Abbey Road is one of the most iconic albums in rock and pop history. The Beatles' 1969 album features some of the band's best-loved songs, including Something and Come Together, and made one zebra crossing on a London street very famous indeed.
It has been 50 years since John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr released the final album that they recorded together - and Abbey Road could be heading for the top of the charts once again.
Beatles fans argue that the album is "full of unforgettable musical drama and wordplay" that will "echo across the centuries".
However, not everyone was a fan when it was originally released in 1969. A dip through the archives finds that some critics described Abbey Road as "pretty average stuff" and "quite painful".
The Claim
Kenneth Womack, author of 'Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles', calls the "epic" Abbey Road album "the greatest mic drop in pop music history".
In an opinion piece for NBC News, he says that the Beatles were at their top of the game, as songwriters, musicians and artists, when recording the album in the summer of 1969.
The author notes that many listeners place Abbey Road "at or near the top of the Beatles' roster of album-length achievements".
Womack writes: "Indeed, it is the relative swiftness with which the Beatles recorded Abbey Road that belies its complexity and power, even 50 years later...
"The medley that concluded the album - and, fittingly, their career - was chock-full of unforgettable musical drama and wordplay, including heartrending numbers such as Golden Slumbers and Carry That Weight.
"The high-octane rock ‘n’ roll panache in The End included this philosophical couplet: 'And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.'"
He adds: "As the Beatles’ de facto epitaph, those words will surely echo across the centuries."
The Counterclaim
However, not everyone was convinced by the album at the time. Some contemporary reviews are far from glowing: Nik Cohn derided some of the songs that are considered classics now as "pretty average stuff".
In his review for the New York Times in 1969, Cohn wrote: "Most of the melody lines have been used elsewhere, and some of the lyrics are quite painful."
He also said that Beatles lyrics were once their greatest attraction - but, on Abbey Road, he called the words "limp-wristed, pompous and fake".
For 15 minutes, Cohn argued, the album was "tremendous", but he dismisses the rest as an "unmitigated disaster".
He wasn't the only critic that wasn't convinced by Abbey Road 50 years ago. The Rolling Stone's Ed Ward was scathing in his review, saying that he "didn't much like it".
Ward said: "Of course, the Beatles are still the Beatles, but it does tread a rather tenuous line between boredom, Beatledom, and bubblegum."
He called Side Two "a disaster", describing some of the songs as "so heavily overproduced that they are hard to listen to".
He added: "It is probably the worst thing the Beatles have done since they changed drummers...
"Surely they must have enough talent and intelligence to do better than this."
The Facts
Abbey Road was the final album that the Beatles recorded together, but it was not the final to be released.
The Fab Four released Abbey Road on September 26, 1969. However, Let It Be, which was recorded mostly at the start of 1969, was released a year later - a month after the band broke up.
Abbey Road, their 11th and penultimate studio album, spent 17 weeks at number one - 11 of them consecutive.
Half a century later, and the album could be returning the top of the charts once again. The release of the 50th anniversary edition of Abbey Road has pushed the album to the top - with more than 12,000 chart sales over current number one, Liam Gallagher's Why Me? Why Not.
If it stays in this position by the end of the week, when the charts are announced, it will be the Beatles' first number one album in nearly 20 years, since the release of the compilation album, 1, in 2000.
The album cover is just as iconic as the songs recorded. It showed all four members - John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison - walking across the zebra crossing outside of the EMI studios in London.
The album's working title was Everest, based on the brand of cigarettes smoked by engineer Geoff Emerick. The original plan for the album cover was to photograph the Fab Four in the foothills of the Himalayas.
McCartney suggested that they name it after the street on which the studio was located. Instead of travelling across the world for the photo, it took just 30 minutes to capture the iconic image.
It was also the only album that the Beatles released that did not feature the name of the band or the title of the LP on the front.
While EMI bosses were not happy with the decision, designer John Kosh said that the Beatles were the biggest band in the world , arguing that "you don’t have to say who they are - everyone knows who they are".
