'Abbey Road': The Release

The Beatles' Abbey Road was released in the United Kingdom fifty years ago this past Thursday (September 26) and released in the United States fifty years ago today.  Here's yet another outtake from the cover photo session.  (The police van may be gone, but, as you can see, Paul Cole is still there!) 

The Beatles' last album, though the penultimate release, was issued with little fanfare by Apple, and with good reason - the band was done.  The group spent little if any time promoting it, and after the generous packaging of Sgt. Pepper, the Magical Mystery Tour EP or LP (depending on which country you live in), and the White Album, there was no lyric sheet, no picture book or poster, and no cardboard cutouts - none of that stuff.  Without even their name on the front cover, the music was expected to do the selling.

It did.  Abbey Road spent seventeen out of eighteen consecutive weeks at number one on the British LP chart (displaced temporarily for that eighteenth week by the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed), and it spent eleven weeks at number one on the Billboard Top Two Hundred LP chart. in the United States, being certified by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers as the best-selling album of 1969 - and it was only out for the final three months of the year.  Ironically, it was Allen Klein who would report, two months after Paul McCartney announced the Beatles' split, that it was the best-selling Beatles album in America ever, with five million copies sold. Seven million more would be sold by 2001, and even though it would lose its status as the Beatles' American bestseller to the White Album, it remains extraordinarily popular.

It was popular with musicians, who would use the LP's high-gloss production and its complex arrangements as a template for their own records.  Seventies classic rock was born here - whether it was raw blues-rock from Bad Company and Humble Pie, the bright melodies of Elton John, or the moody, pensive art rock of Yes, it would be hard to find any rock music that played on mainstream radio during the Me Decade that was not inspired by Abbey Road.  Interestingly, some of what the Beatles did on Abbey Road was influenced by contemporaries that, in turn, influenced those same contemporaries; for example, the Beatles tired to copy the guitar musings of Fleetwood Mac, which at the time was a blues band led by Peter Green, on "Sun King;" half a decade and change later, a different Fleetwood Mac with a different lineup would be making the sort of bright pop-rock that characterized Abbey Road.

The influence of Abbey Road wouldn't last forever, though; punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash closed the curtain on the era the Beatles initiated just before their own end.  But echoes of Abbey Road still reverberate for any band that simply doesn't want to be the most popular band, but also the best band.

The reviews upon Abbey Road's release were as positive as the public's reaction. Writing in Melody Maker, Chris Welch declared that "the truth is, their latest LP is just a natural born gas, entirely free of pretension, deep meanings or symbolism . . .. While production is simple compared to past intricacies, it is still extremely sophisticated and inventive."  Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times called it "refreshingly terse and unpretentious," and Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn said it was "breathtakingly recorded" and was enthusiastic about the medley, calling the joining of various fragments a "uniformly wonderful suite" that proved the the Beatles had "far from lost it, and no, they haven't stopped trying."

Critical judgment on Abbey Road was not uniform, though, with a few critics finding the music too slick and artificial, and some of them thought it was quite boring.  The most interesting critique of Abbey Road, though, came from then-Family lead singer Roger Chapman.  Offering his opinion on Abbey Road and other record releases of the time for Melody Maker, he said he was largely unimpressed by the Beatles' LP, finding their music derivative and lacking in personality.  "In the past the Beatles have been able to borrow things and put themselves into it," Chapman said.  "This is a bit too obvious though."  He called "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" "an inferior version of 'When I’m Sixty-Four'" and said  that "Octopus’s Garden" would have been "a complete washout" from any other band.  But what seemed incredibly prophetic was Chapman's final kiss-off:

Ever since their last LP they have been making records as if it is something they have to do because they are the Beatles. Maybe the whole thing has got beyond them. If this album had been by anybody else it would have been a complete washout. The Beatles have been a major influence on the whole music scene, but I don’t see them being an influence anymore.

And just like that, the Beatles bowed out in the nick of time.  It took another musician to see that the Beatles' time was almost up.  But Abbey Road was a nice parting gift.

And it's the gift that keeps on giving, thanks to the new Super Deluxe Edition of the LP, which features:

• A new stereo mix of the album, produced by George Martin's son Giles Martin
• Two compact discs of demos and outtakes
• a CD with a Dolby Atmos mix of the album plus a 5.1 surround of the whole album plus a high-resolution stereo mix of the whole album
• a book - another super-cool book!

And soon you'll be able to hear it on YouTube.  No book, though.

That's the end.

*

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl,
But she doesn't have a lot to say.
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
But she changes from day to day.
I want to tell her that I love her a lot,
But I gotta get a bellyful of wine.
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl,
Someday I'm going to make her mine, oh yeah,
Someday I'm going to make her mine.