The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

11 June 2007

I don't really want to stop the show

But I thought you might like to know: not everyone thinks Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, inflicted on the world forty years ago this month, is the greatest thing since plastic waffles. I've long argued that not only is it not the Best LP Ever, it's not even the best Beatles LP ever.

This is now almost sort of quantifiable. Dave Thompson writes in Goldmine (#702, 22 June 2007):

Aliens ... have just landed, and, handing you a blank CD-R, have demanded to know what the fuss was all about. "Make us," they insist in their funny squeaky voices, "a disc containing the very best of Beatle band." How much Sgt. Pepper would you include on that?

Fact: With close to 20 officially sanctioned Beatles compilations spread out before you, just four — and that includes the historical overviews 1967-1970 and Anthology 2, and the revised Yellow Submarine soundtrack, none of which had any choice in the matter — feature Pepper tunes. That leaves one song, "She's Leaving Home," on one album, Love Songs, to convey the majesty of the "All Time Greatest Album" to anybody who simply requires an LP full of Beatles.

Even last year's Love (an album, by the way, that would have probably been a lot better if it wasn't simply an inferior rehash of the 1982 UK Top 10 hit "Beatles Movie Medley") found room for only five flakes of Pepper. By comparison, Abbey Road is covered by seven, the White Album by nine, and even the American Magical Mystery Tour LP by four.

Or, as Jim DeRogatis once said:

Sgt. Pepper's... [is] a bloated and baroque failed concept album that takes a generation of Baby Boomers back to the best shindig of their lives, a time when they were young and free and full of possibilities, yadda yadda yadda, you just had to be there. But all of that has little or nothing to do with the actual sounds on the album.

Take that, Mr. Kite.

Posted at 7:37 PM to Tongue and Groove


I now feel free (after years of associating with the Beatle-hating indie-rock crowd) to say that I do like quite a lot of Beatles songs, but I never did get the hysterical, quasi-religious adulation of those four very ordinary British fellows. And I do like quite a few of the songs on Sgt. Pepper, but the whole concept album thing confused me -- what was supposed to be the concept, after all? At least the Who's supreme example of rock bombast -- Tommy -- had a concept that you could understand, however stupid it was. The "concept" of Sgt. Pepper's Loney Heart's Club Band was... what? Well, see, there's this band, and, um... Man, just turn dial over to the left speaker for this one song -- you can hear Paul muttering "President Johnson's johnson is soft" backwards under the horn section!

Posted by: Andrea Harris at 8:21 PM on 11 June 2007

As usual with anything 60s-related, I suspect heavy drug usage was involved. By the listeners, I mean. ;-)

And we already know Mr. Lennon allegedly tripped like 500 times, and none of that started until 66 or so? Hmmm.

You could make an anti-drug commercial out of them: "This is the Beatles. This is the Beatles on drugs. Any questions?"

Abbey Road was great though, and it came after Sgt. Pepper, so what do I know?

Posted by: Jeff Brokaw at 3:10 PM on 12 June 2007