This sacred cow is actually good
I'm not much for worshipping sacred cows. I wouldn't call PET SOUNDS or DARK SIDE OF THE MOON masterpieces, even if "the experts" say that they are. And I don't really care if SGT PEPPER is the birth of modern pop music or important regarding the evolution of artrock.
I just think that the songs on SGT PEPPER are really good. Good enough to get 5 stars.

It was sixty-one years ago today...
It's funny how history works. When it came out in 1967, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a seismic event. It was an instant cultural touchstone, a musical icon, a psychotropic chunk of pop art product that glistened with possibility and newness. It was, famously, the album that signaled the rise of rock `n' roll as an artform rather than a teenage flavor-of-the-decade. It was bold, energetic, and state-of-the-art. It was conceptual- even the packaging and cover art were part of the journey. It was innovative. In a visionary synthesis of Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and Karlheinz Stockhausen, the Fab Four sought to combine experimentation and melody, innovation and whimsy, futurism and present...ism. It was the album that made it officially OK for popular artists to use tape loops and weird (read: non-European) instruments and genre hopping. Sure, other bands had been experimental before them, but the Beatles were the first megastars to do it over the length of a full album. Impressive.

So, I'm not going to deny the historical significance of this album. I'm not quite insane enough to do that. I won't try to refute its influence, either. But what I am going to complain about is its listenability. Its raw musical value, if you will. Evaluating music on an intellectual level is interesting and useful, but it's all academic if the stuff doesn't make for a good listening experience. And by that measure, the Beatles have done much, much better than Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It hasn't aged all that well, you see. I can do without a lot of this stuff: "When I'm Sixty-Four" is a cutesy music hall exercise that, all these years later, sounds cheeky and not all that entertaining. "Lovely Rita" and "Good Morning Good Morning" sound absolutely generic, and "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" is (how do I put this delicately?) annoying and stupid.

Even some of the album's better songs aren't exactly top-drawer material: "She's Leaving Home" is sad and pretty, "Getting Better" is pleasantly bouncy (good lyrics, too), and "Within You Without You" shows off George's sitar fascination to trippy effect, but none of those three are particularly special. Same goes for the rocking title track.

But having said all that, I still do think that this is a pretty good album. If the review so far has seemed harsh, it's because I've learned to hold the Beatles to a pretty high standard. A five-star Beatles album (Rubber Soul, Revolver, etc.) needs to be saturated with pure gold. On this disc, I only count a few true gems. "A Day In The Life" is the shiniest. It's an absolutely gorgeous song, a symphonic tale of quiet desolation and muted melancholia. I also like the quintessentially psychedelic "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," and the inexplicably delightful "Fixing A Hole."

Rock historians, Beatle maniacs, and those who are trying to collect all of the obvious touchstones of musical history should certainly pick this up. Otherwise, think twice.

Pop music about life
Today pop music is an art. It's about being catchy, poignant, concise, poetic, and using production techniques to your advantage. A lot of that began with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but that's not necessarily why you should buy the album. You should buy it because it does it better most any other pop album out there.

It's an album about characters and people. It's about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary; taking simple emotions and amplifying them; taking human behavior and picking out the absurd and grotesque.

One of the first things I noticed upon revisiting this gem is how simple everything is. The songs are easy to listen to and they flow really well. But underneath the simplicity there's always a little something extra: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which begins as a mellow psychedelic waltz, bursts into sparkling ebullient choruses suitable for marching band; "When I'm Sixty-Four" sounds like a simple lullaby for children, but the chorus and bridges reveal an air of cynicism that's surprisingly moving; on "Lovely Rita", even an ordinary meter maid becomes the subject of a dreamy albeit a bit sarcastic fantasy; "Good Morning" is an enthusiastic ode to the daily grind, revealing the hallowness of daily routine while increasing tempo to dizzying speeds.

Except for "Within You Without You", all the songs are concrete and straightforward studies about people, with individual elements and stereotypes isolated, magnified, and splayed before you for display. "Fixing A Hole" presents the lonely introspection of a man living by himself and locking himself and his mind from society; on "She's Leaving Home" we experience the frozen melancholy of two parents who awake to find their daughter gone.

