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BUY THE CD
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With the recent passing of Michael Jackson, there was a sales spike of his albums. So much so, that Thriller now has a chance to pass The Eagles Greatest Hits as the best-selling album of all time. Learning of that, I went online to look at Billboard’s list of the top-selling albums of all time, and, sure enough, it is accurate. Immediately, I thought, “Does best-selling mean the best album, artistically?”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge Eagles fan, but Greatest Hits albums have never been my cup of tea. I’ve always preferred hearing the songs from their original album, which often reflects some type of concept or mood, or has a statement to make. Way back in the formative days of rock ‘n’ roll, an album was generally a hit single surrounded by lame songs hastily done by the performer and/or record company.
When and who took the album and tried to make it into a statement, a theme, a concept—a sound, a sonic quality, an overall statement from the time the needle dropped onto the vinyl until the phonograph’s arm came up at the end of the grooves? Wow, who started that? How about The Beatles with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, back in 1967? Previously, we saw glimpses of that in a prior release by The Fab Four with their Revolver album. However, with the release of Sergeant Pepper, everything changed as far as albums. Now it was time to make a musical statement, a celebration, with artwork also becoming important for album covers. For those of you who love the technical aspects of recording, I suggest you read Beatles’ engineer Geoff Emerick’s book, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. Think of some of your favorite albums. A theme, a constant seems to run through them, yes? A few examples include The Who’s Tommy, The Eagles’ second album, Desperado, and Pink Floyd’s huge-selling albums, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.
How’s this for a concept: realizing that you may never record together as a band and doing everything you possibly can to end that recording career on a high note. I personally believe that Abbey Road is the greatest record of all time. Please realize that this album was actually finished after the group’s final release, Let It Be. For those of you who saw that film, you saw the disintegration of the group right before your eyes. Whether working alone or in different combinations of the four of them, somehow, John, Paul, George, and Ringo made it magical one last time. There is a tonality to Abbey Road that’s unlike any other Beatles album; a more mellow, rounder tone to it. The album starts out with that ominous bass line and Ringo’s hi-hat work going into drum rolls over his tom toms on Lennon’s oh-so-cool “Come Together.” Paul’s rock n’ roller voice on “Oh Darling” is reminiscent of John’s singing of “Twist and Shout.” With the song “Something,” George Harrison came to maturity as a song writer, an equal to John and Paul with the only A-side of a single, not written by Lennon or McCartney. His other contribution, the uplifting “Here Comes the Sun,” got side two off to an inspiring start. Yes, there are a couple of goofy tunes, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Octopus Garden,” but John’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” brings the album back to a more serious, almost determined feel, especially with that abrupt ending on side one of the original vinyl record. The icing on the cake was the 16-minute mini-opera of segued snippets of songs masterfully put together. The album closes with the aptly titled song, “The End,” with Ringo cutting loose on a drum solo followed by John, Paul and George dueling on lead guitars.
One final thought: The entire Beatles catalogue will be digitally remastered and released on September 9. Will MJ and The Eagles have any of their material re-released forty years after their last recordings? Let me know what you think by dropping me a line at N&W.
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