Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

The last Beatles album to be recorded (although Let It Be was the last to be released), Abbey Road was a fitting swan song for the group, echoing some of the faux-conceptual forms of Sgt. Pepper, but featuring stronger compositions and more rock-oriented ensemble work. The group were still pushing forward in all facets of their art, whether devising some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record (especially on "Because"), constructing a medley of songs/vignettes that covered much of side two, adding subtle touches of Moog synthesizer, or crafting furious guitar-heavy rock ("The End," "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," "Come Together"). George Harrison also blossomed into a major songwriter, contributing the buoyant "Here Comes the Sun" and the supremely melodic ballad "Something," the latter of which became the first Harrison-penned Beatles hit. Whether Abbey Road is the Beatles' best work is debatable, but it's certainly the most immaculately produced (with the possible exception of Sgt. Pepper) and most tightly constructed.

Rickey Wright, Amazon.com

The Beatles' last days as a band were as productive as any major pop phenomenon that was about to split. After recording the ragged-but-right Let It Be, the group held on for this ambitious effort, an album that was to become their best-selling. Though all four contribute to the first side's writing, John Lennon's hard-rocking, "Come Together" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" make the strongest impression. A series of song fragments edited together in suite form dominates side two; its portentous, touching, official close ("Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End") is nicely undercut, in typical Beatles fashion, by Paul McCartney's cheeky "Her Majesty," which follows.

ABBEY ROAD, recorded in the summer of 1969, was the last album recorded by the Beatles (LET IT BE was released in 1970, but recorded in early '69).
The Beatles: Paul McCartney (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass); John Lennon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); George Harrison (vocals, guitar, synthesizer); Ringo Starr (vocals, drums, percussion).

After the laborious disorganization and infighting that characterized early 1969's LET IT BE sessions (as famously captured on film), the fractious four were willing to let George Martin take the reins and to work with him as a cohesive unit for the much more succinct production of their (and the decade's) swan song, ABBEY ROAD. The superb performances make the album an artistic high point for all members of the group. Paul McCartney inspired the suite of songs that begins with "You Never Give Me Your Money." Often thought of as two long medleys, the songs that fill most of the second half of ABBEY ROAD segue seamlessly into one another, but are programmed as separate CD tracks. George Harrison had his first A-side on a Beatles' single ("Something"); John Lennon contributed a pair of heavy rockers ("Come Together" and "I Want You"); and Ringo Starr's "Octopus's Garden" was a favorite with children.

Jesse Fahnestock, Ink Blot Magazine

Abbey Road was going to be called "Mt. Everest," and was meant to feature a cover photo of The Beatles in the Himalayas. By the time such concerns were addressed in 1969, the squabbling fabs could barely get it together for a shoot outside their Abbey Road studio. Hell, Paul didn't even bother to put shoes on.

Considering the deep fissures in the band, Abbey Road is an achievement of Himalayan proportions. Side one stands tall thanks largely to George Harrison, whose "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" remain two of the most beloved Beatles tunes. Ringo, too, chips in with the jaunty "Octopus's Garden," a countrified childhood singalong lent a somewhat illusory dignity by George's elegant guitar work. And of course the whole thing kicks off with "Come Together," Lennon's magnificent last hurrah as a Beatle, a slice of surrealist jive wonderfully typical of the '60s greatest icon.

If Paul soils the A-side with the goofy "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" he more than redeems himself with "You Never Give Me Your Money" and the ensuing Long Medley. The former is a pocket symphony that warmly remembers The Beatles' time together before boldly strutting off into the future. If only his solo career had lived up to this song's promise - or to the ambition of Paul's medley, which stitches unfinished songs (both his and John's) into a gleeful goodbye. It's 20 of the finest minutes of their career, and a noble finish to the greatest story in pop.

 

Nicole Pensiero, Pop Matters, March 23, 2004

It sounds like a weighty task, coming up with your favorite album of all time. But for me, it was an easy, no-contest kind of thing, which is testament to how much I love this record: Abbey Road by the Beatles. It's an amazingly cohesive piece of music, innovative and timeless. All that, plus the knowledge that this was the band's last work together. A brilliant, unforgettable farewell.

As John Lennon himself griped, talking about music is a bit like talking about sex; it's better to experience it than describe it. That being said, I will do my best to articulate why this album rests comfortably at the top of my list. Before getting in to those specifics, I will also say I think it's especially important in the case of Abbey Road to look beyond the actual songs to what was going on behind the scenes at the time of its making.

