The first CD I ever owned is the copy of this my wife bought me. So it’s got considerable sentimental value.
All the sentiment in the world, alone, wouldn’t be enought to rank this above the White Album (oh, all right, The Beatles), or Revolver, or A Hard Day’s Night. Even the Hey Jude album—even Let It Be–have strong sentimental resonance for me (LIB was the soundtrack to second-most trying summer of my life), which I guess is a lot of what makes the Beatles so central to people of my generation.
When the Beatles Anthology was coming on TV, the local paper asked me, as a local Beatles "authority," to choose my favorite Beatles’ album. They didn’t ask for my choice for their best, but even if they had, my answer would’ve been the same. Abbey Road is the ultimate achievement of the most important band of rock and roll’s golden age. It captures every single element of what made the Beatles so great: the songwriting of Lennon and McCartney as individuals and, in the side two medley, played off each other; Harrison’s finest hour as songwriter AND guitarist with "Here Comes The Sun" and, especially, the incomparable "Something," two songs that rank with anything the other two wrote, post-Revolver, especially; some of their best studio playing, as a group, and harmonizing of their careers. They are the proto-metal band of "I Want You" and "The End" and the chamber rock orchestra of "Because." Throughout the album, they touch on sounds from every period of their fine, fine, superfine career.
Sort of a shame about "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer" ... still, it’s McCartney corn that sounds as great as the rest of the album, which is to say, as good as a rock and roll record can. And he immediately redeems himself with the wailing, smoldering "Oh, Darling," so it averages out.
If you want to be reminded of what an accomplishment Abbey Road represents in terms of the Beatles' history, read Doug Sulpy's Get Back or listen to a few volumes of the 17-CD bootleg set 30 Days that chronicles the devolution of the group. This was a band on its last legs as collaborators and as friends. That they ralllied to make this masterpiece after the Let It Be debacle only makes it more remarkable.
Slap on your ‘phones and spin it again. See? I’m right.
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