The Beatles by Martin. Because of the paucity of new Beatles music, AllMusic's Unterberger and Bruce Eder suggest the album might be "inessential" but for Harrison's "It's All Too Much": "the jewel of the new songs ... resplendent in swirling Mellotron, larger-than-life percussion, and tidal waves of feedback guitar ... a virtuoso excursion into otherwise hazy psychedelia". Although "Let It Be" was the Beatles' final album release, it was largely recorded before "Abbey Road". The project's impetus came from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney, who suggested they "record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a
The Beatles (album) group should have released a single album instead. Nonetheless, "The Beatles" reached No. 1 on the charts in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and has since been viewed by some critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. By 1968, the Beatles had achieved commercial and critical success. The group's mid-1967 release, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", was number one in the UK for 27 weeks, through to the start of February 1968, having sold 250,000 copies in the first week after release. "Time" magazine declared that "Sgt. Pepper's" constituted a "historic departure in