The Beatles - Abbey Road ALBUM REVIEW

H hi everyone poony Rock Tano here the internet's busiest music nerd and it's time for a review a classic review of this Beatles album Abby rad The Beatles The Fab Four those crazy Liverpool boys John lennin Paul McCartney George Harrison Ringo Star a Beatles classic review yeah which honestly I have been putting off for years cuz classic reviews for me have always been a kind of daunting process even if it doesn't seem like it to you guys uh from your perspective watching me going into it I always feel the pressure to say something uh new or interesting maybe even if I can muster it profound about these albums albums that have amassed so much cultural currency it feels almost pointless to talk about them because their presence and their influence is uh so omnipresent that it's difficult to to put their cultural footprint into words it's not like we're staring at an animal track in the dirt uh from shoulder height no it's more like we're standing in a giant crater that is just so massive that collectively wear oblivious as to how far its walls stretch out talking about albums that have had that kind of impact is like describing the taste of air or a scent that you've gone nose blind to years ago and look there are a lot of artists and albums that fit this description in some way but it's especially true when it comes to Abby Road oceans of Ink have been spilled about this record and the history it made it further solidified George Martin as a production Titan as it is one of the best recorded and mixed albums of all time you also have Billy Preston on this thing the legendary fifth Beetle who had some very amazing and essential organ Parts you have the renaming of the studio Studio they recorded the bulk of this album in around the mid '70s to reflect obviously the Beatles and the records iconic popularity you also have the gamechanging band photo on the cover too which has been copied and remixed the world over there's a lot of mysterious lore around this record in some respects too like you know Paul's death which was very much rumored at the time of its release and you know him being barefoot in uh the cover you also have the publisher of Chuck berries you can't catch me suing John Lennon uh over kind of borrowing from Chuck's lyrics and flow on the opening track come together and that's just the tip of the contextual Iceberg around this project because from there you also have its musical its Sonic its artistic impact uh both long and short term as some of the heaviest moments on this record have been accredited with helping lay the ground work for metal sidebar I wouldn't say this record is alone in that as you do have a you know years of hard rock uh coming out prior to this record also Jimmy hendris and heavy psych however there was something uniquely heavy about the song She's So Heavy which we will get into later you've also got the legendary medal of tracks on side B of the album which of course was very art poop and very Progressive in spirit with its uh jarring multiple phases and sequences point is culturally This Record is treated like a very very very big deal and I would argue that the music on it actually lives up to the hype starting with the opening track come together a song that for many is maybe at this point overplayed and as a result of that I think some of its magic goes a little underappreciated cuz it's one of the weirdest and most coldblooded blues rock songs of all time and the various Sonic parts that make it up especially in its intro moments are just iconic from that sliding Baseline the persistent percussion on Ringo's part that little uh uh coming through on the vocals too the faint touches of guitar throughout the track especially on that bridge where they get a little weepy and the groove on the song just has an incredible Swagger to it Lennon spends the bulk of the track here singing about some character and his descriptions of this person range from mundane to surreal and maybe even slightly scary he says this person has a feet below his knee so what but also uh you can be held in his armchair and you'll feel his disease in a way he defies description as he's got to be good-looking because he's so hard to see overall at least how I read it uh he's trying to describe a kind of charismatic off-putting and maybe even cult-like figure and soundtracking that description uh with rock music that just frankly sounds otherworldly to the point where it's difficult to imagine a live performance of it which is how I've always felt about a lot of late era Beetle stuff and of course if you want you can go online and find any number of of bands both amateur and professional uh working out their own Renditions of tracks just like this sometimes even to the point where they're just like nailing every single detail but I don't know for me personally when it comes to the Beatles late era stuff especially with them being such a studio animal at this point in their years of live performance kind of being behind them it's just always been hard uh imagining songs like these especially this one existing in real life especially on a stage the only