Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Before Sgt. Pepper's, no one seriously thought of rock music as actual art. That all changed in 1967, though, when John, Paul, George and Ringo (with "A Little Help" from their friend, producer George Martin) created an undeniable work of art which remains, after 3-plus decades, one of the most influential albums of all time. From Lennon's evocative word/sound pictures (the trippy "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", the carnival-like "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite") and McCartney's music hall-styled "When I'm 64", to Harrison's Eastern-leaning "Within You Without You", and the avant-garde mini-suite, "A Day in the Life", Sgt. Pepper's was a milestone for both 1960s music and popular culture in general. --Billy Altman

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-10-19 rating:
Height of their powers?
First things first. Sgt Pepper is not a concept or themed album. 3 of the 13 songs are vaguely based on the theme of the Beatles "playing" at being an old time band (including a reprise of the title song) and some of the music is continuous between songs. The rest of the songs are unrelated so why is the album so often described as groundbreaking? Listen to it and you will find out. The band and producer George Martin produced a remarkable album that at times is unashamedly experimental.

It is probably best summed up in "A Day in the Life", where they really throw the kitchen sink at it. In the middle and at the end of the song an orchestra builds a wall of sound for what seems like forever, until a crescendo is reached. It sounds remarkable now, it must have blown minds when it was released. And all this from songwriters in their twenties, though undoubtedly greatly influenced and encouraged by Martin.

"She's Leaving Home" deserves special mention. The lyrics beautifully describe the angst felt by a teenager who feels she has been "living alone" with her parents for too long. Along with the gorgeous music this song never fails to resonate with me.

"When I'm 64" shows Paul at his most playful music wise but again the lyrics are spot on. John contributes the classic "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". George demonstrates his experimental work with Indian music in "Within You Without You".

And I haven't even mentioned "With a Little Help from my Friends" and the title song, both classics in their own right.

Not every song is a classic. "Getting Better" and "Fixing a Hole" aren't up to the standard of the more famous songs though they do show how willing the band were to try new things, especially lyrically.

The best Beatles album? Quite possibly. I never tire of listening to it.

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review by: xiphias_29 date: 2008-10-10 rating:
Sorry, I just don't get it
I really want to like it. It's ingenious and marvellous and at the time I'm sure it was groundbreaking. But though I love Abbey Road, I can't say the same for this. I was genuinely disappointed.

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review by: date: 2008-09-28 rating:
Beautiful, mad, silly, cheerful, philosophical, alarming
I don't know why I think that this is the best album by the best band that ever was. I may as well admit that the Beatles are my favourite band, but it's not like every single song here is a solid gold classic. "Revolver" has more really great songs than "Pepper", so why does "Revolver" just feel like a great album while "Pepper" feels like a great album that is also a major work of art?

It has something to do with the idea, something to do with the sequencing, something to do with the spirit of the whole thing. "Revolver", like most of the Beatles' albums, was put together as one album like any other, with everyone throwing in their best songs. "Pepper" was conceived as an experiment, with the most famous band in the world pretending to be some unknown bunch of guys dressed as a brass band. Most Beatles albums have pictures of the Beatles on the cover. So does this one, but it also has a gallery of their heroes. It's the Beatles' most ambitious album, but also their most emotionally generous one.

Consider that it puts Ringo in the top spot, singing one of the best songs on the album. Many of the songs are about trying to recover from emotional distress or damage; even George, who was usually either preachy or sulky in his songs, is here reflective and thoughtful. Lennon's snarling "Good Morning, Good Morning" is done as cantankerous comedy, not as serious disgust. McCartney's "Lovely Rita" is a love song to an authority figure; as the late Ian Macdonald pointed out, an American band would have depicted Rita as an uptight pig, but the Beatles decided that it'd be better to love her. Elsewhere, "Getting Better" is ruefully realistic ("It can't get much worse"). "She's Leaving Home" lets the parents realise what it was that they'd done wrong and in that respect is far more hopeful than the brilliant but chilling "Eleanor Rigby". Yes, "Eleanor Rigby" is a better song, but "She's Leaving Home" is better integrated into this album than "Rigby" is integrated into "Revolver".

