I'm really looking forward to the re-listen to Abbey Road, because I've always considered the much hallowed second side to be a steaming pile.

I think it's hallowed for a reason, and i've always been a fan since the first time my jaw dropped listening to it.

I wonder if this time through will be any different for you coming through the lens of some serious time off plus listening to the remasters chronologically.

What did you hate about it before?

I've found it to be all craft and no soul. McCartney and Martin going nuts in the studio and impressing each other with cleverness, but it's ultimately a case of there being no there there. And it's doubly annoying because "Carry That Weight" is a snippet that sounds like it could've made for an incredible song if they would've just put the creative work into it.

went and bought abbey road and let it be.

only ones left are past masters and....yellow submarine. the latter may not get purchased for awhile.

Completely disagree. It's ALL soul.

I'm not saying you can't like it, but how can it be ALL soul when it's just Macca and Martin tying together a bunch of song scraps the band was too lazy to finish?

It touched me.

Like, long before I ever knew who these people and what they did, I really liked the music.

side two of abbey road is probably the best thing in the entire beatles catalog

I think it's a pretty soulful piece of craftsmanship.

To me, something that's all craft and no soul would be like... i don't know. Rush. Later King Crimson. Dream Theater. Dragonfarce. Nashville pop country. Mutt Lange's marriage to Shania Twain. Anything pre-digested for the unwashed masses who like and buy what they hear on the radio because it's familiar, like so many pups at the teat.

By the time Abbey Road rolled around, things were way different in the musical world than when Sgt. Peppers happened, and they didn't have to make The Huge, but by all accounts that I've read, everyone, including John, was pretty well behaved and even having fun.

They didn't have to go back to George Martin, and i think it might be a little revisionist to pair Paul and Martin like that, since Paul was the biggest proponent for the Get Back sessions and was very vocal about getting the band back to playing live. He was the one that never wanted to stop touring really, and everyone in the band had quit once, some twice by the time he quit the first time, when the breakup was splattered in the papers right as his solo release was coming out. Can't blame him though, the band was definitely more tight knit, there had to be a sense of us vs. the world as they were trying to survive beatlemania. They'd been friends for a long, long time, and it had to be hard to feel like that was getting lost after liverpool, hamburg, the world... Why not get back to playing live? And so they moved the whole shindig to twickenham sound stage, and when they felt like that was a bust... it was john according to martin who approached him about helming another album.

He might be maligned for a lot of things, but McCartney was the single greatest force that kept the band together post Revolver as Lennon was going through his least prolific period (until they got to Rishikesh where there was a huge spurt of songwriting, and then again when they got back and everything got less amiable).

Think about it though, you're a beatle, you just got the shit scared out of you in the phillipines and you didn't know if you were gonna make it out alive so you stop touring. Most bands would have rolled over and died there, or started touring eventually. They really ran the risk of being forgotten by the public, but they managed to keep releasing watershed albums through paul's sheer stubbornness of being doggedly excited about the recording process, at least enough to hook john back in for a bit.

You don't make an album in that kind of environment without there being some soul in it. It's hard enough to make an album when everyone's on the same page and friendly.

That's just my opinion though.

it's not that far removed from John bringing Paul a half finished Day In the Life and fitting in his very different part, and it's not even that far removed from John bringing a half finished song, and Paul suggesting a melody tweak. There are definitely songs in there, they just happen to be 1:30 instead of 2:15.

Plus it's simply some of their best riffs, solos, singing performances and Ringo at his absolute best.

I'm agreeing although i think ringo was the most consistent member. He made shit feel so right on so many albums, so i think he was always hovering near his own high water mark.

Dead on about the performances, Jewels. Once in college my roomate (Rich) was humming some kickass rock song snippet, and I started humming it too. Eventually we're laughing about it and he says "what fucking song IS that?" And we dug around through cd's and were both sorta surprised when the answer was the Beatles from side B of Abbey Road.

bump for the week, holiday or not.

Never heard this story....

great account of this in the amazing book "The Beatles: The Biography" by Bob Spitz.

Been listening to a few of these this afternoon, and really enjoying them. I don't reach for a Beatles album but about once a year, but this is fun. Past Masters is reminding me of things I haven't heard in years. And the White Album sounds amazing.

Thanks for posting that video Phil. That was interesting.

i started watching let it be last night. only made it about 20 minutes into it though.

I'm on a week's Beatle hiatus. Back to it on the 28th.

I believe I'm going to go ahead with this. I'm excited to hear the remastered late-period, particularly Sgt. Peppers because I've always had a negative opinion of it. Curious if some gussied up sound will affect this.

i have this book. prob not even 1/4 of the way thru. fuckin thing is enormous

looking forward to the past masters day so i can snag the download

How many times have I heard Rubber Soul? At this point it has to be in the thousands, surely and I'm not even remotely sick of this record. The only slight exception is 'In My Life', but I fault it being a bump for so many sad television montages.