place I can Envision them is in this uh weird abstract imaginary space or somewhere that's not quite in my Dimension but uh maybe connected to it in some way just like a slight detour off of it which I think is also the case for the following track on here though it scratches a very different emotional itch that would be the George Harrison song something which has been said by Frank Sinatra to be uh The Greatest Love Song of the past 50 or 100 years which is a tall order but certainly a compliment from a guy who made his career singing and picking songs to sing and this track to me is just love and infatuation of the highest order as Harrison says there's something in the way she moves that attracts him like no other lover that's it but even with that infatuation comes questions and unease as on the bridge he's being asked will his love grow he doesn't know he don't know in fact he kind of gives this person the option to stick around and it it may show Even after this massive extravagant romantic display uh there's no guarantees however I I think that's just a reality of life and kind of a nice refreshing alternative from the many other love songs of the' 60s uh that seem to operate in this space of uh love sickness where you know you're totally blind to any other uh options or maybe ups and downs that typically come with a relationship so very simple but powerful and meaningful lyrics on this track but as far as the sound of this song goes it's Timeless it's gorgeous the strings aren't overdone they're super subtle atmospheric Heavenly as well meanwhile the vocals the watery guitar bits and the organs uh they're there and charming and subtly messed with in such a way where they feel just a just a tad psychedelic which again gives the track in other worldly energy like uh as come together had but again overall beautiful gorgeous song and following it uh we get another very strong tone shift I think here it's important to note that at this point in the Beatles career they weren't the cohesive songwriting operation that they once were in the early and mid 60s like around the release of an album like help for example in the album where their overall sound and vision was a lot more cohesive and singular and from there the band's creative process evolved or maybe even devolved to the point where uh they were dropping some frankly ridiculous and uh sometimes adventurous and absurd tracks where maybe a single member was uh kind of leading the way on an odd Excursion everybody else in the group was kind of along for the ride or at least that's how the Beatles creative process often can get narrativized among fans in the Press I mean for example look at how fragmented stylistically and sonically a record Like The White Album is as you get everything on that record from a birthday song to uh you know number nine number nine that album is going in so many different directions creatively it's just bursting at the seams and some people say that creative disarray is uh really what led to the death of the band but at the same time for me personally that lack of creative control is part of what makes the White Album a personal favorite for me and in the case of Abby rad I think the band does a great job of making those disparate Parts come together in a harmonious fashion especially during the medley toward the end which we will get into we see flashes of these weird detours and indulgences on the following track on the aside here Maxwell's Silver Hammer which is a Paul McCartney track that is uh theatrical and uh you know it's it's a piano tune that is the definition of j it has some nice touches of brass as well it's tracks like this that make me raise an eyebrow at the fact that John Lenin was the one who was couched as The Artsy little weirdo in the band meanwhile Here Comes Paul who's going to write a song about a guy going on a murder spree with a hammer literally as his victims are uh a woman he took out on a date a teacher and uh the judge at his trial whose deaths are all described against these cutesy little bang bang sound effects in the mix and uh super celebratory choruses too it is a beautiful but also ridiculous tribute to a total who Paul can't even keep himself from laughing at how Preposterous his own story is at one point on a Lyrica cuz you can hear him like giggling to himself as he's singing moving on from here in the track list though we are still very much in Paul territory cuz we get o Darlin which is is a big Paul ballad we got to have a big ballad we got to do a big soul number where he's yelling his brains out which for me can go one of two ways sometimes with Paul doing this you will get a mix of Madness and genius like in the case of Helter Skelter and sometimes it can get a little too cartoony or feel like a bad impression of a different singer like in the case of a track like a why don't we do it in the road and in the case of O Darlin it's a little bit more of the latter sometimes I wish Paul just sang in more of a regular register with uh this one and focused more on keeping his baselines in check cuz there's clearly a note that comes in late around 1:29 on the song keeping that lined