a little while ago, as opposed to some date in the future, look you see, there was a trifle of fanfare concerning a specific Beatles album. mostly the fanfare emanated from the BBC, with Radio 2 in particular getting all excited about the 50th anniversary of the bands' penultimate release yet final recording together, Abbey Road. it is so that on my travels i frequently hear Radio 2, and so as a consequence i heard of their celebrations.
going further, it was so that on my travels i happened to be at a non-traditional seller of music (in this instance one of them supermarket places) on the day of release for the obligatory "anniversary edition" of this particular album. whereas i knew that i had both this album and all others the band cared to release sat at home, i felt compelled to purchase this edition. part of this would be from a compulsion to spend, part of this would be as a direct result of hearing the celebrations of the album, mostly, though, i would like to think it came down to it being an attractive £7 in cost. that and you can never ever have enough copies of Here Comes The Sun in your life.
so, i purchased, then. observing the cover sticker, i felt i could safely do so with justification, for it promised that this anniversary edition was a "new mix".
on arrival from home and after attending to a few obligatory or otherwise expected matters, i gave this "new mix" of Abbey Road a play. in doing so, i knew that which was always known. that which has never been a secret, but also that which is not spoken of. a harsh truth, especially in the face of it being generally accepted that all what The Beatles did was genius, is that Abbey Road is a mediocre to terrible album, somehow managing to be substantially less than the sum of its parts.
much of the (quite correct) legend of The Beatles, as in why they are held in such high esteem (and shall always rightly be) is built on the foundation of the great Lennon-McCartney songwriting. something of a warning sign, then, is that the two best (by some distance) songs on Abbey Road come from the pen of George Harrison in the form of Here Comes The Sun and the magnificent Something. beyond those two, you get the simplistic popularity of Come Together, the (admittedly) fun of Ringo with Octopus' Garden, and two bits of The End, specifically the quasi iconic "love you take" line and that boss 'du-du-du-duuuuuu-du' guitar. even then, in respect of the latter, that boss guitar bit sounds much better when Beastie Boys sampled it on Paul's Boutique.
for the most part the remainder of the album feels like what we call "filler". half decent ideas that have been hastily put together with the focus feeling very much like the view was "this will do". it is not like i am being controversial or trying to stir things up by saying so, as the reviews at the time pretty much said the same. as years (fifty of them) have fallen it has been revisited, with many an apologist proclaiming it is just as genius as anything what The Beatles did. no, it is not.
as for the "new mix", well, be quite wary of when this is used as a plus, or a marketing tool. refer, if you will, to Spinal Tap, where a possible fault with a record was, according to some Australian's nightmare, that it "wasn't mixed in dobly". such does not change the songs too much. creating a "new mix" effectively means someone coming in and saying "let's make the guitar a bit more crisp (hello, Faye) here", or "why don't we turn down the drums on this part".
but let it not be said that there is no good reason to celebrate Abbey Road. the cover, after all, is easily one of the most iconic in rock history. as in, if one did a poll, or survey, or critical objective analysis of all record covers ever devised and created, i would suggest Abbey Road is easily top ten, possibly top three. other than the fun they had with the imagery in terms of the long running "Paul is dead" joke, it is worth remembering one of the reasons this cover exists is sheer laziness. an early idea for the album title was Everest, but as the band could not be bothered to travel to the mountain for a suitable image, something closer to home seemed agreeable.
that Abbey Road marks the last time the four Beatles were in a studio making new music together is also full worthy of commemoration. whilst everything about that music says it was high time for them to go their own ways, the fact that the world lost something special does not change.
do i regret this purchase? not really. as mentioned above, there are songs on here worth owning again and again. further, there are some lovely essays in the booklet, including one by Sir Paul himself. mindful of it being a record i already had, i still feel that i have taken at least £7 value from this purchase.
this has got me thinking, though - which other albums out there are likely to get a celebration on the instance of their 50th anniversary? any, i suppose, but i mean more which ones would be justified? if the criteria is impact at the time or in retrospect on society far wider than "just" the music and its target market, off the top of my head Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, U2's The Joshua Tree and Automatic For The People by REM are candidates. with all things being equal, i may yet still be alive for 50% of those indicated. not that this list is intended to be definitive, far from it.
so, do i say to anyone rush out and buy Abbey Road, just north of fifty years after its release? if all you are bothered about is the music, then easily the best of the songs here are on that Blue album from the Red and Blue "best of" sets. but, then again, this is a record from a time when album covers were works of art, and it is lovely to hold and admire.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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