[MUSIC] Abbey Road

I met my wife for a quick dinner. We caught up on the events of the day, one that followed an entire pitch-black morning of Maggie tantrums, met in turn with escalating disciplinary methods that began to scare their own designer, namely me, the head of the wolfpack.

What most caught my ear about today's recap was that my wife dug up one of my Beatles albums and popped it into the CD player, giving the kids their first exposure to this genius band, the white Earth, Wind and Fire. It was Abbey Road. I had always pictured that children derived their initial impression of the Beatles through the hold-your-hand early period. But if they are going to learn Beatles, they might as well start with the best.

Well, I guess it is a very close call between Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's. But I've always suspected myself of attributing too much credit to the reprised theme in Sgt. Pepper's as an unacknowledged progenitor of hip-hop. Abbey Road, by contrast, is fascinating in the number of its pure instances of genius. Both by the collective band and by each of its individual contributors. Walter/Wendy Carlos one moment, amazing sweetness thirty seconds later, unexpected blues a minute after that. Perhaps it is the variety of ideas that is so arresting that it almost never occurs to one how disjointed the menu is.

Let's not forget about Revolver or Rubber Soul though. Maybe that's for another time.