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Abbey Road

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I’m not, by any stretch, an avid Beatles fan but I’ve been listening to the remastered version of Abbey Road on Spotify this week, and it struck me what a phenomenal record it really is.
Such an innovative record – I find it hard to believe that it was recorded before the 1970s! The production is faultless, and the vocals are, to my ears, the best of any Beatles album.
‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ are works of genius by George Harrison. I think ‘Something’ is actually one of the best records ever written – it’s just amazing.
And the medley on side two just works so well – it had the potential to be a self-indulgent disaster, but it’s just so ahead of its time and different.
That iconic cover too..
Anyhow, just ordered it on vinyl, a great album from start to finish.

4

Comments

        • I think it’s great. It’s got a blimming Moog on it! It’s performed by everyone with tremendous gusto… if JL and GH hated it so much, why didn’t they just say no? Wusses.

          I quite like the fact that throughout his career Macca has still always had one foot in the London Palladium, in spite of the overwhelming indifference/hostility of bandmates and… well,, almost everyone. Unpopular populism? Was his unconscious deliberately trying to destroy the Beatles?

            • The non-r’n’b music that Macca grew up was frequently the source for huge amounts of musical innovation in The Beatles, as well as the odd song that continues to get up the noses of rawk fans (Martha, Maxwell, Octopus, Submarine, Honey Pie etc).

              A price worth paying I think. He only started to look more lyrically uninspired once marital bliss became his entire horizon (imv).

  2. It’s an album I wasn’t overly familiar with until recently when I bought it on vinyl, I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I do and I played it all afternoon whilst cleaning the venetian blinds in the living room. I was about to say it’s an underrated album, but I’m not sure whether it is or am I just unaware of how well thought of it is?
    So, in conclusion, it goes great with a large and unpleasant cleaning project.

  3. George’s two songs and Octopus’s Garden are the highlights – the rest as I’ve said elsewhere is more style, albeit very good, over substance.

      • Of course it’s great, I’m just being a little critical re their canon of greatness. Any other band at the time, before or now? No way. It’s a great album.

        • Sorry HB, it was a mistake to put my comment as a reply to your post. My post should have been an individual post, oh fuck it I think you get my gist.

          However in reply to your reply, up to `Revolver` there were no bands who had achieved what or evolved as The Beatles had. Come 1967 we have many bands who were making music to rival The HJH (Hey Jude Hitmakers). The Doors, Love, Frank Zappa and many more in the USA, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and many more in the UK. The albums The HJHs released after `Revolver` are considered by fans and non-fans individually, to be even better then `Revolver`, that is apart from `Let It Be`. It`s all a question of opinion and taste, obviously (see the comments on this thread. Whether The HJHs were great is not open to question. Fact-they were great, their body of work is greater in invention, originality, musicality than any other in the rock/pop world, whether a person likes them or not.

  5. When you take a break from listening to the Beatles and get sick of reading about them it turns you right off them.

    What usually happens is you hear an unintended snippet somewhere and you marvel again at the genius.

    A weight indeed.

  7. Alongside Something, I think You Never Give Me Your Money is up there with the best they ever did. However side 1 is extremely patchy, Oh Darling, Octopus’s Garden and Maxwell are all somewhere below prime Beatles, also the appeal of Come Together has waned somewhat for me. However, great production, playing and singing, I rank it about 5th, behind Revolver, The Beatles, Rubber Soul and A Hard Day’s Night.

  10. I have awfully mixed feelings about that album. On the one hand Come Together, Something, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Here Comes The Sun and Carry that Weight and The End I just love. The rest of it? Honestly unsure, that medly just strikes me as cobbled together (if very well, but seriously it comes on and I’m drumming my fingers till Carry That Weight comes on). There’s enough good stuff for it not to be shite, but I don’t love it.

  11. My favourite HJH album (and I actually quite like Maxwells Silver Hammer too).

    (Does my opinion count? In similarly perverse fashion, I’m one of the few people who likes Rocky Raccoon off The White Album, and rate Help! as my second favourite HJH platter)

  14. Like this? @Tiggerlion Interesting

    Come Together
    Something
    Octopus’s Garden
    Because
    Sun King/Mean Mr Mustard/Polythene Pam
    I Want You (She’s so Heavy)

    Here Comes The Sun
    Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
    Oh Darling
    You Never give Me Your Money
    She Came in Through the Bathroom Window/Golden Slumbers/ Carry That Weight/ The End

    • I think when I first properly listened to AR when I was about 15 I couldn’t believe there was such a thing on a Beatles record. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite but it’s very underrated. In fact it is hardly ever mentioned. Discussions of AR are about “George awakes!”, the long medley, “Oh dear, pop tunes that we can’t do gurning air-guitar to” (Maxwell and Octopus) and Come Together. Actually Oh Darlling doesn’t get a look-in much either, which is a shame as it’s great fun.

      I’m a soup-to-nuts man with the Fabs, as I am with very few other artists (Bowie, Talking Heads, Kraftwerk, Smiths) and don’t hold with all this “Well, a-ha-ha-ha, of course you’re not actually supposed to like Revolution 9/Ob La Di/Yellow Submarine”, change-the-running-order revisionist cobblers. You think know better than the Beatles and George Martin, do you? Good luck with that, pal.

      Rant over.

      • I think Abbey Road is a *fabulous* LP and actually enjoy everything on it. It just goes to show how brilliant The Beatles were because I regard it as their worst album and it is so good. I have, however, been listening to The Beatles since 1964 and Abbey Road since 1969. The revisionist running order cobblers isn’t a pop at George Martin et al, it’s just a tongue-in-cheek freshening up. It makes me listen even more. Besides, in this case, it carries out John’s wishes.

        Incidentally, the GM remix of Pepper has convinced me that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane don’t belong, despite years of trying to squeeze them in. Pepper wouldn’t be Pepper without Lucy and 64 (or anything else for that matter). They don’t half brighten up Magical Mystery Tour, though.

        • “it carries out John’s wishes”…. really? In which interview? The one where he conflates Revolver and the White Album or the one where he wants the Beatles entire output to be buried under the floor of the Atlantic? 😉

          Apropos Strawberry Fields, listening to those early takes in full makes me more cross with JL for telling George Martin later “We don’t want any of your jiggery pokery” when they were doing AR or whatever ….GM’s contributions turned SFF from a dragging dirge into a thing of preternatural magnificence.

          I agree about the single not belonging with the album. They sound too wintry. In SFF the sun is going down at 3.00pm. In PL the sun is unexpectedly coming out on a crisp January morning and people are whistling in the street despite themselves.

          I love the Beatles.

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