Google Maps Abbey Road

Good old Google– far from simply being a safe harbour for music pirates and building a monopoly on search engines that will arguably soon be beyond reproach, they have also created a virtual tour of Abbey Road studios.

Visitors to ‘Inside Abbey Road’ can experience 150 different 360-degree panoramic images, YouTube videos and archival images from Abbey Road’s history.

Footage includes Elgar and the London Symphony Orchestra opening the studios in 1931 alongside tours of the rooms where The Beatles performed ‘All You Need is Love’ via satellite in 1967, and where Amy Winehouse performed a duet with Tony Bennett in 2011. In addition, users can watch Jay Z discussing his (lets be honest, pretty mediocre) Magna Carta album with Zane Lowe.

There is also the option to join producer Giles Martin or BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Lauren Laverne for an interactive tour.

Tom Seymour from Google’s Creative Lab said: “We’re always looking at how we can use technology to bring people closer to cultural icons and institutions around the world. With Inside Abbey Road, we wanted to open the doors to the iconic music studio for anyone in the world to step inside and experience the stories, the sounds, the people and the equipment that make Abbey Road Studios what it is today”.

Users can also play with interactive gadgets based on audio equipment including the J37 4-track recorder that was used to record The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. 

All of which must be good news for whoever is tasked with continually shouting: “Go away, we aren’t open to the public” over an intercom to ‘music tourists’ on a daily basis.

This being Google, you can of course purchase certain albums and songs from their play store as you virtually jaunt around the studio via a ‘discography’ section in each studio.

Roll up for the non-mystery tour here.