The Perfect Abbey Road

The Perfect Abbey Road

 

 

ONE THING THAT Steve Jobs understood that music industry executives didn't is that we love our music. In initiating digital downloads from iTunes he allowed us to create and burn our own playlists and our own versions of classic albums.

This is something I've been doing myself for many years. You see, on almost every album there are either a few fillers -- songs included to pad out the album -- or just songs that we personally don't like. Then there are also the songs not included but we wish they had been. On the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's, for example, there is the one I don't like, Paul's 'When I'm Sixty-Four' (what John Lennon caustically referred to as 'one of Paul's granny songs') and the one I like but think doesn't belong there, George's 'Within You, Without You'. On the other hand, there are the two songs that even George Martin wishes had been included but weren't: 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane'. Whenever I listen to the album these days, those two left-offs replace the two I don't want there.

I have done this kind of thing with many albums: Eagles' Hotel California and The Long Run, Bowie's Heroes/Helden, The Who's Sell Out, and so on.

Likewise, I have my own classic Abbey Road: I've replaced the Paul granny song that the other Beatles hated, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' (Lennon even refused to play on it), with the raw-but-powerful version of John's "Don't Let Me Down" that was released on "Let It Be (Naked)". The rest of the album remains unchanged. It is, for me in this personalised version, not only the perfect Abbey Road, but also the perfect rock album.

c Kenneth Rowley 2015

Abbey Road review

Abbey Road as 'replayed and reconstructed' by Sand, Water & Wind. A review by Swazifiction.

If you're a purist you need not apply. Indeed, if you're a Beatles fan -- and especially if you're a fan of the original Abbey Road -- listening to this CD could make you cry. If, on the other hand, you're sitting at your favourite table in your favourite seaside café, sipping a cocktail whilst gazing at the sun sinking down across the surface of the sea, then this might be an album for you. This is the Beatles not so much 'reconstructed' as deconstructed into jazz lounge, a literal café del mar package. It's not very engaging anywhere, which is good because it's not very good anywhere (at times it's actually bad) but the tunes are familiar enough to be hummable. Gone is Lennon's angstful wail for existential release on I Want You, gone is McCartney's alcoholically raw voice on Oh Darling, the harmonies, the hooks, the guitars, the inventive drumming, the rock... everything that made the Beatles such a great group and this such a great album, in fact. But, as I said, if you're in that café, this release works in its own limited way. Mine will be a dacquiri with a slice of lime please. No ice.

The Death of Rootedness

The Death of Rootedness

The death of Donna Summer reveals the problems we're facing: the loss of rootedness and context. You see, without Donna Summer, there'd be no house music, no club dance scene, no Channel O, but most people who listen extensively (many exclusively) to these musics and inhabit these contexts have never heard of her. We have as a species shifted (a seismic shift, equivalent to the Industrial Revolution) from nationalism towards a global village, one unified worldwide culture, that contains a bit of everything, a genuine mash-up, but in so doing we have disconnected our ties to the particular histories that allowed this social world to come into being.

And, of course, it's not just the dance scene. During the late seventies (think Eagles' Hotel California, think Fleetwood Mac's Rumours), rock music was also changed forever because of Donna Summer. When Brian Eno arrived in Berlin to join David Bowie for his Low and Heroes albums, he had a copy of Summer's I Feel Love and was telling everyone, "This is the future". He was correct, and Bowie (who was a new convert to the electronica of Neu!, Can, and Kraftwerk) agreed. That nascent sound is all over Bowie's Berlin albums and the changes that followed were tidal.

Music is central to the new global village and our lives; it will continue to be, but without rootedness we can justifiably be apprehensive. I recently saw some youtube comments on a piece of classical music: "Oh, this music is just for the old people, and they'll be dying out soon." Our sense of history is dying, and with it goes our sense of proportion and rightness. Everything is now up for grabs.

Dangerous Women

I grew up on the songs of the Eagles; they were the band that got me through college and still brighten my days. I actually met them once, when they were in London recording 'Desperado', their second album. This was around the time they played a gig in London's Royal Festival Hall, a small venue.

I love the harmonies and the guitars but what made the Eagles big were of course the songs--and they're not typical love songs; they're mostly songs about love that has been lost and women that can burn you even as they make your life meaningful. The women are there right from the first Eagles song any of us ever heard: Take It Easy.

I teach a lesson on the lyrics to two of these dangerous women songs: One Of These Nights and Hotel California: 'the full moon is calling/ the fever is high/ the wicked wind whispers and moans... dreams/ screams...been searching for the daughter of the Devil himself/ I've been searching for an Angel in white/ I've been waiting for a woman who's a little of both/ and I can feel her but she's nowhere in sight'. Wow! Always wow! The alliteration, imagery, symbolism and the always human pull of the dark side. This was the band's most creative period and the time of their international breakthrough to stadium superstardom. Well-crafted songs: lasting works of art; stories of dangerous women.

The Great Gig in è Sky

The news of Larry Norman's death (on Feb 24) has affected me far more than I could have imagined. He was one of è biggest influences in my life. As a long-haired faded-jeans non-conformist zest-4-life teenager, è church never welcomed me with open arms: itz organisation was rigid, itz creativity non-existent, & itz music quite likely è worst on è planet. Larry (è man) & his music exploded into my life & I'm major thankful 4 that. I don't know what inspired me è most, Larry (I met him 6 times) or his music (I still listen regularly to 4 of his albums). This weekend I was @ a prefect camp & told è teenagers abt role models & people being inspirations in yr life. Then I picked up a gtr & sang 'è Outlaw'. Thank u Larry; go in peace.