But nothing's quite as it seems on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As isolated human emotions bubble up in the melodies, it's clear that some characters in the human race aren't completely sincere. There's an underbelly to human beings. Some aren't to be trusted. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" presents a detached salesman of freaks and outcasts pitching his product in metered rhyme to the tune of exotic swirling carnival music. On another tune, an outcast with a bit of a temper optimistically proclaims that things are "Getting Better", while on the side revealing fragmented bits of his past, such as breaking rules in school and beating his wife.

However the music is so tightly constructed that you can listen to the entire album without noticing the mystery and neurosis of human nature. The music is that good, it just feels so natural, so right. But listen a little closer and you really will see how nothing is as it seems.

Only at the end of the album does a minute or two of symphonic dissonance jerk your mind from the pleasant superficialities of the melodies, beats and life in general. The last song, "A Day in the Life", is a meditation about a jaded yet heartfelt man who recounts the morning post's headlines: Some are disturbing (a politician blew his mind), others political (the English won another war), and others just business as usual (there are four thousand potholes in Blackburn, they all had to be counted) - all events are sung with equal emotion and import, as if they really weren't important at all. Daydreams and non-sequiturs in the song hint at feelings of escapism - but the song's world is bleak and apathetic. Concludes the singer - and the whole album - "I'd love to turn you on", followed by a cacophonous and insurmountable chaos of strings.

That's the message embedded throughout this album - there's people and places as normal, but there's also a veil of truth and mystery behind it all. The Beatles would love turn you onto it.

But it's not even The Beatles who are delivering this message, it's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - a make-shift ensemble whose band-members suspiciously resemble those of The Beatles. Once again, nothing's quite as it seems.

So when you buy this album - which I highly recommend - enjoy it for what it is: Great pop music, it's some of the best out there. Tap your fingers, dance a bit, feel your heartstrings pulled, and bob your head back and forth. But remember to look a little deeper: Think about the world. Think about what it means to be human, and what it means to be a person in this hackneyed world of ours. Look inward and think about who you are. Look outward and think about life.

Super Sgt. Pepper
Winning a Survey in England by a landslide as the Best Album Ever, this Beatles album does not disappoint. What a joy to hear all those songs again! These guys are Fab!

A Fading Landmark
Formed in the early 1960s and continuing for a little less than a decade, The Beatles were and remain arguably the single most popular and single most influential rock band of the modern era. In 1967 the group released SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND. It exploded to the top of the music charts and remains their most widely-known title to this day, the answer the "average" person will give when asked to name a Beatles album. As such, it has a way of showing up in the top ten of critic's polls.

In 1967 the idea of a "concept" album was still fresh and new; the idea of mixing non-standard noise into songs to create music was very much an oddity; and the combination of baroque brass and electric guitar was very much out of the blue--not to mention the extremely eccletic way in which the band draws on everything from psychedelia to English musical hall. It was startling, innovative stuff. But there is sometimes a difference between "the most innovative" and "the best"--and over the years SGT. PEPPER'S reputation has begun to fade.

The album opens with three knock-outs that remain as fresh today as they were in 1967: the opening "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," a memorable mixture; "With A Little Help From My Friends," quite possibly the best cut from the recording and certainly the best of Ringo Starr's vocals; and the ultra-psychedelic "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." But thereafter the cuts become increasingly throw-away. "Getting Better" is nice enough, but it's pretty much McCarthy in likeable ya-ya mode, no better nor worse than a dozen other similar songs. "Fixing A Hole" is uninspired, and "She's Leaving Home" is an expertly written and performed mediocrity.

The line up reaches the bottom with two non-entities: "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," a carny-barker sales pitch without redeeming value, and "Within You Without You," which might best be described as George Harrison at his most self-indulgent. The band begins to crank up again with "Lovely Rita"--perhaps not a stand out in terms of The Beatles' overall work, but charming, amusing, and memorable nonetheless. "Good Morning Good Morning" is a sonic collage that either works or not, depending on your point of view--and then there is a rally with a reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the plantive, distinctly disconcerting "A Day In The Life."

When all is said and done, SGT. PEPPER'S really is a sort of hit-and-miss affair, at its best remarkably fine, at its worst dismissable in an eye-rolling sort of way. Much of the album's success was due to its timing: it was the perfect release for 1967. Unfortunately, it hasn't been 1967 for quite a long time now, and too many of the cuts simply haven't held up well enough for the album to continue to be regarded as "the best." Recommended, but it you're just beginning to explore The Beatles, this isn't really the place to start.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer