia. But they never affected music in the same way that The Beatles did.
June 17th, 2010 at 3:04 am
Wow- usually i have a definitive opinion but this one is fuckeddddd…. I like both so much- rocky racoon isn’t on the wall though so fuckin’ A the Beatles win i guess… i dunno the thing is the White album can get played out, even my fuckin moms thinks so, Floyd’s Darkside kinda matches the lvl of stoner/burnout played outedness but eh… sheiiiiit (in clay davis voice)= i fuckin love the white album more…. i guess
ps MVB= Siouxsie’s Dear Prudence is fucking grrreat.
June 17th, 2010 at 9:51 am
1 song that sounds “very similar” does not make the Beatles a “huge influence” on Lou Reed or VU in 1968 or after. if you “EVER listened” to more than one VU song, you would know their catalog has squat to do with the fab4 or any of their influences.
i LEARNED nothing from Kurt Cobain and don’t care how many times he listened to Meet The Beatles. Sonic Youth and The Monkees were a bigger influence on Nirvana’s sound than anything MTB’s did for “About A Girl”.
Siouxie covered “Dear Prudence” because Robert Smith had been working on solo project with Severin (The Glove) while Sioux and Budgie recorded the first Creatures album. As a favor, Smith asked S&TB to do a cover song… “Prudence” was a fluke 7″ that ended up being their most commercial hit and only being added to US-only release of Hyaena. Bands sometimes cover songs as larks or album fillers – it’s not a big deal.
by your flawed reasoning, “hanging gardens” features a glockenspiel so it must have been hugely influenced by the beatles’ glockenspiel on “Only A Northern Song” – because without the Beatles, there’s no glockenspiel in rock… in fact, maybe there’s no Pink Floyd either. quit humping the beatles, MORON. Without Syd Barrett or Roger Waters, “Pink Floyd might not even exist.”
Keep scrolling thru your itunes library, mattvandouchebag. You left off the Beatles huge influence on DangerMouse.
June 17th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I found this quote by John Cale of The Velvet Underground
“Rubber soul was where you were forced to deal with them as something other than a flash in the pan. It was rich in ideas and i loved the way George Harrison managed to find a way to include all those indian instruments. Lou and i had tried to work with the sarinda. We were only playing it just to get a noise but i realised you could play melody on the sitar as good as Norwegian wood. Norwegian woond had this atmosphere of being very acid. I don’t think anybody has ever got that sound or that feeling as well at the Beatles”
your arguments are pointless, and your reasoning is dimwitted.
do some homework before making assumptions
June 19th, 2010 at 1:03 am
The Wall. While the White Album has a ton of good songs, it isn’t a cohesive effort and is all over the place. The Wall has a goal and works towards it exceedingly well. It succeed mightily as an album while the White Album is just a killer compilation of the Beatles flexing their individual dick muscles.