Abbey Road Studios For Sale

If you're a Beatles fan who's never visited London, England's Abbey Road Studios, you should go see it now because it may not be there much longer. It's up for sale, and God forbid if some developer grabs it, levels it and puts condos in.

EMI Group Ltd., which owns the legendary studio, has put it up for sale so it can raise part of the $165 million U.S. (about $172 million Canadian) it needs to come up with before June to continue operations, according to the Associated Press.

The news agency reports EMI has been looking for a buyer for "several months," but has not yet found one. The sale price, however, most likely won't be anywhere near the $165 million U.S. EMI needs.

Although artists like Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Blur and the Manic Street Preachers have made albums at Abbey Road, the studio's been affected by the rise in home-recording techniques and cheaper recording locations.

"What you have is a very, very expensive piece of heritage," an unnamed media lawyer told the Financial Times. "If an artist goes to a label and asks to record at Abbey Road they will be met with maniacal laughter."

EMI was acquired by Terra Firma Capital in 2007, and has been hit hard by declining album sales and music piracy over the last few years. It's also seen several of its high-profile recording artists, like Radiohead, leave the label due to frustrations over Terra Firma's restructuring in recent years.

Abbey Road studios, where The Beatles recorded a good chunk of their albums throughout the 1960s, is located in London's residential St. John's Wood neighbourhood (which Paul McCartney called home for several years) in a Georgian townhouse at 3 Abbey Road.

It became a recording studio in 1929 when EMI bought it for £100,000. Some of the most well-known and best-selling albums of all time have been cut there, including Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon and Radiohead's The Bends.

Just in case you're freaking out, don't worry — the crosswalk, made famous by The Beatles' cover for 1969's Abbey Road album, is not part of the deal... which means Stephen Harper can continue to co-opt it for political purposes.