The Fab Four Still Rock My World: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the evolutionary, nay, revolutionary 1967 album by The Beatles, is one of the best, if not THE best, rock recordings ever. From the fantastic and iconic cover art by Peter Blake to the interesting idea of the "concept album," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band broke away from The Beatles' previous "I Want To Hold Your Hand"-styled songs and took the Fab Four into new musical territory.
According to the liner notes included with the booklet, the conceit of the album was that The Beatles had morphed into an entirely new and different band, hence the title "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Geoff Emerick, the group's recording engineer, explains: "The Beatles insisted that everything be different, so everything was either distorted, limited, heavily compressed or treated with excessive equalization." This pure "studio album" was definitely avant garde for its mid-1960s era audiences, and even staid TIME magazine was impressed enough to give it a laudatory cover story. And even though many bands and singers since have adopted the "concept album" format (Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" comes to mind) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band has been imitated, it still stands heads and shoulders above the crowd.
The crowd...oh, yes. The famous cover with all those people on it. Because the album's concept was that it was a concert by this new band, the people on the cover, including Karl Marx, Mae West, Laurel and Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, and Alistaire Crowley, are the audience The Beatles would have liked to have. Interestingly, the acerbic wit of the group, John Lennon, would have also included Jesus, Gandhi, and Adolf Hitler, but this was nixed as a result of John's comments about The Beatles being "more popular than Jesus," a statement that led to some churches promoting Beatle album burnings in the United States.
Controversy and technical trickery aside, though, this album (one of the earliest Beatles records to be released in CD in the 1980s) is quite wonderful to listen to.
Considering there are only 13 songs on it, it's hard to believe the group and the recording engineers put over 700 hours of work into it, but the sheer creativity and variety of styles justifies all the effort. Starting with the title track, written and sung by Paul McCartney (in a clear departure from ballads like "Yesterday" and "Love Me Do") in a more hard-rock style, and ending with "A Day In The Life," with its mysterious lyrics and use (for the first time in rock history) of a full orchestra in a crescendo of musical thunder, The Beatles take the listener on a musical roller-coaster ride.
Each of the four Beatles gets his moment to shine...Ringo Starr sings the lead in "With A Little Help From My Friends," while George Harrison gets to showcase his chops as a songwriter/lead singer in "Within You Without You." The album also includes the charming, almost retro "When I'm Sixty-Four," the often misinterpreted but always mesmerizing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," "Getting Better," which is heard now in Philips' electronics commercials, and the melancholy "She's Leaving Home."
The CD includes a very informative retrospective article, the lyrics, and reproductions of the original 33 1/3 RPM LP's cutout artwork. And although the album (not the CD!) is 44 years old, its musical content still sounds uniquely original and relevant. It's worth listening to.
Key Tracks: My Top 10 Beatles Songs from Pepperland
(Track Number, Song Title)
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With a Little Help From My Friends
3. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Fixing a Hole
6. She's Leaving Home
9. When I'm Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning, Good Morning
13. A Day in the Life
According to the liner notes included with the booklet, the conceit of the album was that The Beatles had morphed into an entirely new and different band, hence the title "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Geoff Emerick, the group's recording engineer, explains: "The Beatles insisted that everything be different, so everything was either distorted, limited, heavily compressed or treated with excessive equalization." This pure "studio album" was definitely avant garde for its mid-1960s era audiences, and even staid TIME magazine was impressed enough to give it a laudatory cover story. And even though many bands and singers since have adopted the "concept album" format (Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" comes to mind) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band has been imitated, it still stands heads and shoulders above the crowd.
The crowd...oh, yes. The famous cover with all those people on it. Because the album's concept was that it was a concert by this new band, the people on the cover, including Karl Marx, Mae West, Laurel and Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, and Alistaire Crowley, are the audience The Beatles would have liked to have. Interestingly, the acerbic wit of the group, John Lennon, would have also included Jesus, Gandhi, and Adolf Hitler, but this was nixed as a result of John's comments about The Beatles being "more popular than Jesus," a statement that led to some churches promoting Beatle album burnings in the United States.
Controversy and technical trickery aside, though, this album (one of the earliest Beatles records to be released in CD in the 1980s) is quite wonderful to listen to.
Considering there are only 13 songs on it, it's hard to believe the group and the recording engineers put over 700 hours of work into it, but the sheer creativity and variety of styles justifies all the effort. Starting with the title track, written and sung by Paul McCartney (in a clear departure from ballads like "Yesterday" and "Love Me Do") in a more hard-rock style, and ending with "A Day In The Life," with its mysterious lyrics and use (for the first time in rock history) of a full orchestra in a crescendo of musical thunder, The Beatles take the listener on a musical roller-coaster ride.
Each of the four Beatles gets his moment to shine...Ringo Starr sings the lead in "With A Little Help From My Friends," while George Harrison gets to showcase his chops as a songwriter/lead singer in "Within You Without You." The album also includes the charming, almost retro "When I'm Sixty-Four," the often misinterpreted but always mesmerizing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," "Getting Better," which is heard now in Philips' electronics commercials, and the melancholy "She's Leaving Home."
The CD includes a very informative retrospective article, the lyrics, and reproductions of the original 33 1/3 RPM LP's cutout artwork. And although the album (not the CD!) is 44 years old, its musical content still sounds uniquely original and relevant. It's worth listening to.
Key Tracks: My Top 10 Beatles Songs from Pepperland
(Track Number, Song Title)
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With a Little Help From My Friends
3. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Fixing a Hole
6. She's Leaving Home
9. When I'm Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning, Good Morning
13. A Day in the Life
© 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados. All Rights Reserved
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