Our Favorite Albums #2
2. The Beatles – Abbey Road [1969]
Nominated by Psychedelic Rick of The Psychedelicatessen, Rob of Chocolate Cake, DJ Livor Mortis of Word on the Street, DJ McKenzie of Splitting Hairs & The Beatles: A Week in the Life, Johnny Ganache of Pint O’ Comics, and Leith of The Light Fandango
Rob says: “Here Comes the Sun”, “Come Together”, “Oh Darling”, “Something”, “Golden Slumbers”. Need I say more? (And someday you should really check out Eddie Hazel’s cover of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”.)
DJ McKenzie says: The Beatles’ last great album, and the album that truly let George Harrison shine as a songwriter.
Johnny Ganache says: I got into The Beatles late, like 21. This is the album that pulled me in.
After the tense and unpleasant recording sessions for the proposed Get Back album, Paul McCartney suggested to music producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album “the way we used to do it”, free of the conflict that had begun during sessions for The Beatles (also known as the “White Album”). Martin agreed, but on the strict condition that all the group – particularly John Lennon – allow him to produce the record in the same manner as earlier albums and that discipline would be adhered to.
McCartney, Starr and Martin have reported positive recollections of the sessions, while Harrison said, “we did actually perform like musicians again”. Lennon and McCartney had enjoyed working together on the non-album single “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in April, sharing friendly banter between takes, and some of this camaraderie carried over to the Abbey Road sessions.
During the sessions, Lennon expressed a desire to have all of his songs on one side of the album, and McCartney’s on the other. The album’s two halves represented a compromise: Lennon wanted a traditional release with distinct and unrelated songs while McCartney and Martin wanted to continue their thematic approach from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by incorporating a medley. (wikipedia.org)
