A Masterpiece, From Start to Finish

Abbey Road (The Beatles): I don't understand people that say they don't like The Beatles. Then again, I'm not much of a Neil Young/Bruce Springsteen/insert a few other Rolling Stone darlings' names here kind of fan, so what do I know? Having been born after Beatlemania, I never had the pleasure of waiting for new recordings, or any of that stuff. I just know these guys crafted good music, from their R&B based beginnings, all the way through their LSD based explorations.

My first Beatles memory is of finding my older brother's old 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand. I played that thing till I thought I'd wear it out. Shortly after that I got the Magical Mystery Tour LP for a birthday gift, then discovered the "red" and "blue" Greatest Hits albums. Abbey Road, for me, is the standard by which all other Beatles records should be judged (at least when taken as a whole). Somehow, I went a long time without this record. A few Christmases ago, I saw Randy Jackson (Zebra guitarist/vocalist) at Grant Street Dancehall. He played a Beatles-heavy acoustic set that included the whole second side of Abbey Road, in order. I found a setlist of Randy's show online and started looking up all those familiar Beatles songs. When I found they were all on Abbey Road, I was off to Best Buy.

Note: The irony of my Rolling Stone comment above is that, while researching a couple of things for my review, I found that RS voted Abbey Road as the 14th greatest album of all time.