The Beatles’ Abbey Road returns to number one after more than 49 years

The Beatles’ Abbey Road has returned to number one, a record 49 years after it last topped the album charts.

The Fab Four’s eleventh LP reclaimed the top spot thanks to an expanded 50th anniversary edition with extra tracks.

The original 1969 record, which features Here Comes The Sun and Come Together, enjoyed a 17-week run at the top, ending in late January 1970.

“It’s hard to believe that Abbey Road still holds up after all these years,” tweeted Sir Paul McCartney on Friday.

“But then again it’s a bloody cool album,” he added.

The new version, which also features previously unheard material from the recording sessions, sets a UK chart record for the longest gap between appearances at number one – at 49 years and 252 days.

The previous-record was held by (yup, you guessed it) The Beatles again, for their seminal 1967 record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The sprawling psych-rock masterpiece returned to number one in 2017 courtesy of another anniversary re-release – a mere 49 years and 125 days after its previous spell at the top.

Abbey Road was also this week’s best-selling album on vinyl, shifting just under 9,000 copies.

It knocked the new album by self-confessed Beatles superfan Liam Gallagher off the number one slot. The former Oasis rock ‘n’ roll star’s second solo effort, Why Me? Why Not, debuted at the top of the chart last week.

Monumental medley

Despite being their penultimate release, Abbey Road was in fact the last album The Beatles ever recorded together. Let It Be, which came out the following year, had been recorded first, but was initially shelved over disagreements about its production.

The first side of Abbey Road contains well known songs like Something and Octopus’s Garden. But it’s the eight track medley on side two, from the McCartney piano ballad, You Never Give Me Your Money, to The End – which contains one of Ringo Starr’s rare recorded drum solos – which for many marks the LP out as their crowning glory.

The Liverpool band revealed they created the sequence to “use up” a host of incomplete songs and while it was McCartney’s idea, producer George Martin – aka the fifth Beatle – takes the credit for the kaleidoscopic structure.

Media captionBeatles fans flooded Abbey Road to mark the anniversary

Last week, thousands of fans made the pilgrimage to west London recording studio from which the album takes it name, to mark its half-century.

Many of them recreated the classic cover artwork, which depicted The Beatles bass player walking barefoot over a zebra crossing, alongside bandmates Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon.

Jaime Garri, 61, flew more than 14 hours from Santiago, Chile, to mark the occasion.

“You have to say thank you to them for giving us such lovely music,” he said.

The Arctic Monkeys paid their own tribute to the record back in 2012 when they performed its Chuck Berry-inspired opening track, with the eyes of the world upon them, at director Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony to the London Olympics.

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