for a fun song about fun", adding, "Who needs answers?" Record Mirrors reviewer said it was the album's "most pleasant and best recorded track" and praised the "chuck-chuck piano and drum sound". Nik Cohn, writing in The New York Times, gave the double LP an unfavourable review in which he criticised the Beatles for resorting to musical pastiche. He said that "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was "mock-West Indies" and that like the album's other examples of "mock-[music]", "none of it works, it all loses out to the originals, it all sounds stale." The NMEs Alan Smith admired the "good-to-be-alive groove" and said the song was "a great personal favourite". He added: "Heard it once, can't stop. Hanclapping fun à la West Indies, sung with warmth by Paul ... This is going to be a smash [hit] for somebody ..." Ian MacDonald described "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "one of the most spontaneous-sounding tracks on The Beatles" as well as the most commercial, but also a song filled with "desperate levity" and "trite by McCartney's standards". Conversely, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic includes it among McCartney's "stunning" compositions on the album. Ian Fortnam of Classic Rock magazine groups it with "Martha My Dear", "Rocky Raccoon" and "Honey Pie" as examples of the "awful lot of sugar" McCartney contributed to the White Album, in an attempt to make it more "palatable" in response to Lennon's determination to include his eight-minute avant-garde piece "Revolution 9". "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is often the subject of ridicule. In 2004, it was included in Blender magazine's list titled "50 Worst Songs Ever!" and was voted the worst song of all time in an online poll organised by Mars. In 2012, the NMEs website editor, Luke Lewis, argued that the Beatles had recorded "a surprising amount of ropy old toss", and singled out "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "the least convincing cod-reggae skanking this side of the QI theme tune". That same year, Tom Rowley of The Daily Telegraph said the track was a "reasonable choice" for derision, following the result of the Mars poll, and it subsequently came second (behind "Revolution 9") in the Telegraphs poll to determine the worst Beatles song. Personnel According to Ian MacDonald and Mark Lewisohn: The Beatles Paul McCartney – vocal, electric bass, acoustic bass, handclaps, vocal percussion John Lennon – piano, backing vocal, handclaps, vocal percussion George Harrison – acoustic guitar, backing vocal, handclaps, vocal percussion Ringo Starr