Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1967
Parlophone/Capitol Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl & Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1.Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 2. With a Little Help From My Friends 3. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds 4. Getting Better 5. Fixing a Hole 6. She's Leaving Home 7. Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite! 8. Within You Without You 9. When I'm Sixty-four 10. Lovely Rita 11. Good Morning Good Morning 12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) 13. A Day in the Life
Man, it feels so obvious and dumb to tell you that the Beatles' fantastically technicolor "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a great album...Every new track seems to launch a new genre and every record that's come out since has some DNA that directly traces back here, whether we're talking songwriting or production...Its very name is synonymous with "great album" But who doesn't already know this?! Here, let me tell you some other blatantly obvious things:
When you take a shower, remember to take all your clothes off first, otherwise your pants might get wet...
Thursday always feels like it should be Friday...
When you find a magic lamp, that gives you only one wish, make sure to wish for more wishes..You can always wish for that solid-gold burrito later...
When you're buying a candy bar, make sure you buy a Charleston Chew. It's the biggest one, and therefore, the best deal...
Anyway, with "Sgt Pepper" the Beatles decide to completely abandon live shows and screaming fans, and dedicate the rest of their existence to holing up in a studio and creating serious art...They were no longer the smiling young mop-tops of yesteryear that only wanted to hold our hands...The cocoon had opened and they were now big, moustachioed psychedelic butterflies...But this is British psychedelia...Not the American blood & war/San Francisco version of psychedelia, but the British LSD Tea Party version...
No, not that kind of Tea Party...
Yea, that kind of Tea Party...
The production is dazzling...everything seems to be either sped up or slowed down, phased, flanged, or double-tracked...Normally this type of experimentation usually comes at the expense of song, but that's not the case here...Every single track is a pop smash! And "A Day in the Life" is probably the single greatest pop song ever, as the Beatles reel off seemingly unrelated verses involving everyday experiences and proceed to knit them into a mosaic that encapsulates the entire experience of life and death (death as represented by a feverish swirl of strings and a single, devastating piano chord...). I've probably listened to a million songs in my life, and I've yet to find anything like it...Many have tried, but no one has made pop this innovative and effective since...
Oh wait...I forgot about "My Humps" by the Blacked Eyed Peas...
There's really not a lot more to say, other than this seems to be pop's big bang...I love this record so much! If it were legal to marry an album, then my name would now be "Jamin Sgt. Pepper"...Hell, I love it so much I've bought it twice...The original vinyl copy I owned didn't have the cardboard cut-outs included...So I forked over my entire life-savings (i.e, 10 bucks) just to get that dope cardboard mustache...My life is now complete...
Let's put on our fake mustaches and check out "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles...
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