Would ABBEY ROAD be more revered if it was by another band?

Personally, I've always hated "Come Together," but I agree that "I Want You" is incredible. Obviously, George hit two home runs, and I think the album features some of Paul's best singing.

But I think it's impossible to gauge how Abbey Road would have been perceived if made by someone else, simply because, by the end of their run, it was apparent that the Beatles' evolution wasn't far removed from rock's evolution, and with the revelation that it was actually recorded after Let It Be, this became the final step before the band left the rest of the genre on its own. (Which I guess means it'd probably be less appreciated if made by someone else.)

but the first side is really a drag for me, I can't listen to any of it now except for I Want You (and sometimes Come Together, although I find myself getting tired of it too; I do like the weird reverb on it though).

Anthology 3 has some great demo/ outtake versions of some of these songs that I believe disprove this theory. The slowed down version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" is particularly striking.

Insofar as the album is "strung together," I think this is one of its greatest attributes. The Beatles were always installing bits of classicism in their music, and they really excelled at it in this case: leitmotifs abound!

- The one song that stood out as newly revitalized from this listen is "Oh Darling," which I suppose must have been the one song I had taken for granted the most. Fantastic vocals. This would probably be a fun kareoke song.
- I always loved "Because" so much until this listen - I heard it way differently this time. It's struck me as a very bizarre track for some reason.
- "I Want You" is still the best song on this record. But are the rumors of Yoko tripping over the cord at the end true?? Also, is it possible that Billy Preston played organ on this song? The organ player seems too good to be Paul. Although it might be him..
- The one section on this record that bores me the most is "Golden Slumbers" -> "Carry That Weight." "The End" almost bores me, until the harmonies in "the love you take," which I sort of which could be stretch out to a 5 minute song somehow. Also in the solo section of "The End," the 8-bar sections that are clearly John's are definitely my favorites.
- The keyboards that are used throughout Abbey Road give it a particular feel that is unlike any of their other records.
- I've also determinded that Abbey Road by far has the best guitar solos out of any Beatles record, and that the awesome solo in "Octopus's Garden" is likely the one factor which makes me not consider this song boring.
- Not related to actually "listening" to it, but on my vinyl copy, I just noticed for the first time that "Her Majesty" is not included in the tracklisting on the back cover album art.

I had a few other comments, but I can't think of them now..

I so dig this record.

**That medley on side two seems a summing-up of their career...**

**it's impossible for me to think of someone else doing the album, like who, the Zombies, the Moody Blues? 10cc?**

OTM, all. I mean, would THE KORAN be more revered if it was about another prophet?

this might be a better question. or: would they have sounded more like Abbey Road or the White Album?

If it was by another band some critics who like to diss the "too obvious" Beatles & currently rate it as an overrated album by an overrated band would point to it as clinching evidence that The Beatles were nothing special and argue it was much better than anything The Beatles had done. Or am I too cynical? No, I'm not.

[faints]

i'd probably take side two of "abbey road" above everything else the beatles ever did. and i don't say that lightly.

Alcohol and Mean Mr Mustard combined ... *sigh*

And I prefer side 2....

Still has the same embarrassing exaggerated bass sound as his early solo albums though.

I think there is no way they could have stayed a group with John Lennon remaining in the group. The rest probably would have sounded like ELO, only with better songs. :-)

answer to original question: yes.

Even WITH Lennon, they would have sounded like ELO.

I haven't listened to this album in a million years - I'll have to dig it out tonight and give it a listen. I remember "Her Majesty" pissing me off, though.

Personally, I dunno. Never considered it a favourite myself. It is a great album, like almost all of their output. But, like the White Album, it doesn't sound like The Beatles. For me, "Sgt. Pepper" was the last album of theirs that did indeed sound like a Beatles album.

Not in 1971, but maybe in 1976. Lennon got more polished throughout his solo career.

note, the MGs were sensible enough to all wear shoes while crossing the street...no rumors that Booker T. had passed on and that he's being portrayed by Al Bell (no disrespect whatsoever meant to the memory of drummer Al Jackson, who was murdered five years after this photo was taken)....

if only the Beatles really could've recorded at Stax.

weird. for me it sounds MORE like the beatles than anything since revolver.