"A Day in the Life" is the ultimate answer to people who think that this album is frothy or frivolous. Epic, melancholy and unnerving, it's the greatest single track the Beatles ever did and a fittingly ambiguous finale to a great album, perhaps the only Beatles album that is truly more than the sum of its parts. It's also, I think, the only Beatles album where if you put it on, you have to listen to the whole thing from start to finish. So who cares if it inspired art-rock? If without "Sgt Pepper" we wouldn't have had King Crimson, then that to me is just another point in its favour. The Beatles' best music is so good that you realise that valuing bands on the basis of how "authentic" or "dangerous" they are is just childish; what matters is what the music can do to you.

I have grown up on the Beatles. They were the first band I ever listened to and the first band I ever liked, even though they had split up before I was born. They never grow stale. More rubbish has been talked about them than any other popular culture figures except Dylan. Clear your mind of the rubbish and give this mysteriously inspiring album a listen.

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review by: date: 2008-09-28 rating:
The BIG one....
Of all the Beatles albums this one excites the most debate. It was probably the most eagerly awaited album ever - up that time. During 1966 the Beatles had gone from being on every TV show, concert tour, poster and News bulletin to being secretive, and reclusive and making no personal appearances - and everyone wanted to know what they were up to.
Then they issued the double A sided single, Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever and we got a taster of what this album was going to be like. Originally intended to be part of this ensemble, these two songs were pushed out as a single to revive what Brian Epstein feared was waning interest in his "boys" whilst they completed the album. Breaking the mould they released a "promotional film" to go with the single - arguably the first pop video. This film was a pretty feeble affair though as I recall, with the Beatles riding horses up and down Penny Lane in Liverpool trying to look mystical, limbering up for the Magical Mystery Tour, no doubt, and not even miming the songs, which was unheard of in 1967!
So, what do we have here on this Sgt Pepper album? Song-wise we have the rocking title track which segues into "With a Little Help from My Friends" engagingly sung here by Ringo Starr (the song memorably turned into a massively overlong soul dirge by Joe Cocker who - inexplicably to me at least - had a huge number one hit with it).
Then, it's on to "Lucy In the Sky (With Diamonds)" - a wistful ballad with a chorus that has a driving percussion under it. In my humble opinion, the track actually sounds a lot better if you play it in Mono.
Onwards into "Getting Better" - a bouncy and optimistic tune with wonderful bass line sequences (play it at double speed, if you can, to hear how McCartney is actually playing little sub-tunes and counterpoint melodies, or just adjust your graphics equalizer to accentuate the bass).
Then it's "Fixing a Hole" - lots of earnest debate at the time about whether this was a 'drug song' (gasp, horror!): Truly, it doesn't matter because it's a nice enough song. The song repays listening closely to the various layers of the backing track, some very craftsman like playing by all concerned. The short lead guitar solo (I guess by George) in the middle is neat too. On the record - though much less so on the CD - you could hear the start of an intriguing vocal improvisation by McCartney near the very end of the fade out - I'd love to have heard a bit more of that, but it's not here.
"She's Leaving Home" was never my favourite track on this album - I always thought that Harry Nilsson's version was better - he actually sounded upset and engaged with the sad subject matter of the song, whereas Paul really doesn't. It's a great lyric, which hit some real targets in child-parent relationships (then) though.
On the Vinyl disc side one ended with "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite" - a sonic romp in which every cliche fairground sound is brought into play at some stage.
Next, it's George with "Within You, Without You" - somewhat out of place in this collection I always thought, the music of the Indian sub-continent and Edwardian town band theme very much at odds. One has to say though that, considered in isolation, the track is a quite brilliant fusion of east and west (I guess the other George had a hand in that magic) veering from Indian restaurant wallpaper music, through a sitar solo and riffs that play all the pop/rock conventions of the time but sound just soooo cool. George used to say to Kenny Everett, whenever Ken asked him about the meaning of life - "It's all around you, Ken". Likewise, let the song wash over you - and I defy you not to feel better for it.
