The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band turns 50

[Going Commando]

BTW, good call on She's Leaving Home.  That really is a beautiful song.  I forget about that one.

 

A Day In the Life is a masterpiece and probably the best song on the album, but my favorite is Within You and Without You.  I like the George Harrison songs.  It has some of my favorite percussion and bass playing of any Beatles song.  They kind of get lost in the beautiful and striking sitar and dilruba playing.  Its composition is a real achievement.

 

I think Sgt Pepper is special because of how tight and listenable it is for being a sprawling and experimental concept album.  It's got this gentle, wonderful flow that I don't think any of their other post-Help! albums do.  I think it was the finest work of Paul McCartney's career and is a worthy showcase of his genius.

[TradeTheBeal!]

9 minutes ago, clietas said:

 

White Album is better

 

Duh.

[Going Commando]

The White Album is amazing but it's a mess.  It has some of the highest and lowest points in their discography.  I think they were so dysfunctional by that point that they were incapable of turning their ideas into a real album--the medium they basically midwifed into existence.  The White Album is the result of three genius songwriters who were bigger than God (and less restrained) individually ****ting out everything that came to mind into a collective pot.  Sgt Pepper is so much more listenable.

[Going Commando]

Revolution 9 makes me want to slap John Lennon.  Yoko Ono's **** better have been worth it.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

2 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

Honestly, not a big Beatles fan, and even less fond of this album. While there were some significant recording advances made, the idea of a concept album that marked a complete change in a group's musical direction had actually happened the year before, by the Beatles favorite American group, the Byrds Fifth Dimension LP.  

I do love Jeff Beck's version of A Day in the Life off of the Live at Ronnie Scott's LP, and I quite like a handful of Beatles songs from other LPs, as well as many of McCartney's solo hits.

 

Was Fifth Dimension an actual concept album?...I've been looking it up on Google and so far almost nobody describes it as a concept album.

[Sticksboi05]

I think Pet Sounds was the first concept album (1965).

 

Also, if you haven't listened to the remastered version of Sgt. Pepper that just came out last week pick it up or stream it now. It's unbelievable, like listening to a brand new album. 1,000x better than the 2009 remaster and easily the best re-issue since 1967.

 

It's that good. Whoever engineered it did a great job.

[LadySkinsFan]

Oops, forgot about Pet Sounds. 

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

11 hours ago, Califan007 said:

 

Was Fifth Dimension an actual concept album?...I've been looking it up on Google and so far almost nobody describes it as a concept album.

I may have overstated my case on that one. I do think of it as a concept album about time/space (5D, Eight Miles High, Mr Spaceman, Lear Jet, I See You) with a couple of folk song outliers (John Riley, Wild Mountain Thyme), but it doesn't quite qualify. Still, it was a departure from popular themes to a psychedelic approach.

[JCB]

Man, I always feel bad for "I Hate The Beatles" guy. It's just contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

 

I grew up in the underground scene in the 1980s, but I have never for one second questioned my childhood love of the Fab Four, which is stronger now than it's ever been. Do you hate art, joy, and beauty? How can they simultaneously be accused of "ruining" that which they created? It's beyond rock music; it's Earth music.

 

And 1967, wow. Not just Sgt. Pepper's but the first Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Doors, Disraeli Gears, Satanic Majesties, and on and on and on.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Pet Sounds isn't a concept album - primarily because there is no concept there. It's really just Brian Wilson pushing for some kind of unified sound. It also has possibly the worst album cover in history.

 

Anyway, it's kind of impossible to judge this album at this point since every song has heard by every living human being 25,000 times each.

 

"Getting Better" is a nice little tune though.

[Riggo-toni]

54 minutes ago, JCB said:

Man, I always feel bad for "I Hate The Beatles" guy. It's just contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

 

And 1967, wow. Not just Sgt. Pepper's but the first Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Doors, Disraeli Gears, Satanic Majesties, and on and on and on.

I am not simply an I hate the Beatles guy and certainly not a contrarian for contrarian's sake. I'm just not into them much beyond a handful of songs. Of the era, I'm much more into Cream, Hendrix, Santana, Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Free, Stones, Byrds, and others. I actually prefer McCartney's solo hits more (though his LPs are mostly terrible), possibly because he played with better musicians.

[Dan T.]

From the Sgt. Peppers album cover I learned, sadly, that Paul McCartney was dead.

[Forehead]

I'm a pretty big Beatles Fan...my father got me started on them when I was 10 and I think I own all but 2 of their original albums.  Sgt. Pepper was the first cassette tape I owned in the 80's, so this album in particular is special to me.

 

The opening song and the reprise don't mean much to me.  I'll start my first side-argument concerning "With a Little Help from my Friends".  This is superior to Joe ****er, but I don't care for Joe ****er's music much.  His version worked for the Wonder Years, but I like this version far more.  I never thought Lucy was that great a song, drug references or no.  Mr. Kite does very little for me, and Lovely Rita isn't a good song.  Nor do I care for Within you Without You, though I usually like Harrison's contributions.

