From Newsgroup: rec.music.beatles
Billy Joel recently guested on Bill Mahar's Club Random podcast. In
addition to the expected questions about his current health, he also
talked about the White Album when the pair began to discuss classic
double albums. "I'm not a big fan of the White Album, but some people
love it," he said. "I hear it as a collection of half-assed songs they
didn't finish writing because they were too stoned, or they didn't care anymore. I think they had fragments and they put them on the album. I
think John [Lennon] was dissasociating at that point... I think Paul [McCartney] was carrying the weight." Joel theorized that the band "had
their ups and downs" as to why the White Album took a dip in quality,
going on to explain: "Sometimes they were more prolific and sometimes
they weren't, and I hear that in some of those things."
Personally I think you could name the second side of Abbey Road as
containing "fragments of songs they didn't finish writing" over the
White Album. And "A Day In The Life" from Sgt. Pepper's was famously
patched together from fragments of songs of John's and Paul's.
I thought Joel was pretty consistent up through 1987's The Bridge
album. After that his albums were pretty spotty. Still a great artist
though.
Full interview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UhXgiKmllw&feature=youtu.be
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