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The Beatles’ self-titled album from 1968 might not be their greatest record, but it is unarguably their rawest, wildest and freest. As a follow-up to 1967’s sonically meticulous Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the freewheeling double LP commonly referred to as the White Album represented an act of artistic liberation. There is harrowing rock (Helter Skelter), empathetic, socially-conscious balladry (Blackbird) and indulgent nonsense (Revolution 9). At least three tracks – Back in the U.S.S.R., Yer Blues and Rocky Raccoon – are parodies of their forms. Feeling unloved, the band’s sad-eyed drummer quit for a while during the album’s recording sessions. Paul McCartney sang, “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah.” The drummer came back.

The end result is a shambolic, mischievous masterpiece, devoid of pretense or blueprint. Song for song, it is superior to the lionized Sgt. Pepper. It might be the Beatles’ greatest album.

An ambitious new box set celebrates the White Album’s weirdness, complete with new mixes of the original tracks, surround-sound audio, unreleased demos, session recordings, essays and track-by-track breakdowns. Naturally, the package has sparked conversation as to the album’s relative merits. Of more interest are the opinions being thrown around about the band itself. Were they any good? We know they could craft a song, but could they play?

In a recent interview, Paul McCartney referred to the Beatles as “a great little band.” Infamously, however, the legendary producer Quincy Jones (who produced Michael Jackson’s Thriller) said in an interview earlier this year with New York Magazine that the Beatles were the “worst musicians in the world,” and that McCartney was the worst bass player he had ever heard. And Ringo? “Don’t even talk about it,” said Jones, who would later walk back his impudent comments.

Giles Martin, who remixed the album for the box set, agrees with McCartney, not Jones. “I think they were great players,” he tells The Globe and Mail. “You don’t exist as the Beatles and make great-sounding records unless you’re a good little band. It just doesn’t happen.”

Some of what happened during the White Album sessions took place without the full sanction of the band’s A&R man and producer George Martin, Giles’s father. The elder Martin was essential to the recording career of the Beatles in general, and to the groundbreaking artful psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper in particular. Martin wanted the band to continue making sophisticated records. The Beatles weren’t having it.

“They were bored of being constrained,” says Giles, from London. “They wanted to be a band.”

For Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles were, in a sense, a fabrication of a band. Retired from touring, they had embraced the sonic possibilities of the studio and submitted to Martin’s wizardry and overlord direction. For the White Album, things would be different. Fresh off their (disastrous) junket to the Maharishi’s meditation compound in India, the group was in no mood for gurus.

“The Beatles felt themselves as the masters of the studio,” says Giles Martin. “My dad had lost the classroom to a certain degree.”

Open this photo in gallery:

This Feb. 28, 1968 file photo shows, from left, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.The Associated Press

Sgt. Pepper was dressed in ornate overdubs and ended in a stunning 40-second E-chord sustain. The White Album began with a jetliner’s scream.

Where Sgt. Pepper had the camaraderie of With a Little Help From My Friends, only 16 of the 30 tracks on the White Album featured the participation of all four Beatles. Patience and stamina were tested. George Martin took a holiday during the sessions. Ringo had blisters on his fingers at the end of Helter Skelter.

The album defies simple categorization. Rockers compete with some of the sweetest music the band ever made. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, with Eric Clapton uncredited on guitar, is one of George Harrison’s finest moments as a Beatle. McCartney’s Honey Pie is a music-hall lark. Lennon’s Julia is a lovely dual tribute to Lennon’s mother and Yoko Ono.

But if the album’s sprawl is its charm, it is tempting to say that by cutting the White Album down to its eight best tracks and adding a pair of singles from the era (Hey Jude and Lady Madonna), one might end up with the best classic rock album of all time.

“That’s the question," says Martin, responding to the suggestion. “There’s a beauty in hindsight. But you know what? You could also just be wrong.”

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