"So, there we go. Abbey Road at 50, sounding shiny and new and, while perhaps lacking a bit in soul and heart, still one of the greatest feats in pop history. You might feel the urge to skip through one or two songs on Side One, but you will almost certainly remain nailed to your seat in awe and delight during Side Two and then be reduced to a blubbering jelly by the final, beautiful words and melody of The End ... And with this new edition you are spoiling us, EMI, because the 23 outtakes are pretty good. From a gloriously rough I Want You (Billy Preston and Lennon rocking out, plus "you're annoying the neighbours" studio chat) to the trial edit of the Long One - amazingly good and pleasingly rough - these extra discs are worth owning. You get Paul's Goodbye (written for Mary Hopkin) and the return of Come And Get it (a song surely aimed at Badfinger - "here's a free gift, take it" - right down to the "Sonny!" shout). You get Paul and John pretending to be George and Ringo on Take 7 of The Ballad Of John And Yoko. You get a ramshackle Old Brown Shoe and a vocally over-ambitious Oh! Darling and a version of Sun King where Lennon just sings, "Here comes the sun", and a great Polythene Pam. The whole thing works beautifully and, if you shop carefully, you will end up with superb value for money and a repackaging of a great album that for once isn't stuffed with redundance".