The Weakest Link: ABBEY ROAD, Round 10

Come Together.

For me, Abbey Road ranks somewhere in the 5-10 range, and honestly I listen to Booker T & the MGs' McLemore Avenue as often as I do Abbey Road.

I love the sound of the album, the glow, but Paul's individual contributions are the weakest of his Beatles career.

 

Come Together

The album is not in my top 3 (that would be AHDN, RS and the White album, in no particular order) but it would probably be somewhere in my next group of three (along with Revolver and With the Beatles). So I guess it's somewhere from 4 to 6.

Given that the US AHDN is half an album, it might move up one notch within the US canon.

 

Come Together.

I like it a lot. I guess it ranks somewhere near #4 after Revolver, Pepper and Rubber Soul.

 

Here Comes The Sun gets ditched for me, just a bit too twee lyrically. Come Together is just a grungier Glass Onion, really, but it's a great band performance. Something is fairly unimpeachable, and features McCartney's best bass playing on record. I Want You (She's So Heavy) is the most interesting thing on Abbey Road for my money, though.

Abbey Road is middle of the pack for me, but it's one hell of a pack. McCartney didn't really fire as a songwriter on this one, after doing a lot of heavy lifting on Let It Be, although he certainly fired as a bassist - I think he pulled out all the stops to try and show what a team player he was.

 

Something

I think it might be their best - perhaps = first with Sgt. Pepper.

 

Something in the way it bugs me, again.

Abbey Road...... their finest album. I can't think of many other albums with such consistent quality and all round brilliance. Even what some would say are the lesser songs are bloody brilliant!

 

"Come Together".

Haven't heard the US albums, and I'm so used to not hearing their hits that Past Masters sounds really weird to me! I would put it at either 4th or 5th, behind Rubber Soul, Revolver, A Hard Day's Night, and maybe Sgt Pepper.

 

Come Together to leave by itself.

Abbey Road is my favorite Beatles album.

 

Here Comes The Sun (hate to see this one heading towards the finish line as the winner)

DQ: Abbey Road is among the band's top 2 or 3 albums IMO.

 

Abbey Road is my favorite Beatles album. The creativity across such a varied set of songs is unmatched elsewhere. And I've gotten to the point in this poll that I can't choose any of the remaining songs as weakest. They're all essential.

 

Too bad George couldn't be around to see this.

Best Beatles album of 1969.

 

Come Together gets the toss.

Abbey Road might be my favorite Beatles album and their best. It certainly has some of their best efforts on it, and side 2 medley I consider mostly as a single song. But having said that, there are other albums where I like ALL of the songs.

Abbey Road has the stinkers (again in my opinion) Octopus Garden and Maxwell that I almost always skip, and Oh Darlin' isn't among my favorites either, but I usually don't skip it. The others are all pretty darn good, even the song fragments.

 

Come Together

Nice tribute to George.

DQ: long-time "ranking"...

1. Revolver (and not by much)
2. Pepper-White-Abbey-Rubber-Magical
3. Submarine-LIB
4. Everything else

US albums were rendered irrelevant in this house many years ago.

 

Regrettably, have to go with "Come Together" this time. George ftw

DQ: I consider Abbey Road not only the best Beatles album, but the best album ever made.

 

4th

 

Here comes the sun
(a touch too many "sun, sun, sun, here he comes" for me to put it ahead of CT)

Nevertheless, I think it's only fair that the final Abbey Road showdown should be the two Harrissongs. It's proof of George's incredible progress as a songwriter at the time, but it's also a reminder that neither John nor Paul were at their best on this record. 'Something' and 'HCTT' are indeed the best coupling of songs George ever had on a Beatles LP. But John and Paul were arguably both better on almost each and every other Beatles albums, from Rubber Soul on, at least. Even from AHDN on !

It brings me to DQ : I'm amazed how miraculously great this album remains in spite of what I just said. It's still up there for me, just below Rubber Soul/Revolver and the White Album, maybe on a par with Help! (which seems to be the great underrated Beatles LP for me, but I'm sure there's a thread on this subject somewhere).

 

I don't like Abbey Road anymore or Let It Be.
There's something a bit slick and sterile about AR, it sounds like a Wings album. Having first heard it age 7 or so, 40 years later the only track i'd think of listening to is I Want You (very loud) and The End.
However, living as i do with my mono box i don't miss any of the tracks not in it. As someone in another thread said, best run of Beatle albums is PPM to The Beatles.
I also find Rubber Soul less and less impressive as time goes on while PPM, AHDN,BFS all improve with age. Revolver will always be their best. IMO.

 

1. Sgt. Pepper's – 10
2. Abbey Road – 9.5
3. Magical Mystery Tour – 9.5
4. Let It Be – 9
5. The White Album – 9
6. Rubber Soul – 9
7. Revolver – 9
8. Help! – 7
9. A Hard Day's Night – 7
10. With The Beatles – 7
11. The Beatles For Sale – 5
12. Please Please Me - 5

 

Come Together

 

Shall we go and dissect them and make one good album out of the two?

 

Come Together goes.

DQ: Abbey Road is at the very bottom of the Beatles recorded work for me.

 

I voted off Come Together in the last couples of rounds, but seeing that my favourite tunes are already out (the whole BIG MEDLEY or the medleys, as you want, You Never Give Me Your Money) and seeing that the roughest track (and also a favorite) I Want You (She's So Heavy) is also out, and hearing recently the live Lennon version on Madison Square Garden which reminded me how good a track Come Together is, i've changed my mind. I want a little of heaviness in the final pair, so i've decided to vote one of the two Harrisongs off. A rough task, believe me, both are excellent. But, in the end (no pun intended) i can see that Something has more "classic" status than Here Comes The Sun and all things considered, it's a better song. So There's Goes The Sun.

 

My ranking of Beatles albums vary from time to time. Abbey Road have been first, second or third, always on the top five. Nowadays, when i listen to the Beatles, i go more to Anthology's and Live At The BBC's and Bootlegs Recordings than the usual canon, so i tend to appreciate more early Beatles, up to Rubber Soul or Revolver, than post 1966 Beatles. But objectively i can't say that any of the first five Beatles albums is better than Abbey Road, nor Magical Mistery Tour or Yellow Submarine, and not the 1970's Let It Be either , so i guess it's still in the top five (if you count Let It Be...Naked as the official Let It Be, that's another story).

 

Something

 

Come Together, should have been voted off 7 rounds ago. I would rank Abbey Road behind Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper, and the White Album in that order.