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) and social battles of the day". Charles Manson first heard the album not long after it was released. He had already claimed to find hidden meanings in songs from earlier Beatles albums, but in "The Beatles" he interpreted prophetic significance in several of the songs, including "Blackbird", "Piggies" (particularly the line "what they need's a damn good whacking"), "Helter Skelter", "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9", and interpreted the lyrics as a sign of imminent violence or war. He played the album repeatedly to his followers, the Manson family, and convinced them that it was an apocalyptic message predicting an uprising