Perhaps The Beatles didn’t intend Abbey Road to be their final album, but that’s the way things
turned out, and it’s difficult to listen to the album and not take its finality
as a conscious statement from the band that rearranged the face of pop. The
Beatles were still rearranging it at the end with the ingenious medley that
salvaged several of Lennon and McCartney song scraps.
More significantly, the songs point to where each Beatle
would head during his solo career. Lennon exorcised his demons Plastic Ono Band-style with “I Want You
[(She’s So Heavy)” and played the dreamer Imagine-style with “Because”. McCartney served up a neat pastiche with “Oh! Darling” and the kind
of fluff that would cause critics to pile on him—often unfairly—throughout the
seventies with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. With “Octopus’s Garden”, Ringo
delivered the good-natured tunefulness apparent in the band’s most surprising
solo success. George also showed he had the stuff to make what could be the
seventies’ greatest album—All Things Must
Pass—with his first-rate contributions “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”.
If there is a downside to Abbey Road, it’s that George Martin’s production may have been too
polished, which raises an interesting issue when it comes to remixing the album
for its 50th Anniversary. The most pristine Beatles LP probably
would have benefited from a fresh coat of grit rather than a high-tech polish.
Yet, Giles Martin’s re-mix renders the album even cleaner than his dad’s, with
such distinct separation that you can hear every little element in each
arrangement. Nevertheless, it is pretty exciting to hear Abbey Road with such spaciousness. That the younger Martin
basically leaves the essentials of each song in place (the synthesizer still
travels across the cans at the beginning of “Here Comes the Sun”; ditto for the
lead guitar in “Sun King”) was a wise decision. However, such fidelity causes
the rare instance of more noticeable changes to really stand out, and not
always in favorable ways. Martin’s decision to pump up the backing vocals in
“Here Comes the Sun” and reduce the bassy lead guitar in “You Never Give Me
Your Money” can be forgiven even though neither move improves the song. His
decision to make a hash of the fade out on “Come Together”, mixing in some sloppy
alternate vocals and fading John’s screams and moans to near nothingness, cannot.
By hiding those raw ad-libs, Giles Martin robs a lethargic track of its emotional
climax.
I have few complaints with the rest of the Abbey Road Anniversary Edition, which finally
brings The Beatles’ anniversary box set series in line with the growing
enthusiasm for vinyl. For the first time since Apple/UMe began these sets with
the anniversary edition of Sgt. Pepper’s,
the vinyl set is identical to its CD equivalent (aside from the absence of the
CD set’s hardcover book). The vinyl is super quiet, and the audio is excellent
throughout. The bonus material on the second and third LPs is generally
fascinating and consciously avoids overlap with the Abbey Road material on Anthology 3. Paul’s demo of “Come and
Get It” appears in its original mix. George’s demo of “Something” includes the
piano track erased from the Anthology
mix (too bad the famed extended mix of the band’s version was not included,
though). There is a take of “I Want You” with Billy Preston’s hot organ runs
pushed up front, a warm acoustic guitar/drums/vocals take of “The Ballad of
John and Yoko”, and a similarly stripped take of “Old Brown Shoe” that may be
missing Paul’s incredible bass work but really shows off his terrific drumming.
A demo of “Goodbye”, a light ditty Paul gave to Mary Hopkins, does the same for
his lovely voice.
The coolest thing to pop up on this set is the trial mix of
the Side B medley The Beatles nicknamed “The Long One”. The big story of this
alternate version is that it reinserts “Her Majesty” between “Mean Mr. Mustard”
and “Polythene Pam” (and we can hear why it was edited out of the final mix—it
murders the momentum between two of the medley’s most dynamic pieces). The
trial mix offers several other variations from the released mix: there’s loud
cowbell on “Polythene Pam”, and the final three tracks are missing essential
guitar, vocal, string, and horn parts. We hear those orchestrations isolated in
the set’s final track, and they sound surprisingly ominous and not at all
saccharine on their own. It’s a moody and stirring way to bring a most fab 50th
Anniversary box set to the end.
