Post by Brian on Sept 29, 2019 23:00:15 GMT -8
The 50th anniversary edition of "Abbey Road" was released in multiple formats on September 27, 2019.
If you're not old enough, you can't imagine the impact "Abbey Road" had on the world when the Beatles released it 50 years ago this week. Like "Sgt. Pepper" two years earlier, I remember where I was when I first heard the album. Soon it was in the air, everywhere I went. By the time that the Beatles broke up six months later, it had become their bestselling album. A seventh grader, I played the record constantly, often while staring at the album cover, and I would have bought the 8-track too if Apple Records hadn't scrambled the song order. Later, I taped my record with all of its little pops during the intro of "Here Comes the Sun," fitting it onto a 60 minute cassette by omitting "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." In 1987, Apple Records finally released the Beatles' albums in the CD format.
I pre-ordered the Super Deluxe Edition -- three CD's, one high resolution Blue Ray and a wonderful hardcover book -- from Amoeba Records in Hollywood for $98. I could've saved a few bucks with Barnes and Noble or another online retailer, but I want to support a physical record store. The album was released and shipped for free on Friday, and my box arrived Saturday by way of the good old U.S. Postal Service. For $16 for CD or $23 for vinyl, you can buy a single disc of the album re-mastered by Giles Martin, the son of the Beatles' producer George Martin, who also re-mastered the 50th anniversary editions of "Sgt. Pepper" and the White Album.
When it arrived, the first thing I did was play the 1987 CD. Still sounds great. Then I played the 2019 re-master, and Anni and I nearly fell to our knees. Without changing the character of the album, Giles opened fresh sonic worlds within every song using the original masters at EMI Recording Studios in London. "Abbey Road" was not only the last recorded work by the Beatles, it was their first using state of the art recording equipment.
But I bought it for the bonus tracks, which deserve a post or two of their own. The Super Deluxe Edition comes with two discs of outtakes recorded from February to August 1969, including "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Old Brown Shoe," along with demos of the hits that Paul McCartney wrote for Mary Hopkin and Badfinger, "Goodbye" and "Come and Get It." There's also a two-CD set that has a disc configuring the outtakes in the same order as the original album, so of course I'll have to get that too.