up nice would be a lot better than you know overselling the damn tune however I do admire his passion on the song his desperation is certainly palpable and I do admire the band for playing the hell out of the damn thing the drums the pianos and the squawking Rhythm guitars are all punching the mix as loud and as hard as possible I'm surprised it sounds as balanced as it does then following this it's Ringo time with Octopus's Garden and frankly you got to give the guy some credit on this one not just for how cute it is but after his most well-known song being about a yellow submarine you would imagine that he might have like some reservations about doing another track that's nautical in any way whatsoever but no my dude actually just really wants to hang out under the ocean in in Octopus's Garden in fact totally Carefree in the shade warm and hiding away from storms it's just sweet precious escapism with sunny vocal harmonies bright pianos and of course bubbles with a finish that has almost like a country twang to it after this we have the finish of the aside with I want you sheis so heavy which is an aching longing fiery blues rock tune that has these hellish transitions into some super Sinister guitar passages uh just fiery fiery fiery organ hits from Billy Preston some of his solo runs too on the track are insane and throughout the song we kind of switch back and forth uh between what sounds like a very sensual very lowkey uh but still Moody Rock tune into these heavier darker more Sinister doomy and lumbering Rock passages that uh the more we kind of switch over to that dark side the more expansive they get the bigger they get the longer we're kind of hanging in that space uh that is until these sections just totally take over and repeat to the point where they're just getting heavier and thicker and louder and more crushing and more oppressive and more suffocating the guitars and bass are getting bigger and bigger and bigger and filling up uh all of the empty space you have like this uh Moog synth just making all of this just windy staticky noise it's filling up the background too more layers more volume more verb it's just uh really kind of uh looming it's becoming just uh so monolithic and just Mass frankly it's sounding more and more metal more and more hellish and then after a while it just kind of cuts off it's just brutal absolutely brutal just cutting it off it's just over it's just done which uh was was certainly a bold choice for its time and uh in an instance of amazing sequencing we go over to the bside on the record uh where the first thing we hear is George Harrison's Here Comes the Sun we are going from this cold uh apocalyptic heavy Rock sound to something that is Plucky and acoustic and pretty and bright and uh good feeling it is dazzling it is sparkling and in so many ways quintessentially Beatles with its vocal harmonies and its hopeful energy which somehow manages to increase as the song progresses and again it feels like another song on this album that doesn't exist in the same reality as me I mean to to compare it to a sunrise I think is obvious and uh kind of corny uh what sort of makes it difficult to kind of see this song in the same world as me is that I can't imagine somebody writing it uh that lives on this planet too that is so dying and cold and nasty and disgusting even during the cultural era that it came out of uh I could only imagine to track uh this positive and this frankly nice coming from a world that doesn't know the Pains of this one and yet George Harrison uh still wrote this track and it still kind of rose up out of the concrete uh like a flower like a rose for another corny cliche ass analogy now from here we get the song Because which uh kind of kicks off the medal on uh the record cuz if you're not familiar in the second half of this LP uh we don't have a whole lot of very fulllength complete songs with very defined structures beginnings and ends uh rather we are getting these short Motif or you know vignette type pieces that segue into one another or introduce each other reference back sometimes too and not too long prior to this the band had flirted with songs that have more experimental or linear structures but this is the first time that they really like extended it out for the length of an entire you know side of a record which was certainly an ambitious feet and uh one that to this day is held in very high regard which is what makes this LP so special but yeah to go back to because another quintessentially Beatles moment with these wintry and gorgeous and surreal and stacked vocal Harmony without overe explaining this track it is mystifying and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger because it does in a way feel like a tone Setter for the following track You Never Give Me Your Money which starts like your typical sad little Paul McCartney piano ballad with lyrics that treat love like it's a financial mediation of some sort and while it is on the long side in comparison with some of the other tracks on the second half of this record it still feels just as fragmented as from here you kind of jump into a bit of cartoony piano Rock more