The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ Was Originally Going to Have a Stain on the Cover
TL;DR:
- Paul McCartney discussed the cover of The Beatles’ The White Album.
- The cover went through multiple possible iterations.
- The White Album was a hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Beatles‘ The White Album could have had an apple stain on its cover. Paul McCartney explained why that idea got shot down. In addition, he revealed he was initially skeptical of making the cover of The White Album solidly white.
Paul McCartney asked a pop artist to think up the cover of The Beatles’ The White Album’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul said he was a fan of the pop artist Richard Hamilton. The artist is most known for his collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, which was one of the earliest works of pop art. Paul asked Hamilton to come up with an idea for the cover of The White Album.
“Richard had a friend from Iceland, the artist Diter Rot, who used to send him letters smeared in chocolate, and Richard liked that a lot, so then the idea grew; he said, ‘Well, maybe we could do something like that with an apple. We could bounce an apple on a bit of paper and get a smudge, a very light green smear with a little bit of pulp,'” Paul recalled.
Paul McCartney explained why The Beatles didn’t go along with Richard Hamilton’s idea
Paul explained why the Fab Four nixed Hamilton’s idea. “We ended up thinking that might be hard to print, because inevitably if these things do well, there are huge printings in places like Brazil and India and anything too subtle like a little apple smear can be lost, can just look like they printed it crappy,” Paul said. “So that idea went by the wayside.
“So now he was saying, ‘Let’s call it The Beatles and have it white, really white,'” Paul continued. “I was saying, ‘Well, I dunno. It’s a great concept, but we are releasing an album here.'” Paul felt a solid white album cover was too conceptual and highbrow. Then Hamilton convinced him that a solid white album cover with the title The Beatles embossed on it would work.
How ‘The White Album’ performed in the United States and the United Kingdom
The White Album was a huge hit in the United States. It topped the Billboard 200 for nine weeks. It stayed on the chart for a total of 215 weeks. Aside from Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album became the Fab Four’s biggest studio album in the U.S.
The Official Charts Company reports The White Album became a more modest hit in the United Kingdom. There, it was No. 1 for eight weeks. It remained on the chart for a total of 37 weeks. In the U.K. The White Album wasn’t even close to becoming one of the Fab Four’s most popular records.
The White Album was huge even if it didn’t have a stain on its cover.
