50 years ago today, the Beatles overall finest album was released in the US (missed the Brit anniversary, two weeks ago, IIRC), signaling an end to the 1960s.
Surprising that Mean Mister Mustard didn’t start this one. 
Thoughts? Commemorations? Where were you the first time you listened to AR? The last time?
I heard it first when my eldest Brother would lock himself in his bedroom and play it really loud. I knew all the words as a very young girl. Turned me into a hippie wannabe. Til I found out they were ‘stinky’
I have that LP. I stole all his LPs when he went in the Marines. I have it on CD. And on my playlist. I listen to it about once a month.
Far-out, man!
My Brother-In-Law had got it on 8-track. I didn’t have any money to buy the cassette or LP so I went out on a cold fall night with my portable cassette tape recorder and hung the microphone from the mirror in his car and recorded the album. An 8-track has 4 stereo tracks on a (approx.) 13 minute tape, so the album tracks were sliced and diced in a weird way to fit.
Born around Halloween in 1960. While I remember Beatles singles back to “Lady Madonna” and “Hey Jude” when they were new (and I was seven) because I heard them on restaurant jukeboxes, I can’t remember the White Album (Nov, 1968) because my parents Hated the Beatles. Abbey Road is the first Beatles album I knew when it was released, as a mature and worldly eight year old.
Sorry to say, I’ve never bought the argument that it was the best album. I actively hate Side One: “Come Together” is creepy; “Oh Darling” is a waste of space; “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is stupid/creepy; “Octopus’s Garden” is a waste of space; “I Want You” is creepy, especially the abrupt end. Side Two is an improvement, thanks to George.
Also, it came out in Sept, 1969, when the “Paul is Dead” thing was peaking, which, when you’re eight going on nine, made the entirety of the Beatles output post-1966 really…creepy.
I was in high school. This was everywhere. I knew it all by heart because everyone played it. The last time I played it was last Sunday morning. I like both Sgt. Pepper and the White Album better, but it’s part of the background of my life.
Oh Lord. I got the album for my 21st birthday in November 1969.
I still believe it is the greatest album ever recorded.
Abbey Road may have been their last, but it was my first Beatles album.
I was born in 1968, too late to hear the Beatles as they happened. I was familiar with some of their songs (including their 20 greatest hits), but I had never heard a proper Beatles album in its entirety until one day, sometime in my teens (in the 1980s), I found Abbey Road in the album bin at the local library, and I took it home and gave it a listen.
It was a revelation, both in terms of showing me what the Beatles could do and showing me what a rock album could be. It still stands as my favorite Beatles album, and one of my favorite albums of all (and several others of my favorite albums are clearly influenced by it).
I was born in 1959 and therefore plenty old enough to have listened to Abbey Road when it came out, and indeed my classmates did.
I was a 4th grade classical music snob at the time though and never listened to rock. There is a lot of good music from that era that I didn’t become acquainted with until nearly 10 years after the fact.
I was born in '75, so my introduction to the Beatles came when I was in college in the '90s. Before I first listened to the album, I had heard the songs Come Together, Here Comes the Sun and Something, but when I put that CD on, it blew my mind that these songs were the Beatles. I never knew that (until that fateful fall evening of 1994). It was really an awakening for me. The stuff I had always associated with the Beatles was the early stuff. After listening to Abbey Road, I dug into the rest of their catalog like a ravenous wolf.
For the longest time, the White Album was my favorite, but over the years, Abbey Road has moved into that slot for me. I love the medley, absolutely love George’s songs on it, and Because is one of those songs that still makes me think “Wow, this is the Beatles!”
Two facts I recently learned: the iconic album cover photo was taken less than 24 hours before the Manson/Tate murders, and the “Abbey Road” album was released on the same day “The Brady Bunch” debuted on TV.
Anyone heard the new mix on the 50th Anniversary edition? There are moments where Giles Martin does manage to bring out some nice new detail or ambience in the existing tracks, but really, of all the Beatles albums, this one was the least in need of a remix. I thought the White Album remix was pretty stellar but I’m not convinced by Abbey Road yet.
A sibling bought it but wasn’t taking care of it. So I “rescued” it.
I still have it.
To this day I don’t think they ever noticed it was gone.
I Want You (She’s So Heavy) deserves a more caring home.
Fifty years ago? Man, that makes me feel old. I was a Freshman in high school that fall!
I have never been able to pick one Beatles album as my favorite, but Abbey Road comes as close as any. Side One has a few disposable tunes (Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Octopus’s Garden) but some of that dreck is redeemed by Something. Side Two is just one long, glorious sequence of beautiful music. Something we will never see the likes of again.
Got it for Christmas 1969. My second LP after Inagaddadavida. It still sounds just as fresh to me!
It was big from the beginning. I was in high school.
I remember when I first heard “Something” on the radio. My brother asked me if he knew the name of the song. I said, “I don’t know” and immediately George sang, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
We were playing once for the first time and someone went to lift the tone arm of the record player after she heard the last notes of “The End.” She had no idea why until “Her Majesty” started playing.
One thing that’s missing today is the end of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” It was the last song on the first side, so when it cuts out abruptly, the silence startles you. In other media, that doesn’t happen, and even on the radio they don’t allow for any dead air after the end. Takes something away from the song.
I heard it when it was new, but I was a wee lad of 7. My brother gave it to me, along with Sgt Pepper. I guess he thought I needed a good musical education. (He also gave me the White Album, but took it back. He can have it.)
I have found that Paul can start a lot of songs but doesn’t finish some of them. So they get repackaged. Anyone else cramming different material together would get laughed at, but McCartney makes it work. Aside from side 2, look at Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey or Band on the Run.
Then when God invented CDs and you didn’t have to flip the record over anymore, the whole album became one long, glorious sequence of beautiful music. 
One of my favorite things about the CD was the way the end of I Want You/She’s So Heavy went on and on, ended abruptly, and after a short silence the opening guitar notes of Here Comes the Sun came through the speakers. It really was like spring arriving after a long cold lonely winter.
You didn’t get that effect on vinyl, what with having to get up and flip the record and all.
I paid big money for some fancy, special edition pressing. Don’t remember and too lazy to go dig it out. Good album. Made me take care of better. It’s still like new, I imagine.
I’m still stunned at how amazingly perfect and modern the engineering quality of the album is for 1969. Every other album of that time sounds like it was recorded through rusty tin cans on a wire by comparison. Nothing else comes close until Dark Side of the Moon three years later.