Only five years after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, the Beatles had weathered insanely crazed tours, changing fashions and social mores (which they helped define), the growing drug culture, and the increasing demands of their personal lives. While three of the four members had met as teenagers, they were -- all still in their 20s -- worldly beyond their years.

Most recently, the Beatles survived the debacle of Let It Be, but barely. (While Let It Be was released after Abbey Road -- and after the announcement of the breakup in April 1970 -- it was recorded first, during a miserable winter of the band's discontent in early 1969). So discouraged were the Fabs by the final product, that Paul -- ever the cheerleader -- convinced the others that they could, indeed, do better. George Martin, turned off by the captured-on-film squabbling during the Let It Be sessions, agreed to return to the studio only if he could have real authority and "the boys" were better behaved.

While tensions remained during the recording, of Abbey Road in the summer of 1969, the Beatles made a concerted effort to make a great album. And they succeeded. George Martin himself has called it his favorite Beatles album.

In the context of my own life, I was just starting sixth grade when Abbey Road was released in September 1969; by the time the school year was out, the band was no more. I remember listening to Abbey Road over and over till every song was embedded in my 12-year-old brain. The fact this album still enthralls me so is testament to its timelessness.

I felt very grown-up buying Abbey Road with my babysitting money -- it was the first real "rock" album I ever owned. This was a less esoteric and more radio-friendly record than 1968's The Beatles, a.k.a. "The White Album". In addition to the obsessive playing of Abbey Road, I recall getting fully caught up in the "Paul Is Dead" brouhaha that followed its release. (Remember the "meaning" of the album cover? John, in white, was "God"; Ringo, in black, the "undertaker"; dungarees-dressed George was the "gravedigger". And Paul … well, Paul was striding across that album cover barefoot, which meant -- in some ancient culture that was always very vague -- that he was the "dead man".) Ah, the memories. Now onto to the music.

It's the summer of Woodstock, of the Manson murders, of Chappaquidick, and despite the growing tension within the band, Abbey Road is recorded without any major hassles, proving that the Beatles retained their musical magic right 'til the end. Their chemistry was so perfect, so right-on that even their splintering existence could not tarnish it. They quit at the top of their game; perhaps that's why fans never could quite accept that break-up, constantly asking them when, if they would ever reunite.

From the potent opener, "Come Together" -- with its weirdly ominous "Shoot Me" sung by Lennon -- to the final strains of "The End", Abbey Road managed to give each member of the band a chance to shine on their own, while contributing to the bigger picture as a seemingly cohesive foursome.

Abbey Road is especially noteworthy in my book because it contains two of George Harrison's best songs as a Beatle: "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun". While Harrison's work was always overshadowed by the Lennon/McCartney hitmaking machine, I've never failed to be impressed by what good songs he did write, with hardly any support or attention given by the aforementioned leaders.

On "Something", George's passionate guitar solo fleshes out the lyrics' sense of yearning, and George Martin's subtle, sophisticated orchestral score frames the song itself. "Here Comes the Sun", meanwhile, has an amazingly catchy hook -- so pure that it gets lodged in the brain in a matter of seconds through the expert finger-picking that opens the song.

Other highlights on Abbey Road include Paul's bluesy, wailing, "Oh! Darling", (which Lennon reportedly wanted to sing, he liked it so much) and John's equally impassioned but more avant-garde "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". Even Ringo's "Octopus's Garden" has a certain whimsical charm that works.

The highlight of Abbey Road, for me, has to be the 16-minute medley that, back in the days when there were albums with two sides, closed out side two. Paul has to be given credit for this; structurally, the medley was his baby and his songs -- "You Never Give Me Your Money", "She Came in through the Bathroom Window", "Golden Slumbers", and "Carry That Weight" -- are the standouts. Still, the medley wouldn't work without Lennon's contributions -- his "Polythene Pam" and "Sun King" add to the effortless flow of the musical stream-of-consciousness.

While the band wasn't aware of its impending breakup -- at least, not on the surface -- the closing track, "The End" truly did signify just that, and each Beatle got a chance to shine individually before they closed up shop and went away to become the Plastic Ono Band and Wings.

First we get Ringo's one-and-only drum solo, and it's a catchy, inspired, rollicking gem. Then comes the "Love You" choruses that lead into the amazing guitar round robin. Paul starts it off (showing that he was always a kick-ass guitarist despite being relegated to bass), then comes George's distinctive riffs, followed by John's howling, wailing guitar. A lone piano emerges from the din, and all three sing the line, "And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make", closing out the record with a sense of, well, completion.

