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

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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!

"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.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 14 September 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

I think most people found the tone of Let It Be bleak and depressing (the movie certainly helped foster that) and I think for some people the idea that the Beatles got back together with George Martin for their swan song was comforting, even though Abbey Road was released before LIB...why, I don't know.

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.

― musically (musically), Thursday, 14 September 2006 23:41 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of Nick Lowe, and in defense of Paul on this question, he once said of his production work: "I'm a bass player; of course I turn my part up."

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 14 September 2006 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

showing a band possibly trying to sound the way they did at the time

Ya lost me there buddy!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 14 September 2006 23:58 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway Geir, this characterization: "the sound of four individuals writing songs individually and just having the others back them." What does it ultimately amount to? Was this not always the way they worked? Is it not the way a lot of bands generally work? If the four Beatles are playing on a track on the White Album, then THAT IS WHAT THE BEATLES SOUNDED LIKE, AS A BAND, AT THAT TIME.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:03 (nineteen years ago)

Gee, at pretty much any given time, I could throw on Abbey Road and be awash in reverence and awe. Sure there are songs you don't necessarily want to hear on a regular basis ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "Octopus' Garden"), but the there are so many pinnacles of pop songcraft on this LP!

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.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:33 (nineteen years ago)

_Abbey Road_ is the only album that I listened to once a day, every day, for weeks on end. And I'm still not sick of it.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:36 (nineteen years ago)

I've always fantasized about what a beatles reunion would have sounded like. Maybe after they all got a solo album out of their system, they could have reunited for one last martin-produced album. Probably would have had to be a double album, with the best songs from _Imagine_, _Ram_ and _Living In The Material World_, with a couple of requisite Ringo numbers. Would have been pretty nice, huh?

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."

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:43 (nineteen years ago)

Why? RS writers liked plenty of art rock.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

True, but ususally it was skronky Roxy/Eno proto-new-wave art rock,
not beethoven-influenced artrock. They definitely don't much like orchestras in rock.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:50 (nineteen years ago)

It's interesting to me that this is one of the few albums that people still consistently think of as having "sides" long after most people are listening to it on CD. I mean "Blonde on Blonde" for instance was 2 LPs, but you don't ever hear anyone refer to sides 1/2/3/4.

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

― William Ryan Stuart Hamilton (Stagger Lee), Friday, 15 September 2006 00:55 (nineteen years ago)

Bad Girls!

― aaron d.g. (aaron d.g.), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:09 (nineteen years ago)

Electric Ladyland.

― Space Gourmand (Haberdager), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

"Another band" couldn't have attained the Beatles' level of songcraft, much less hired George Martin to produce, so the original question is rather silly. No other band could have recorded Abbey Road.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:20 (nineteen years ago)

That raises another question I never thought of asking. What was Martin's best production work besides the Beatles? All I know is the Action demos which are, admittedly, quite good.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:26 (nineteen years ago)

His best production work was on Paul's solo stuff. Quincy Jones borrowed lots from him; it's somewhat fitting that the Martin-produced "Say Say Say" sounds like a Q joint.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

I'd always heard that the ending medley of Abbey Road was more of a game-time decision rather than an aesthetic one, that Martin couldn't get them into the studio to finish things off, so he just did it himself w/ that medley, taken from what they'd already recorded. Someone please dispel this for me, or I swear to repeat it three times tomorrow.

― Jamesy (SuzyCreemcheese), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:33 (nineteen years ago)

Disregarding the production, Alfred's comment is troubling. Plenty of people had songcraft that rivalled the Beatles - or at least rivalled what they did on Abbey Road! Admittedly, the confluence of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison in one band was extraordinary - duh. But the original question is interesting because it is asking whether the perception of Abbey Road is swayed by extra-musical factors - namely, people's perceptions about the Beatles in general.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:34 (nineteen years ago)

Tim, you're taking my point too literally. I could name at least two dozen contemporaneous acts as great as the Beatles; however, I took the OP's question literally: CCR could only make Cosmo's Factory, the Velvets could only make Loaded, etc.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:51 (nineteen years ago)

Only the Seeds could have made Future.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 15 September 2006 02:02 (nineteen years ago)

Jamesy, by all accounts the medley was Paul McCartney's baby, although he certainly worked closely with Martin. You're quite right in believing that if they hadn't cobbled it together, the album would never have been completed.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 15 September 2006 02:06 (nineteen years ago)

It's interesting to me that this is one of the few albums that people still consistently think of as having "sides" long after most people are listening to it on CD... I mean the reason is obvious, but I wonder what other records there are like this.

Albums with split personalities

― LC (Damian), Friday, 15 September 2006 09:14 (nineteen years ago)

I love "Abbey Road", and certainly a lot more so than the White Album (which I find the only Beatles album that is generally overrated), but it doesn't sound that archetypical arche-English sound that I love about early and mid period The Beatles. They peaked on "Sgt. Pepper".

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 15 September 2006 11:03 (nineteen years ago)

If The Beatles had been around in 1979, they sould have sounded exactly like ELO did on "Shine a Little Love". Everybody was supposed to have a 120 bpm disco beat that year.

"Goodnight Tonight" to thread?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 15 September 2006 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

Well, "Goodnight Tonight" too, but obviously they wouldn't have filled entire album with funk experiments like that one. ELO proved the disco beat was perfectly compatible with a more typical Beatles sound too.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 15 September 2006 12:10 (nineteen years ago)

Though with "Don't Bring Me Down" they realised that they didn't need the string section to have hits and gave them their P45s.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 15 September 2006 12:14 (nineteen years ago)