In my previous review I noted that The Beatles next project after Yellow Submarine was going to be an album called Get Back. The idea, proposed by Paul McCartney, was for The Beatles to go back to their roots of playing live shows and recording the bulk of their music live as a group, as opposed to the four members largely doing their own thing and collaborating on overdubs later. Recording together proved not to be the tonic to reunify the band, and the recording sessions for the Get Back album were put on the shelf. At some point they were able to get in the studio and record a set of songs they really liked, and that became today's subject for review.
I'm sure there are some Beatles fans who say I am reviewing in the wrong order, since what was Get Back eventually was released by the Beatles' as Let It Be. There are Beatles purists who view Abbey Road as their true last album as it was recorded after most of what became Let It Be. I guess I can understand the logic in reviewing these pieces in their "intended" order as being when they were recorded. But I started by saying I was reviewing their catalogue in its released order, and that's what I'm sticking with.
Starting right off with two of the best all-time Beatles songs "Come Together" and "Something" Abbey Road seems to be making a statement that the incoherent psychedelic crap that tried to recreate Sgt. Pepper will be largely left off this new album. Thank goodness. "Something" in particular is one of those great all-time romantic songs that never grow old.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" repeats (again) a similar idea to "When I'm Sixty Four" which is a bit tired, but strangely I welcome the cheezy synth orchestration sounds which make a brief appearance. Most critics I've read have harsh opinions about The Beatles using synths on Abbey Road, saying it gives the album an inauthentic feeling. Maybe because it's the first time I've heard genuine unmistakable synthesizer on a Beatles track I actually like it. At the very least it's different.
I'm tempted to say "Octopus's Garden" is a strange bit of WTF in what thus far has been a pretty good blues-based album. But unlike "Yellow Submarine" on Revolver, "Octopus's Garden" feels well placed. The sound and tone fits in well with the rest of the music on Abbey Road. There's also the added fact that this is a true Ringo number, whereas "Yellow Submarine" always felt like a joke Paul wrote and gave to Ringo because he'll sing anything.
"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is a heavy dark blues number that exemplifies why The Beatles should almost never have made a long song. Instead of featuring an outstanding closing solo or whatever, the main riff just drones on and on while wispy distortion comes in over top. If the song had faded out about three minutes earlier it might have been awesome. Instead it becomes tedious.
I've heard "Here Comes The Sun" hundreds of times, but this is the first time I've really noticed the synthesizer overdubs. Suddenly I don't like the song all that much. Kinda weird how that works, huh? The vocal harmony on "Because" is incredible.
I've read Abbey Road closes with a medley of songs, but I didn't know that when I first listened. It just sounded to me like shoddy editing. The opening track "You Never Give Me Your Money" is four minutes long but feels disconnected and unfinished even still. Actually the unfinished part was probably on purpose, because the rest of the "medley" seems to be short snippets of songs run together without breaks, all of which sound like they should be songs by themselves but aren't developed beyond a minute or two. It's a clever trick, but it doesn't make the songs sound finished. It sounds like a short collection of half-baked ideas. What's worse is it's clear each track was recorded separately, as opposed to a true medley which would be played live in one sitting. The cuts between each track are too obvious for this to feel like a true medley. Like I said, it sounds more like it was simply edited poorly.
It could also be the fact that this wound up being the "final" Beatles recording that makes these songs not hit as hard as they should. It seems like this should be the epic finale to their career. Instead it's more like they were just running out the tape with leftover chunks from their previous recording sessions. So all together, Abbey Road has a really good side 1 and a pretty "meh" side 2.
The other song reviewed here is "Across The Universe". This is the only song that I know of released while The Beatles were active that didn't appear on a Beatles single, EP, or album. Instead this version showed up on the charity compilation album No One's Gonna Change Our World. This version appears to be John Lennon whining over a cute acoustic guitar progression backed up by a bunch of munchkin kids on vocals and an electric guitar with an overly generous wah-wah pedal. I suppose it's not that bad, but christ I hate John Lennon's voice.
An aside... the charity album supposedly took it's title from a line in "Across The Universe". But the line was, "Nothing's gonna change my world," not, "No One's Gonna Change Our World." Is that a really big difference? It is to me, because what I get from John Lennon's lyrics lately is a lot of pretentiousness. The charity album seems to be standing up to The Man who wants to impose a destructive will on the masses. John Lennon seems to be focused a lot lately on himself and his relationship with Yoko Ono, and fuck anyone who doesn't think that's really important and awesome.
So anyway... I was really fixing to like Abbey Road on the strength of its A-side, but its B-side was a let down. I'll go with defaulting to 3 stars when an album has a few good tunes, which this one does. There is plenty of filler but unlike what happened on The Beatles the filler here isn't offensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment