The album is rather like a "disjoined character" and thats what I dont like it about it. There is no flow between the songs.
Since reading this thread, I've spoken to a non-Beatles friend who stumbled across the first half of the White Album years ago. He listened to it without knowing it was a true Beatles album--rather, as he said to me, he thought it was a poorly put-together compilation of their songs. Basically, to his ears, it sounded as though someone took a bunch of different-sounding Beatles songs and slapped them together on an album. He liked most the songs okay, I think, but was not impressed enough to seek out more Beatles music. (Which is a shame.
)
What a different point of view that was to me. I've never thought that the White Album could sound more like a "bad" compilation record than a proper album, but I can probably understand why it would sound that way to a new listener. :-/
