Dean’s favourite albums – the number one place – Abbey Road – The Beatles

 

So, its come to this, the number on spot one my list, and well, it really had to go to one of the biggest bands of all time. The reality is, just about all of their albums probably could have made it to my list , (except for “Please Please Me”, “Yellow Submarine” and maybe  “Beatles for Sale”). The “White Album” and “Rubber Soul” in particular were very close to making it, but just missed out.  But “Abbey Road” was the first album picked for the list, and was always going to be my number one.
 

A fun album, it effortlessly mixes up classic rock tracks with more whimsical tracks (and I do love a good novelty song), and then just to show off, produces a killer medley of short tracks that blend in and reprise each other with the end result being a masterpiece.

The rock on the album is fantastic, getting underway with “Come Together”, and continuing through with several other fine tracks like “Oh Darling” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. But my favourite on the album is, in my opinion, George’s best Beatles track (sounds like a great topic for a future list by the way), namely “Something” (see link). I don’t have the words to describe how wonderful this track is, and I really think that George’s songwriting really came to the fore for this album. His other contribution is “Here Comes the Sun”, a fine track that adds to a great contribution to the album.

I mentioned the whimsical tracks earlier, and how can you go past “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”?  According to Wikipedia, both Ringo and John described this as “Granny music”, but I still like it, it’s a bit of fun. As too is the Ringo contribution to the album, “Octopus’s Garden”.

The second half of the album largely consists of the medley, and what an arrangement of short snippets of songs – “Mean Mr Mustard”, “You Never Give Me Your Money”, “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”, “Golden Slumbers”, “The End”, I could go on. I still haven’t really figured out what it is that I like about this, but I suspect it’s the fast pace of it all, moving from song to song  quickly.  Yet, having said that, its not like all of them are quick tracks, with stunning ballads like “Golden Slumbers”  being perfectly showcased amongst it all.

So there you go, the Beatles take the top spot on my list. For those of you that have read my list, provided comments etc, I hope you have enjoyed reading it, it was fun putting it together. I am very interested in your thoughts though – you have now seen my musical tastes, so perhaps you might like to share some recommendations about albums I might like, and indeed, what your favourite albums are, I would be interested in hearing from you!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrW7dlDHH28