THE BEATLES
Abbey Road (1969)
Applee/Capitol
Produced by GEORGE MARTIN

It's useless to argue with ABBEY ROAD. More fun to listen to than any other Beatles album, this singalong amusement park ride is guarded and calculated, but never claustrophobic. Its faults do not become clear until after it has faded, but the more one listens, the more distant the magic seems to become.

And it is magic -- a career summary of sorts that makes clear the Beatles' awareness that they were finished. You get the straight-up rock & roll, though precious little of it, the wicked humor, some half-hearted experimentation, and lots of tracks that segue and slide in and out of attention at will. There are probably traces of every other Beatles album somewhere in this one.

Side One offers most of the conventional songs -- two of John's, two of Paul's, one each from Ringo and George. Side Two, aside from Harrison's lightweight "Here Comes the Sun" and Lennon's overly precious "Because," belongs to Paul almost fully. Here is the famous "Beatles medley," with its eight-song rollercoaster of unfinished ideas and minor puff pieces. Lennon's songs are funny but fluffy with conviction, the best being the energetic "Polythene Pam," McCartney's are either bizarrely endearing ("You Never Give Me Your Money," "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window") or disgustingly schlocky ("Golden Slumbers")... and yet, somehow, the whole thing not only comes off, but comes off beautifully. The b-movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. had a point about the worst ideas being the best ones if they're presented with the right enthusiasm. The Beatles, of all people, have the dubious honor of making that clear by stacking drunken inanities like "Sun King," "Carry That Weight," and "The End" together until they add up to something. It is strictly a studio triumph, of course, all the tweaking and knob-twisting of SGT. PEPPER perfected at an almost inhumane, overly professional distance, but quite a hummable one.

That said, it's now clear that Side One is by far the superior of the two divisions. It offers the album's one substantial composition -- John's wounding "Come Together" -- and throws bones both to the Beatles' pseudo-sophisticated followers in George's overproduced love ballad "Something" and to the fans of dirty-ass rock & roll with Paul's "Oh! Darling" and John's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Vocally, the former is flawless; musically, the latter is. Both men could write far better songs than this, however, and ABBEY ROAD often seems like a gigantic curtain hiding people who are saving their best ideas for when this gig is finished. (Unfortunately, "Oh! Darling" is one of the last remotely good ideas Paul would have until 1973 or so.)

Ringo, of all people, supplies the human touch. "Octopus's Garden," though it's clearly "Yellow Submarine II," is magnetic and may have more lasting appeal than anything here aside from "Come Together." I'm also partial to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," though it's less a song than a loopy comedy sketch, so it's no wonder Lennon hated it.

None of the Beatles really appear to be running out of steam, bored as they may have been by now. They continue to be, it seems, wholly devoted to their craft. George Martin seems more resigned, and sonically this is the laziest and least appealing Beatles album. Save the white-noise power of "I Want You," even the guitars are sugary and overblown; this may well be the most unnecessarily slick rock album of the '60s. For whatever reason, it doesn't hamper the record entirely, and again perhaps adds, on Side Two at least, to the baroque appeal of the whole thing. If it is a big problem, it's not all Martin's fault. The band's work cannot rely on his ideas anymore, and ABBEY ROAD, on the whole, sounds like what it is: an ending.