For an LP with a plain white cover, the Beatles eponymous ninth studio album – more commonly referred to as the “White Album” – has generated a mass of symbolism since its release 50 years ago in November 1968.
With its glossy all-white gatefold cover, black inner sleeves and portraits of the Fab Four hidden inside the sleeve, the influence of the White Album can be traced across a huge range of cultural artefacts. For example, the author of New Journalism, Joan Didion, named her study of the end of the 1960s dream, The White