Again, switch to Mono for "When I'm 64" - Paul sings on one speaker and the backing plays on the other. What was George Martin thinking of? Anyway (In mono please) we have a song that rewinds all the way back via George Formby to the music hall stars of the Edwardian era. One could just imagine them doing the soft shoe shuffle whilst singing the song in a costamonger's cockney accent "A-weel-ya-stilla-needme-awillya-stilla-feedme". Paul of course sings it with strong traces of Liverpool, and it sounds great (in mono!).
Now we come to "Lovely Rita" a song about a man's fancy for a lady traffic warden. We have to remember that Traffic Wardens had only appeared on the scene in London a year or so before the song was written, and the name 'Meter Maid' was a very current one then. As has been observed many times before, the lyrics to the song veer engagingly between the highly formal ('May I enquire discreetly') to the cheeky and colloquial ('Give us a wink and make me think of you'). Love the piano solo too - that could have gone on a lot longer and I would not have objected.
'Good Morning, Good Morning' is next. Wonderfully crafted lyrics 'Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I'm here' or ' Go to a show, you hope she goes' and some classy saxophone on the backing track (Ronnie Scott was it on the session?) and the track ends with an audio dissolve into a cacophony of farmyard animal noises (for some reason that is not clear to me even now!).
A quick whip through a much rockier rendition of the album's title track and then we arrive at the final track "A Day in the Life", a track that always felt to me as if a couple of not quite finished songs had been incredible skillfully stitched together by George Martin using some wonderful bridge pieces played by a full orchestra. A tour de force of technique, but I can't agree with people who say it is a Beatles masterpiece. For me the most impressive part of the track is that (pure Martin I think) orchestral climax at the end, and then that huge orchestral boom which oh-so-gradually fades away. Near the end of the movie Star Wars there is that famous scene where the Death Star explodes, and if you play the ending of this track over that scene I think you will have to agree with the way I always thought of that ending, as 'music to accompany the end of the world'. Spine tingling stuff, and oh-so-much better from CD than it ever was from Vinyl.
On the Vinyl album's run out groove (the groove right at the very centre of the record next to the label) there was a fragment of sound with the Beatles singing (something like) "I never could be any other" over and over again. Some wag discovered that, if you played this backwards, it sounded something like "We're hodi-Macki Supermen" - and there were debates about what these messages meant - with many dark hidden meanings suggested. This oddity is hard to reproduce on a CD of course, so it's not here. What's the betting that vinyl copies of the album will retain their price for years to come on the basis they are the only place to get that little snippet of 'Beatles' sound from! It's a mad world my masters.
Should you buy the album? Yes, even if you sell it again afterwards. Everyone should hear it at least once. Is it a masterpiece? If it had been done by anyone else, yes, but I believe Revolver was the Beatles best album so I can't say yes to that one. But buy Pepper anyway - what do I know? ;-)



review by: arch stanton date: 2008-09-16 rating:
overrated novelty album
when i was a boy,hitting my teens in the sixties,you were as the cliche goes.beatles or stones,and i was very much with the latter. from the beginning the beatles always had novelty songs,and maybe george martin is to blame,(he did produce the goons after all)i mean ;til there was you, taste of honey,michelle,penny lane.....etc,etc.even their best lp is spoilt by yellow submarine.but by the time they got to this one,well you could blame macartney or martin or maybe they just took the wrong acid.but it is,apart from one song(you can guess which one) one massive overrated novelty album.the stones got slaughtered for satanic majesties,but not this pile of old tutt.afterwards they came out with classics like ob la di and octopus garden.so for me the beatles were great when they were rockin in the early days,i saw her standing there,twist and shout and that sort of stuff,also the powerpop of ticket to ride,hard days night and that sort of stuff.but in my life they dont come close to the stones or plenty of other groups to many to mention.if its an lp from 67 you want,buy velvet underground with nico.end of story.

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