Overview

• On July 21, Billy Joel told Bill Maher that he hears the White Album as “half-assed songs” assembled from unfinished fragments during the recording sessions
• He blamed the album’s uneven quality on The Beatles being “too stoned” or disinterested and suggested John Lennon was dissociating while Paul McCartney carried most of the creative weight
• Joel’s critique was delivered on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast and represents one of the most outspoken peer assessments of the 1968 double LP
• Paul McCartney has long dismissed such criticisms, telling Radio Luxembourg that the White Album “was great” and sold exceptionally well
• No response has yet come from the surviving Beatles, leaving McCartney’s past defenses as the principal counterpoint to Joel’s remarks