The Beatles' White Album at 40

While we provide a page full of links to our competitors on the site in the spirit of providing a service to our readers, we don't normally tout their work. I mean, does Spin go out of its way to tout the great work Rolling Stone is doing? Not likely.

Sometimes you just have to tip your hat, though. And this week our competitors over at PopMatters have outdone themselves with a superb series celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the most important albums in music history, The Beatles, a.k.a. The White Album. Not content to simply publish a review -- or several reviews -- PopMatters enlisted a substantial chunk of its writing staff to deliver a track-by-track analysis of the album plus an overview, dividing the double LP up into four sides and releasing first the overview and then analysis of one side per day all week this week.

Like The Beatles itself, the track reviews feature many different voices commenting on the origins, recording and significance of each track, a fitting tribute to an album that symbolized the splintering of pop's greatest band, while thoroughly capturing the moment in the midst of one of their most musically fertile and personally conflict-ridden periods.

It's a fascinating read; hats off here.