ABBEY ROAD

This album represents the point in the Beatles career where they transition completely from making interesting guitar pop songs into being a mediocre classic rock band. Whereas Sgt. Peppers is hindered by having a streak of poor songwriting, especially towards the middle, the poor quality on Abbey Road feels deliberate. Whether its the kind of boring, bluesy background guitar that was in style at the turn of the decade (She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, I Want You) the inclusion of shameless granny music (Oh Darling, Maxwell's Silver Hammer), or the lazy, incomplete songwriting of the medley, all of the flaws in the album are fixable but left in place as some sort of stylistic choice. And on the subject of the medley, I realized why I like Pink Flag, which has similar song lengths, and not it. Simply, the songs on Pink Flag stand on their own. I can listen to and enjoy Straight Line when it comes on shuffle, even though it's only 45 seconds long.