Abbey Road

Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. It is the last album the group recorded, although Let It Be (1970) was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. Abbey Road was mostly recorded in April, July and August 1969, and topped the record charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. [Wikipedia]

The last album the band recorded as a unit — though Let It Be was released later, its sessions had been completed in January 1969. Abbey Road was begun in February 1969 (with the I Want You sessions), shelved during the messy Get Back project, and resumed in earnest from July to August 1969. The sessions were the most amicable since 1967: McCartney and George Martin agreed to make 'an old-fashioned Beatles record,' each side a curated programme.

Abbey Road is a Beatles EP issued in the United Kingdom on 26 September 1969 by Parlophone under catalogue number PCS 7088. It sits in the band's Abbey Road (1969) period. It was issued the same day as the parent LP Abbey Road.

Sessions were produced by George Martin with Geoff Emerick (returned), Phil McDonald, Glyn Johns engineering, working at EMI Studios. The signal chain ran through the 3M M23 8-track (1968 upgrade), TG12345 console under construction • EMI TG12345 transistor console (debuted on Abbey Road); some sessions on REDD.51, with vocals captured on U47, U67, AKG C12, AKG D19/D20 (drums), STC 4038. This combination of room, tape format and outboard chain is the same one heard across the band's other releases from the era — meaning the release shares its sonic identity with its parent LP rather than departing from it.

The release features Come Together, Something ★, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Oh! Darling, Octopus's Garden, I Want You (She's So Heavy).

Documented alternate masters and remaster passes can be found via the linked entries above; the editorial position throughout Beatles Answers is that the original UK mono master is the canonical point of reference for any EP from this era, with the 2009 and 50th-anniversary stereo remasters treated as documented variations rather than replacements. Catalogue numbers, label copy and matrix data are taken from EMI/Parlophone primary documentation and cross-checked against Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (1988).

The first Beatles LP to use the EMI TG12345 transistor console (debuting on Abbey Road; the older REDD valve consoles were retired during the sessions). The TG had compression on every channel as standard — partly responsible for the album's smoother, glossier sound compared to the brick-dry White Album. Eight-track tape throughout. Geoff Emerick returned as engineer alongside Phil McDonald and Glyn Johns. Alan Parsons, John Kurlander and Tony Banks were among the second engineers in the studio for nights they would all later recall.

Side one is six discrete songs (Come Together, Something, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Oh! Darling, Octopus's Garden, I Want You (She's So Heavy)). Side two is the celebrated medley — sixteen minutes of stitched-together fragments leading to The End, with the only Beatles drum solo (eighteen bars) and a sequence of three guitar solos: Paul, then George, then John, then Paul, then George, then John, alternating two-bar exchanges. Something, Frank Sinatra later called 'the greatest love song of the past 50 years.' Here Comes the Sun, written in Eric Clapton's garden after George had skipped an Apple business meeting, would become the most-streamed Beatles track of the streaming era.

Released 26 September 1969. Seventeen weeks at UK number one. Iain Macmillan's zebra-crossing photograph (six minutes, six frames; the fifth was the cover) became one of the most parodied images in pop. Paul's bare feet, John's white suit, and the registration plate 'LMW 28IF' fed the 'Paul is dead' rumour-mill for years.

Abbey Road is the band's commercial high-water mark and the LP that contains, in The End's couplet, their own valediction: 'And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make.' Within a month of its release, John would tell the others he was leaving; six months later Paul would announce it publicly; the band had already played their last note together in front of a microphone.

• BPI certification: Platinum (British Phonographic Industry)
• RIAA certification: Platinum (Recording Industry Association of America)

Chart positions and certifications sourced from the relevant Wikipedia article infoboxes and citation footnotes.

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