(Ends up, though, that "The End" wasn't quite the end; the then-hidden ditty, "Her Majesty", followed after a brief pause, having the record end on an "up", rather than solemn, note).

While the creepy-cheerful "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" always seemed a bit out of place to me on Abbey Road, I can't flog Paul too much over that since it was basically his pushing and prodding and nudging and nagging that got the band back into the studio for this final masterpiece the first place.

While it bugs the heck out of me that McCartney wants have his name to come first on Beatles's songs now -- how big is this guy's ego, anyway? -- I have to begrudgingly forgive all that because of the amazing, timeless Abbey Road. For this record alone, he deserved to be knighted.

John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, Issue 46, November 15, 1969

Simply, side two does more for me than the whole of Sgt. Pepper, and I'll trade you The Beatles and Magical Mystery Tour and a Keith Moon drumstick for side one.
So much for the prelims. "Come Together" is John Lennon very nearly at the peak of his form; twisted, freely-associative, punful lyrically, pinched and somehow a little smug vocally. Breathtakingly recorded (as is the whole album), with a perfect little high-hat-tom-tom run by Ringo providing a clever semi-colon to those eerie shooo-ta's, Timothy Leary's campaign song opens up things in grand fashion indeed.

George's vocal, containing less adenoids and more grainy Paul tunefulness than ever before, is one of many highlights on his "Something," some of the others being more excellent drum work, a dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued strings, and an unusually nice melody. Both his and Joe Cocker's version will suffice nicely until Ray Charles gets around to it.

Paul McCartney and Ray Davies are the only two writers in rock and roll who could have written "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," a jaunty vaudevillian/music-hallish celebration wherein Paul, in a rare naughty mood, celebrates the joys of being able to bash in the heads of anyone threatening to bring you down. Paul puts it across perfectly with the coyest imaginable choir-boy innocence.

Someday, just for fun, Capitol/Apple's going to have to compile a Paul McCartney Sings Rock And Roll album, with "Long Tall Sally," "I'm Down," "Helter Skelter," and, most definitely, "Oh! Darling," in which, fronting a great "ouch!"-yelling guitar and wonderful background harmonies, he delivers an induplicably strong, throat-ripping vocal of sufficient power to knock out even those skeptics who would otherwise have complained about yet another Beatle tribute to the golden groovies' era.

That the Beatles can unify seemingly countless musical fragments and lyrical doodlings into a uniformly wonderful suite, as they've done on side two, seems potent testimony that no, they've far from lost it, and no, they haven't stopped trying.

No, on the contrary, they've achieved here the closest thing yet to Beatles freeform, fusing more diverse intriguing musical and lyrical ideas into a piece that amounts to far more than the sum of those ideas.

"Here Comes the Sun," for example, would come off as quite mediocre on its own, but just watch how John and especially Paul build on its mood of perky childlike wonder. Like here, in "Because," is this child, or someone with a child's innocence, having his mind blown by the most obvious natural phenomena, like the blueness of the sky. Amidst, mind you, beautiful and intricate harmonies, the like of which the Beatles have not attempted since "Dr. Robert."

Then, just for a moment, we're into Paul's "You Never Give Me Your Money," which seems more a daydream than an actual address to the girl he's thinking about. Allowed to remain pensive only for an instant, we're next transported, via Paul's "Lady Madonna" voice and boogie-woogie piano in the bridge, to this happy thought: "Oh, that magic feelin'/Nowhere to go." Crickets' chirping and a kid's nursery rhyme ("1-2-3-4-5-6-7/All good children go to heaven") lead us from there into a dreamy John number, "Sun King," in which we find him singing for the Italian market, words like amore and felice giving us some clue as to the feel of this reminiscent-of-"In My Room" ballad.

And then, before we know what's happened, we're out in John Lennon's England meeting these two human oddities, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam. From there it's off to watch a surreal afternoon telly programme, Paul's "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window." Pensive and a touch melancholy again a moment later, we're into "Golden Slumbers," from which we wake to the resounding thousands of voices on "Carry That Weight," a rollicking little commentary of life's labours if ever there was one, and hence to a reprise of the "Money" theme (the most addicting melody and unforgettable words on the album). Finally, a perfect epitaph for our visit to the world of Beatle daydreams: "The love you take is equal to the love you make ..." And, just for the record, Paul's gonna make Her Majesty his.

I'd hesitate to say anything's impossible for him after listening to Abbey Road the first thousand times, and the others aren't far behind. To my mind, they're equatable, but still unsurpassed.

© Frank Steven Groen