The Beatles- Abbey Road (1969)

It's time for another Beatles album, and this time my favourite. I know it's fashionable to rave about the later Beatles albums and neglect the earlier ones- a mistake- but this, their last album in spirit if not chronologically, Let It Be featuring a lot of older, slightly retro material- is my favourite.

It's hard to say why and say something new, though. The songwriting at this point is creative and trailblazing while still solid, with none of the out-there experimentalism of the White Album. That's not to say the album isn't full of experimentalism- the second half medley is utterly sublime- but the songwriting remains nevertheless disciplined.

We have Lennon's R&B-esque "Come Together", a reminder that, in 1969, rock music and soul music were yet to quite be separated. In "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" we have the height of Geoege Harrison's songwriting career, and a reminder of how good he was, and would have remained if he'd occasionally given that bloody slide guitar a rest in his later career.

For me, the best song on the album is "Because", although the medley runs it close. This album, though, is more than the songs that comprise it. More than any other Beatles album, it's as much a soundscape as a collection of songs. It's also the last album of theirs produced by George Martin, not the sort of man you'd expect to come up with such a forward-looking, clear yet trippy sound.

One could argue that rock music peaks here, and all that's left is to explore various side trips. Maybe I'm being a pretentious git. Regardless, I can't see how the Beatles could ever have topped this.