Abbey Road Archives | Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

The Gospel of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”

By Michael Gerber|2017-08-26T00:09:40-07:00August 26, 2017|Abbey Road, Beatle myth, Paul Is Dead (PID)|

"The E-Type on his left symbolizes individuality, whereas the Mini on his right means…" Longtime commenter Waterfalls wrote in recently with the following: "I wanted to ask the Hey Dullblog community their thoughts on the song 'Maxwell Silver Hammer', after reading some comments on Youtube where some thought the song was actually about a real murder (i.e., Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell) and others believe it's a clue in the Paul Is Dead movement, still others believe that it's only a goofy singalong for a laugh, nothing more. I like the song and I was in the last camp believing [...]

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Starostin reviews “Abbey Road”

By Nancy Carr|2016-02-15T17:29:07-08:00February 15, 2016|1969, Abbey Road, Beatles Criticism, Beatles on the Web, George Starostin|

George Starostin, who by my calculations must sleep four hours or less per night to work an academic job and find time to review as many albums as he does. Indefatigable reviewer George Starostin, of the Only Solitaire blog, has just posted a review of the Beatles' Abbey Road. This one is part of his "Important Album Series," in which he is offering critical considerations of the "Top Albums of All Time" on the Rate Your Music site. Abbey Road currently sits at #7 on that site. I prefer the more comprehensive review of the album that Starostin posted in 2012 on his regular [...]

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The Fab Five: My Top 5 Beatles Albums

By Devin McKinney|2015-04-26T19:10:32-07:00April 26, 2015|Abbey Road, AHDN, Guest blogger, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, The White Album|

By Jack Cornes, Guest Dullblogger • I should just add before I run through this list that the Beatles were genial from their origin to the day they disbanded. Every album they made is magical, sensual and transforming. I adore all of them. The strange thing with the Beatles is that they were and are so unique that they can’t be described; they exist within the heavens of the musical dynasty. These are my five favourite albums that make these four lads from Liverpool more than just musicians but something quite addictively beautiful. 5. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band I can [...]

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George Starostin on “McLemore Avenue”

By Nancy Carr|2015-04-21T13:36:47-07:00April 21, 2015|Abbey Road, Beatle-inspired, Beatles Criticism, Beatles tributes, Covers|

We got the front . . . . NANCY CARR * My favorite music reviewer, the indefatigable George Starostin, has just published this review of Booker T. and the M.G.'s McLemore Avenue. He calls it "the first authentic case of musical cosplay in pop/rock history," and I have to concur, though I enjoy the results more than he does. I certainly agree with Starostin's assessment of Abbey Road as exerting an "otherworldly" power: . . . and the back! "It is cozy for me to know that, of all Beatles albums, it was Abbey Road that struck [...]

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Thank God for Abbey Road

By Michael Gerber|2015-01-14T18:17:51-08:00January 14, 2015|1969, Abbey Road|

The Beatles, not worrying about global warming, 1969. In the midst of a comment thread, I stumbled on an interesting thought which I wanted to open to the group: how do you think The Beatles' legacy would've been different if they'd never returned to the studio after Let It Be? My initial, instinctual thought is that the group's demise would've been even more mythic, even more shrouded by "what might have been." The rich sprawl of White seems to invite a follow-up of the quality of Abbey Road, and had the wet firecracker of Let It Be been The Beatles' [...]

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Deconstructing The Beatles: The End

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-18T11:04:00-08:00September 18, 2014|1969, Abbey Road|

Yukking it up in Studio Two. Thanks to a timely Tweet from The Fest for Beatles Fans -- LA Fest is coming and I will be there! -- I stumbled on this wonderful video, which lays out Abbey Road's climactic track in all its glorious pieces. Too juicy not to pass along. I have to say, as a non-musician, this is both very encouraging (I can hear how they made the finished song) and also demonstrates a way of thinking that I've never done myself, which makes music even more mysterious than before. http://youtu.be/P68IF-90WWU And here's the track in toto [...]

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“I Hope We Passed the Audition”: How The Beatles’ Encounter With Abbey Road Studios Changed the World

By Devin McKinney|2015-04-26T06:04:30-07:00April 17, 2014|1960s, Abbey Road, books, Guest blogger|

By Grant Maxwell, Guest Dullblogger Grant Maxwell has served as a professor of English at Baruch College in New York. He holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, and he’s an editor at Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. He’s also a musician, having played on stages with members of The Rolling Thunder Revue, The Black Keys, and The Strokes. He lives in East Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and son. The following is a modified excerpt from How Does It Feel?: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Philosophy of Rock and Roll, issued March [...]

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Nik Cohn reviews Abbey Road, 1969

By Michael Gerber|2013-10-26T11:11:41-07:00October 26, 2013|1969, Abbey Road|

An outtake from Abbey Road (the cover, I mean) Dullblogger Ed (come back Ed! we miss you!) shared a link this morning: Nik Cohn's original review of Abbey Road for The New York Times. I always find hot-off-the-press reviews like this really interesting; for one thing, they give us a sense of how differently now-iconic bits of culture were seen at that time, which not only demonstrates how changeable things are—that there are pieces of work truly more in tune with a past or future than their time of creation—but also give us a clue as to how the texture [...]

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The Beatles and Gettysburg: Forward into the past

By Devin McKinney|2013-08-13T22:37:53-07:00July 31, 2013|Abbey Road|

DEVIN McKINNEY • Our town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, recently hosted festivities and commemorations around the sesquicentennial of the Civil War battle that occurred in the fields all around us. Tourists, there were many; and where tourists gather, chatchkis will be sold. Among them, this arresting item: Lincoln, Pickett, Lee, and Meade crossing a road made famous little more than a century after the battle that brought them together. Figures of the past are called forth to recreate a tableau, utterly independent of themselves, that to us is itself an image from, and of, the past; yet the combination propels both a bit [...]

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Which Beatles album is actually their last?

By Ed Park|2013-08-03T04:37:33-07:00June 22, 2013|1969, 1970, Abbey Road, Let It Be, Uncategorized|

Bare feet, ouch! Paul suffers for his art. Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone: So let's argue: Which album truly counts as the grand finale? The case for Let It Be: It came out in 1970, which was after 1969. The case for Abbey Road: (1) virtually all of Let It Be was in the can before the Abbey Road sessions even began; (2) Abbey Road feels more like a classic Beatles record; (3) "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" was the last time all four played in the studio together; (4) the last song on Abbey Road is called "The End"; (5) except for "Her Majesty"; (6) rebounding from the Let [...]

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