psych pop with super Grand vocal harmonies as well as another instrumental shift where you get these heartening little vocal passages uh uh with the group singing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7even oh God's children go to heaven it's kind of like you're getting several songs in one here and past this point things kind of speed up in terms of uh the tone shifts in between tracks and how quickly we're moving from one moment to the next you have Sun King which feels very much like a warm guitar Oasis which George Harrison would say in an interview was at least in part inspired by an instrumental track that Fleetwood Mack had dropped around that time Albatross but yeah overall this is very much a piece of sunshine psych with pretty building vocals and keys and uh toward the end uh this kind of weird jargony fake Spanish section that again feels like the band doing anything to avoid sounding regular and nor noral and just in touch with reality after this it is an over switch up it is a hard and jarring change with Mean Mr Mustard a silly piano tune that is a character portrait about a guy that's a real bastard mentions his sister Pam who is clearly being referenced in the following track as well as her taking him to see the queen uh which is why it's sort of understandable narratively why in the original sort of like composition of this medal piece her majesty the final song on this record was actually in this section you can actually hear the first chord that plays on her majesty is actually the last chord on Mean Mr Mustard but apparently that got snipped out and moved toward the very end and instead at the very end of Mr Mustard uh we get the first chord on polythene Pam which in its own right like Mean Mr Mustard is another odd character portrait or description of sorts talking about this person saying she's a woman but she looks like a man and have you seen her in Drag it's a very genderbent moment where the most complimentary thing said about this person is that she's attractively built meanwhile she came in through the bathroom window as a much more Dancy and a luxurious tone shift uh narratively it's not explicitly said whether or not we're singing about a different person than Pam here per se so in a way I guess you could read it as such even though it is said uh that uh it's a very real and different experience uh from Paul that actually inspired this one but yeah this this one's a very groovy number after which we actually get a pretty big amount of space uh kind of a breather where the medley takes a very theatrical turn really feels like it breaks off a bit but there are still uh some key call backs to earlier on the record with golden slumbers we get this very big dramatic showing of strings and horns and pianos for a lullabi that is described in the lyrics but never really quite happens I mean it is gorgeous and it is powerful but I would be pretty angry if PA McCartney uh went through all of this trouble to set up a lullabi only for him to uh kind of lead into boy you're going to carry that weight carry that weight thanks man going to doze right off to this one but yeah with the following carry that weight you get this immense and amazing big chorus group vocal passage as well as a melodic repre that goes back to you never give me your money toward the very end some guitar bits that reference back to to Sun King and with the end we just have a a powerful rocking fun finisher with a dueling guitar solo bits there's confetti flying people are dancing in the street and then we kind of get this heavenly Ascent of vocals and keys that bring things to a very bright and warm place then once this closes up again we hear that kind of big cord crash at the start of her majesty uh and then there's a little acoustic Diddy with some fingerpick guitar some strumming um lyrics that are yes about uh her majesty and sing about her in a very loving but also kind of a reverent way like I want to tell her that I love her a lot but I got to get a belly full of wine Her Majesty is a pretty nice gal someday I'm going to make her mine very cheeky and and silly way to uh end off your over-the-top and amazingly produced art poop Opus and in a nutshell yeah that's pretty much what Abby Road is and frankly that's why I love it and there you go that's my review my classic review of this album transition have you given this album a listen did you love it did you hate it what would you rate it you're the best you're the best what should I review next hit the like if you like Please Subscribe and please don't cry hit the Bell as well over here next to my head is another video you can check out hit that up or the link to subscribe to the channel Anthony fantano The Beatles Abby RH forever

Channel: theneedledrop

Views: 462,354

Keywords: album, review, music, reviews, indie, new, lyrics, listen, track, concert, live, update, the needle drop, anthony fantano, vlog, talk, discussion, music nerd, song, beatles, band, classic, abbey road, rock, pop, psychedelic, songs, paul mccartney, john lennon, george harrison, ringo, reaction

Id: G3xgXi6VeXU

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024