 

Getting Better and Fixing a Hole are really good, and When I'm 64 is cute enough in its own way, I'm pretty sure that was my father's favorite.  But the class of this album is She's Leaving Home and A Day in the Life, and as much as I'd like to go against the majority, A Day in the Life is a ridiculously great song, so I have to throw my vote there, but it is close.  I agree with what someone else said, this isn't their best album lyrically or to hear great song after great song, but it was something really new and groundbreaking.

[Dan T.]

The irony of the whole "Paul is Dead" thing from back in the day is that McCartney will outlive Ringo and thus outlive them all. 

[JCB]

I hear ya, Riggo. At the risk of derailing a Beatles thread, am I the only one who thinks that The Kinks should be way more loved than they are? They've done fine, don't get me wrong. But their run from, say, Face to Face through Lola vs. the Powerman is pretty amazing.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

4 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

I may have overstated my case on that one. I do think of it as a concept album about time/space (5D, Eight Miles High, Mr Spaceman, Lear Jet, I See You) with a couple of folk song outliers (John Riley, Wild Mountain Thyme), but it doesn't quite qualify. Still, it was a departure from popular themes to a psychedelic approach.

 

I've never heard it but gonna search for it on spotify...I have a soft spot for concept albums lol...

[Riggo-toni]

20 minutes ago, JCB said:

At the risk of derailing a Beatles thread, am I the only one who thinks that The Kinks should be way more loved than they are? 

I have Days and Waterloo Sunset on my regular song rotation. Plenty of other lost gems like Til the End of the Day, Set Me Free, Victoria, and Gotta Get the First Plane Home. They used to intentionally damage their amp speakers by poking them with knitting needles in order to get some distortion in the old days before Roger Mayer built the fuzzbox. Whatever else, one has to credit them with taking the Louie Louie vibe and punching it up a couple notches to invent power chord rock.

Btw, I think Sgt Pepper was the first album to put its song lyrics on the inner cover.

11 minutes ago, Califan007 said:

 

I've never heard it but gonna search for it on spotify...I have a soft spot for concept albums lol...

The harmonies are sweet, but the Rickenbacker guitar tones sound horribly dated. I See You is probably my favorite track, though 8 Miles High was the hit.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

15 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

The harmonies are sweet, but the Rickenbacker guitar tones sound horribly dated. I See You is probably my favorite track, though 8 Miles High was the hit.

 

I've never heard 8 Miles High, actually...listening to it now. Completely forgot about how good their harmonies were.

 

Um...was I Can See For Miles a rip-off of 8 Miles High? lol...

[Riggo-toni]

Their harmonies were great until Crosby quit.

[Burgold]

If I remember correctly, Mr. Kite was composed entirely of circus slogans that John found on posters. Kind of cool in that regard. 

[Sticksboi05]

3 hours ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

Pet Sounds isn't a concept album - primarily because there is no concept there. It's really just Brian Wilson pushing for some kind of unified sound.

 

I think that's what people define as a concept album at this point. Kind of like "alternative" rock - vague, with wide definitions. But yes in a literal sense, it's not a true concept album.

[China]

1 hour ago, Burgold said:

If I remember correctly, Mr. Kite was composed entirely of circus slogans that John found on posters. Kind of cool in that regard. 

 

No, but it was based on a circus poster.

 

From Wiki:

 

Quote

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is credited to Lennon–McCartney, but Lennon said he had written it entirely himself.[5] McCartney disagrees;[2] in a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he said: "I read, occasionally, people say, 'Oh, John wrote that one.' I say, 'Wait a minute, what was that afternoon I spent with him, then, looking at this poster?' He happened to have a poster in his living room at home. I was out at his house, and we just got this idea, because the poster said 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite' – and then we put in, you know, 'there will be a show tonight,' and then it was like, 'of course,'… The song just wrote itself. So, yeah, I was happy to kind of reclaim it as partially mine.'"[3]

 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

On ‎5‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 2:37 PM, JCB said:

I hear ya, Riggo. At the risk of derailing a Beatles thread, am I the only one who thinks that The Kinks should be way more loved than they are? They've done fine, don't get me wrong. But their run from, say, Face to Face through Lola vs. the Powerman is pretty amazing.

 

The Kinks were incredible and probably had a better sustained career than any of the British Invasion bands - depending on how you feel about late prime Stones.

 

They get forgotten, because no band in history f-ed up their career more than the Davies brothers. They couldn't tour the states when they were young and hungry. They seemed to always be feuding with themselves and their management. They were one of the most self-indulgent successful groups ever.

 

Having said, they made just incredible music.

[JCB]

Yeah man, that touring gap in their peak years was crushing. But oh, what music.

 

A few years ago, my wife and I went to Berlin for our 10th anniversary. Great trip. But one of the highlights was when we ducked into a coffee shop in Kreuzberg. "Victoria" was on the house stereo and fricking everyone in the place was jamming to it. Power of music, baby.

[hail2skins]

I voted for "When I'm 64" because that was probably the first song from the album I ever heard.

 

Also, who are the two people who voted for "Within You Without You?"  I actually heard that song last night on the new Beatles station on satellite radio and it made me (as it always does when I hear it) want to poke my eyes out.