The Beatles, Album by Album--Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper is undoubtedly the most famous and important pop/rock album of all time. It started every trend from taking LSD to concept albums to printing your lyrics in the liner notes to grandiose album covers. Most importantly, this was the point in which "serious" music critics and other members of society previously above such insubstantial matters as pop music began to take the genre seriously as an art form. Although many great records came before it, Sgt. Pepper was the point in which the pop album crossed over the bridge into art.

Do I feel that the music itself in this album justifies its lofty reputation? No, I do not. To me, almost everything about this album feels lightweight. Whereas I said other albums (and especially Revolver) were "songs albums," this one is more of a sound album. Most of the songs on here aren't particularly memorable in comparison to the last few albums, but the sound itself is very unique and innovative. Unfortunately, the Beatles were at their best as songwriters, and that's why I turn to them. I will agree with what Rolling Stone had to say about this album: "It's a masterwork of sonics, not songwriting." On here, the Beatles have turned away from the emotional depth and exploration that characterized Revolver towards self-indulgence. I'm not sure if this is because the record seems to be largely Paul's or not. After seeing Paul's tremendous songwriting growth on the last album, he seems to have taken a step back here. I have read that "She's Leaving Home" was considered in the past to be one of the Beatles' finest songs, but I find it rather ridiculous that the entire story of a girl running away from her parents is oversimplified by the last lines about her going away to have fun, because "Fun is the one thing that money can't buy." There was so much more room to develop emotional depth here, but instead all we have is a story about a girl who abandons her parents because she wants to have fun? As you can see, gone is the depth of "Eleanor Rigby." The Beatles wit and caustic edge is missing almost entirely on this album.

The opening trio of the title track, "With a Little Help from My Friends," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is great pop music, of course. Maybe I've just heard these too much on the radio, for they are perhaps the most overplayed songs of all time, but they just don't do much for me anymore. George takes another, deeper stab at Indian classical music with "Within You Without You," which is actually one of the more interesting songs on the album. And then we have the closer, "A Day in the Life," which is the only real classic on this album. Somehow the group manages to top its previous closer with this, their most apocalyptic and world-changing track. Those ghostly Lennon verses remind me of "Strawberry Fields Forever" from the same time period, and no one can ever forget the "musical orgasms" from the orchestra that take us into another plane entirely. This track almost feels out of place on the album, placed after the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonelly Heards Club Band," because it is so substantial. It is rightfully often considered their finest song.

This album indeed would have been stronger had they included their double A-side single of the time, "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" (perhaps the finest single of all time), but instead it was placed on the following LP, Magical Mystery Tour, a move George Martin apparently regrets to this day. Those are psychedelic songs of real depth and insight (not to mention they have stronger melodies). I don't want to paint this as a bad album, but coming after the growth of everything since Beatles for Sale, it just feels a little too cute for me. The sound on this is very baroque. Geoff Emerick, recording engineer on Sgt. Pepper, said, "The Beatles insisted that everything on Sgt. Pepper had to be different. Sounds were either distorted, limited, heavily compressed, or treated with excessive equalization. We had microphones right down in the bells of the brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins." That may be so, but that doesn't make the songs any better.

--Edward