The Beatles – Abbey Road

September 26, 1969
Apple/Parlophone/EMI
Rating: 5 / 5

The Music Rag One Sentence Review: Abbey Road is the last album that The Beatles recorded and therefore serves as their grand farewell, and what a farewell it is: more rock-focused then some of their previous work but filled with incredible songwriting and vocals (more three part harmonies than any other Beatles album), this is when they hit their absolute peak as musicians.

Best moments: The opener “Come Together” is deservedly classic. “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” represent George Harrison’s maturation as a songwriter and the best stuff he ever wrote with The Beatles. The album ends with the famous “medley”, a series of short songs strung together into an appropriately powerful finale, climaxing with a series of guitar solos and the great, immortal words “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

The Cover: Abbey Road‘s cover is one of The Beatles’ most famous, rivaled only by the Sgt. Pepper’s cover, and it’s been referenced endlessly in pop culture. It was a major part of the “Paul is Dead” hoax: It’s said that the cover portrays McCartney’s funeral procession, with John representing the clergy, Ringo representing the undertaker, and George representing the gravedigger. If you’d like to – for whatever reason – monitor the famous zebra crosswalk any time of the day, check out the Abbey Road webcam and make fun of all the tourists taking pictures as they walk across it. (And pretend you wouldn’t do the same.)