The best experience I've had listening to the Beatles was sitting on my back in my brothers room listening to Rubber Soul and Revolver. Either one alone wouldn't have really satisfied me, but listening to both felt really good. The White Album is too long, Sgt. Peppers only has a few good songs (I love "getting better"), Magical Mystery Tour seemed PERFECT for a second but I lost interest, Let it Be has a nice rural feel. It reminds me of the new Wilco album. Abbey Road has the highest amount of tracks I like on it, but it's hard for me to get past Come Together as I don't like that song and it's right there at the beggining. When I listened to Village Green Preservation Society the other day I realized it was better than any Beatles album. If Rubber Soul and Revolver were a single entity-- a double album -- it'd be the best of the 60s, I think.

This is really symptomatic. I mean, yes, there are tracks on the later records (just like there were on the earlier records) on which not all of the Beatles perform. But if the majority of the White Album, Let It Be, and Abbey Road "don't sound like the Beatles," then who do they sound like? They just used different equipment in the later days!

This is like saying that Rubber Soul doesn't sound like the Beatles because it doesn't sound sound like "From Me to You."

"The White Album", even more than "Abbey Road", shows them experimenting with a lot of musical styles that had existed besides The Beatles with The Beatles never caring much about trying to ape them. Half of "The White Album" is a bunch of experiments trying to sound like anything but what they were.

"Abbey Road" is more consistent, showing a band possibly trying to sound the way they did at the time. But, like the white album, it is still the sound of four individuals writing songs individually and just having the others back them.

You can compare it to Rockpile in the late 70s. When Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds released solo albums backed by Rockpile, those albums were still Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds albums, not Rockpile albums, and even the one album released as Rockpile doesn't show a fully integrated band, rather four individuals backing each other's songs.

Also, where would George be? Without Something and Here Comes the Sun, his Beatle-era status would have been severly lowered. He probably would have ended up putting them on "All Things Must Pass," as if that album needed any extra hits.

Ya lost me there buddy!

Something, Here Comes The Sun, You Never Give Me Your Money, I Want You (She's So Heavy), Because and pretty much the entire medley!

It definitely makes you wonder what could have been had they stuck together. But then we wouldn't have Plastic Ono Band, All Things Must Pass and McCartney/Ram/Band On The Run.

PS> I have the feeling that if anyone but the Beatles had released _Abbey Road_, Rolling Stone would have called it "pretentious" or "an art-rock mess."

I mean the reason is obvious, but I wonder what other records there are like this.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band - the movie soundtrack

Still at least he wasn't shy about owning up to his own laziness.

I don't think I'd trade in the solo albums 69-74 for three more Beatles albums anyway.

Anyone who's actually heard the album want to comment?

Okay, that was the genre's classical pretentions. Those dopes didn't know any better.

Actually the preferred term was opuses.

1. Carry on wayward son (5:13)
2. The wall (4:47)
3. What's on my mind (3:27)
4. Miracles out of nowhere (6:29)
5. Opus insert (4:26)
6. Questions of my childhood (3:38)
7. Cheyenne anthem (6:50)
8. Magnum opus (8:27)

Abbey Road was easily in my top few Beatles albums when I first got into them as a teenage lad, often claiming the #1 spot. It's gradually fallen off into the category of albums I almost never put on. Not sure why - when I do, it never really fails to entertain, although I'm definitely in the camp that's very ehhh on "Come Together."

One of the reasons why Abbey Road fascinates, I think, is that we know it was made by a nearly-broken-up band with the barest of enthusiasm for what they were doing...and yet it sounds more complete, more joyful, more Beatles than anything put out since Magical Mystery Tour. Some of that can be put down to studio wizardry (especially the completion of the medley) and letting George Martin take the helm (where he was left out of Get Back and apparently not much consulted on the white album), or Paul burning the midnight oil to get it all put together, but still, it's an album that completely doesn't match its storyline. If Lennon was so over the Beatles at this point, why did he give them "Come Together," which, even though we hate it, certainly is a classic rock staple and would have done fine (though sounded shittier) on any of his solo records. To him perhaps they were all bullshit, trifles, contract-fillers. But the same can arguably be said of Harrison - if the established story is that he was always repressed and that he finally got to share all his great songs on All Things Must Pass, why didn't he hang on to his two brilliant tracks here and turn in a reworked version of "For You Blue" or something to round this one out?

