{"id":2447275,"date":"2019-08-07T13:15:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T19:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/uncategorized\/uncategorized-news\/hey-its-friday-wanna-argue-about-the-beatles-last-album-82944\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T13:15:17","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T19:15:17","slug":"abbey-road-vs-let-it-be-which-was-the-beatles-last-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/abbey-road-vs-let-it-be-which-was-the-beatles-last-album\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Abbey Road\u2019 Vs. \u2018Let It Be\u2019: Which Was the Beatles\u2019 Last Album?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So what\u2019s the final Beatles album? Abbey Road<\/a><\/em> or Let It Be<\/a><\/em>? If you\u2019re a Beatles fan, you\u2019ve had at least one chemically-assisted late-night argument about this (because that\u2019s what we do). Abbey Road<\/em> was the last they recorded, but Let It Be<\/em> was the last they released. So did the greatest band ever bid farewell with \u201cHer Majesty\u201d or \u201cGet Back\u201d? Does the story end with Paul saying, \u201cSomeday I\u2019m gonna make her mine,\u201d or John saying, \u201cI hope we passed the audition\u201d? It\u2019s always been a hot-button philosophical question for fans, the kind that defines what kind of Beatlemaniac you are. Though it may seem like an arcane debate, damn right it matters. Because it\u2019s the Beatles<\/a>. And what the hell, it\u2019s Friday. So let\u2019s argue: Which album truly counts as the grand finale?<\/p>\n

The case for Let It Be<\/em>: It came out in 1970, which was after 1969. The case for Abbey Road<\/em>: (1) virtually all of Let It Be<\/em> was in the can before the Abbey Road<\/em> sessions even began; (2) Abbey Road<\/em> feels more like a classic Beatles record; (3) \u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy)\u201d was the last time all four played in the studio together; (4) the last song on Abbey Road<\/em> is called \u201cThe End\u201d; (5) except for \u201cHer Majesty\u201d; (6) rebounding from the Let It Be<\/em> debacle was the main reason the lads summoned up that team spirit for Abbey Road<\/em>; (7) \u201cHer Majesty\u201d is awesome; (8) in the end the love you take is equal to the love; (9) you make.<\/p>\n

Sentimentally, Abbey Road<\/em> has the edge, but in cold chronological terms it\u2019s debatable. Sure, they recorded most of Let It Be<\/em> in January 1969. But all four Beatles kept working on Let It Be<\/em> after Abbey Road<\/em> came out. As RS<\/em> contributing editor David Browne notes in his excellent book Fire and Rain<\/em><\/a>, Paul, George and Ringo went into the studio on January 3, 1970 to cut \u201cI Me Mine\u201d \u2013 at that point, Abbey Road<\/em> had been out for months. Ringo was still recording drum tracks as late as April 1970.  But on some level, Let It Be<\/em> isn\u2019t so much an album as a movie soundtrack project. It only became an official Beatles studio album because it happened to come out when they broke up. If they\u2019d released Let It Be<\/em> on schedule, before Abbey Road<\/em>, it would be precisely as famous as the Yellow Submarine<\/em> soundtrack. Both have a few genuine Beatles songs, plus a load of lesser epiphenomena that belongs in a movie. \u201cTwo of Us\u201d is as great as \u201cIt\u2019s All Too Much,\u201d \u201cDig A Pony\u201d rates with \u201cHey Bulldog,\u201d and so on. The studio banter on Let It Be<\/em> is even more peripheral than \u201cPepperland Laid Waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 100 Greatest Beatles Songs<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a gray area what counts as a Beatles album and what\u2019s merely a Beatles project. (In the 1970s, fans argued over whether Hey Jude<\/em> and Hollywood Bowl<\/em> were official Beatles albums. Nobody argues about that anymore.) Capitol, for obvious reasons, would probably like to err on the side of counting projects as albums, although they still show heroic restraint and taste when it comes to respecting the core canon. (Like, they count Magical Mystery Tour<\/em> as an official album, but they know better than to make claims for The Beatles\u2019 Reel Music<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Anyone would have to agree Let It Be<\/em> is in the gray area, but from my fan perspective, it\u2019s on the Hey Jude<\/em> side of the line, along with Yellow Submarine<\/em>. If you want to claim the Beatles made 11 studio albums, I can see that, and if you want to claim the Beatles made 13 studio albums, counting Let It Be<\/em> and Yellow Submarine<\/em>, I can see that too. I can even see stretching it to 14 with Hey Jude<\/em>. (That one was a Capitol hodgepodge from early 1970.)<\/p>\n

Magical Mystery Tour<\/em> is in the gray area \u2014 the Beatles released it as a 6-song U.K. EP, but it got padded into a U.S.-only 1967 album, so it\u2019s about as legit as Hey Jude<\/em>. But it\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve heard anyone try to read it out of the canon, and it\u2019s a case where sheer quality makes a difference. (Not even a strict-constructionist hardliner would claim the EP is better<\/em> because it leaves out \u201cStrawberry Fields Forever.\u201d) If someone tried to argue the Beatles only made 10 albums, because Magical Mystery Tour<\/em>, Yellow Submarine<\/em> and Let It Be<\/em> are mere footnotes, I would basically assume they were an idiot, regardless of whether or not it\u2019s a valid point. (All idiots have a valid point, right? Not having a valid point doesn\u2019t make you an \u201cidiot,\u201d just a \u201crock critic.\u201d)<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s put it this way. Let It Be<\/em> is the final Beatles album, not Abbey Road \u2026<\/em> but only if<\/em> it\u2019s a Beatles album. Can you argue that Let It Be<\/em> is a Beatles album, yet not the Beatles\u2019 final<\/em> album? No, not really, because it includes a tiny amount of music they made in 1970. So here\u2019s my reluctant conclusion, at least as of today. I like Abbey Road<\/em> better. Sentimentally, for me, it\u2019s the one I think of as the end. However, unfortunately, Let It Be<\/em> is the last Beatles album. I would love it if you could change my mind about that.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So what\u2019s the final Beatles album? Abbey Road or Let It Be? If you\u2019re a Beatles fan, you\u2019ve had at least one chemically-assisted late-night argument about this (because that\u2019s what we do). Abbey Road was the last they recorded, but Let It Be was the last they released. So did the greatest band ever bid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 21:37:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}