Although I feel the White Album is not a great one, I have come to realise that a lot of the trends and genres of music such as Punk, Bubblegum, Metal etc etc that followed, were covered on that album, so it was in retrospect groundbreaking.. They were already going there own ways by 1968, you can hear it in the music, most of the songs are individual efforts and that is probably why it was a double album.