Rarely has an album of people fulfilling professional commitments sounded so not like what it is. The story isn't complete; the songs are too good, even the ones that project the Beatles into "70s rock" and worse. Does it not excite me now because it's rotten at the core, a triumph of style over substance? Is Band on the Run in fact the better Paul McCartney production showpiece record???

Oh! HERE's the thread I was looking for! Construct a worthy follow-up to Abbey Road by using solo material from ex-Beatles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJKor34b8iY

Going back to the original question, from 2005, it strikes me that if Pink Floyd or the Jimi Hendrix Experience had squirrelled themselves away in Abbey Road studies and then released Abbey Road in September 1969 the album would have been panned. It would have been dismissed as a waste of talent. If a completely unknown band had released it as a one-off, along the lines of United States of America or The Silver Apples, it'd either be a curiosity nowadays, or one of those one-off hits along the lines of Boston's one and only album. If it had been released by one of The Beatles' pop contemporaries... I have to admit I have no idea if The Beatles had any contemporaries in 1969. I have the impression that the division between pop and rock had become too great by that point for a single band to straddle it. Abbey Road is in the odd position of being slightly too complex and weird to be straightforward late-60s light pop but nowhere near weird enough to be what John Peel would have called "Progressive".

The medley is vaguely prog, but it's also the kind of thing you could imagine happening on a TV light entertainment show when the band has to squeeze several songs into five minutes. I'm actually struggling to picture early-70s pop. Regular pop. Not glam rock, or bubblegum pop, or power pop. What was "regular pop" in the early 1970s? Did it even exist? At least in the UK the charts were full of Slade, early reggae acts, T-Rex etc. Reading through Wikipedia's list of "top-selling singles of 1970" I'm confronted with a mass of songs that I don't recognise at all from bands I've never heard of. Fair Weather. Gerry Monroe. Christie. Mr Bloe. The Cuff Links. White Plains. Etc.

I think the album benefits immensely from the context, the fact that there's a story behind it, the cover photo, the fact that it was by a well-liked band who were falling apart, at the end of a decade where humanity had just walked on the moon while simultaneously torching Hanoi, so there was both sadness and hope for the future. The Beatles were getting sick of each other, but it was a lovely summer so they saddled up for one last raid and then there was a huge fight with a machine gun and squibs going off everywhere and it was awesome.

No, sorry. I'm thinking of The Wild Bunch. Which also came out in 1969. I remember seeing that film for the first time a few years ago, and thinking "blimey". It's a weird outlier. It has the squibs and bullet impacts of something from the 1980s, the downbeat attitude of something from the late 1970s, but it came out in 1969, the same year as Abbey Road. When they got hold of the machine gun I remember thinking "this is awesome". It has the kind of numbing, orgiastic carnage I associate with Hong Kong action films or Doom slaughter maps. Whereas The Beatles feel staid in comparison. But that was their thing, they were skilled pop musicians in a world where Black Sabbath and Slade were just around the corner.

I think of Abbey Road as more than the sum of its parts. "You Never Give Me Your Money" and "The End" have this collision of happiness and sadness that's rare in pop music. "Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go". The rest of it feels like a compendium of pop songs, but it's less disjointed than The White Album if only because the major songs feel like band efforts.

But as others have pointed out above, if the band had continued it would have turned into ELO. There would have been a Beatles disco record. A Beatles punk record, but by The Beatles, e.g. it would have had angry blues piano. A Beatles record with scratching.

You don't know the "Groovin' With Mr. Bloe"? Or "Yellow River"?

this is, while not their best album, the beatles record i'm most likely to put on in the 2020s

there are almost no circumstances that would prompt me to play sgt peppers