Abbey Road

Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. It is the last album the group recorded – although Let It Be had been recorded earlier, its release was delayed due to production issues. Abbey Road was mostly recorded in April, July and August 1969, and topped the record charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. A double A-side single from the album, "Something" / "Come Together", was released in October, which also topped the charts in the US.

Abbey Road incorporates styles such as rock, pop, blues, and progressive rock, and makes prominent use of the Moog synthesiser and guitar played through a Leslie speaker unit. It is also notable for having a long medley of songs on side two that have subsequently been covered as one suite by other notable artists. The album was recorded in a more congenial atmosphere than the Get Back / Let It Be sessions earlier in the year, but there were still significant confrontations within the band, particularly over Paul McCartney's song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", and John Lennon was absent on several tracks. By the time the album was released, Lennon had already left the group, though it was not made public until McCartney also quit the following year upon the release of Let It Be.

Abbey Road was an instant commercial success, eventually selling over 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums. However, it received mixed reviews upon release; some critics found its music inauthentic and criticised the perceived artificial elements of the production. Critical reception improved in the following years, and the album is now widely regarded as one of the Beatles' best and one of the greatest albums of all time. George Harrison's two songs on the album, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun", are considered among the best he wrote for the group. The album's cover, featuring the Beatles walking across the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios (then officially named EMI Studios), is one of the most famous and imitated in music history.