The Beatles: Abbey Road

WHENEVER A NEW Beatles album is released it's generally a critical and social as well as a musical event. Rock fans spend an entire week listening to the blessed product, radio stations play it incessantly, teachers bring it to class for discussion, and retailers scramble for stock. Musicians listen and compare; opinions, analyses, hypotheses, and suspicions fly; much is written; much is discussed; and whatever else happens, millions of Beatles lovers on all cultural levels are intensely involved with the new album for a week or so. The world is more fun for a little while; then things sort of settle down to the usual general chaos.