Depending where you are, today or some time this week should make the 50th anniversary of the release of what is generally considered to be the Beatles greatest work, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s absolutely not their greatest [that’s a toss up between Revolver and Rubber Soul] nor even their most influential [I would hold With the Beatles / Meet the Beatles as the albums that launched a million bands] but it may be their most recognized and most often copied album. It’s certainly the album that drove Brian Wilson to a sandbox. [To be fair though, he was outnumbered two to one in the songwriting.]
A lot of people are going to tell you a lot of things about this kicking off “the Summer Of Love” and the hippie/peace movement yadda yadda blah blah blah. Don’t believe that hype. The Beatles were certainly the most high profile rock and roll band if not musical artists at the time, but there was a lot more going on around them. In London you already have Donovan, the Pink Floyd, Cream, Jimi Hendrix [Are You Experienced was released in April] and the Who. In the States, the San Francisco/L.A. thing is bubbling along with Frank Zappa & the Mothers Of Invention, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, the Byrds and the Grateful Dead. In New York, the Velvet Underground is going. Yes, all of this is going to get a whole lot bigger in the coming years but it’s already happening even as the Beatles unleash this beast.
And make no mistake it’s a good album. The first side is pretty good, the second side starts off with the twin clunkers of Harrison’s Within You, Without You and McCartney’s schmaltzy When I’m 64 [precursor of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Maxwells’ Silver Hammer]. Of course it picks up and culminates with what is in my [never] humble opine, the best Beatles track ever A Day in the Life.
How would one possibly make this album any better? some of you may be wondering. Glad you asked. Because you have to think about what’s NOT on the album for a second. [This is skewed by the American release of the Magical Mystery Tour album.] See, there was some clamoring for a new single early in 1967 and George Martin bowed to pressure by giving The Record Company the only two finished track laying around: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. Two sides of a great single no doubt. But because of this, they were left OFF of Sgt. Pepper, something Martin rued for years and years. So think about a possible running order like this:
Sgt, Pepper…, With A Little Help…, Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, She’s Leaving Home, …Mr. Kite, // Getting Better, [George song], Lovely Rita, Good Morning, A Day In the Life
So in the US, instead of being given the 6 song EP [2 45s] Magical Mystery Tour like the U.K. [EPs never did seem to take off in the US], The Record Company filled out a whole album with singles tracks they had laying around: Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Hello Goodbye, Baby You’re A Rich Man and All You Need Is Love. Yet another way to get an extra buck out of your pocket! So perhaps Americans don’t think about Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane belonging with Sgt. Pepper, but they do.
Still, for my money the more interesting Beatles album is Revolver. That’s where they started using the Leslie rotating speakers and Artificial Double Tracking and speeding the tapes up, slowing them down and using tape loops and backwards guitar solos and stuff. And it’s got Tomorrow Never Knows, another favorite by John, McCartney’s For No One, Dr. Robert. And of course that album is missing other songs pulled off for singles: Paperback Writer, Rain, Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out. Taken in that context, the Beatles of 1966 kick the living shit out of the Beatles of 1967. I mean really, other than I Am the Walrus and the singles added by the US record company, what else is any good on Magical Mystery Tour?
Still we know how those baby boomers are. They’ve been told Sgt. Pepper is SO GREAT for SO LONG, it’s just taken as The Gospel Truth, the same way people think of Pet Sounds or Blonde On Blonde or Tommy or
a whole slew of albums that I find merely ‘okay.’ And that’s fine. That
friendly “Yer Stoopid, how can you think that!” debate is part of what
keeps me listening. Even I have been known to change my mind on occasion
about records. It DID happen! Really! Okay, for years I maintained that
Beggar’s Banquet was a superior album to Let It Bleed. I KNOW, what the Hell was I thinking?!?...
