Sgt Peppers Review

zAbbo

I first bought this album back in 1997, The reasons being, it had a funky cover and had the most amount of songs I hadn’t heard. I had been listening to the “blue” album a few weeks before hand. This was before I understood anything about The Beatles. I was at school, nipped down to the record shop and bought it with hopefully no-one seeing me incase they asked to see what I bought (I was 14). This was an age of happy disco tunes(venga boys) and Post brit pop (Oasis et all). Naturally enough nearly everyone asked what about this brightly colored CD I had, and was accompanied with weird looks and “oh my mam likes them”. So I got home, stuck it in my cd player, earphones on and was blown away for the next 30 odd minutes.


The Beatles
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Release Date Jun 01, 1967




Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
The opening track from the album which starts out as this pseudo band, it’s a great catchy rocky song, which sets up the album. The opening seems very experimental to me, especially back then with the outside noises of the crowd cheering and people talking. It’s like the introduction to a show and leads into “Billy Shears” 8/10

With a little help from my friends
Ringo sings on this one, and I knew the song already from the Joe Cocker “Wonder Years” version. Although the song is good and the vocals aren’t bad, it didn’t sound as progressive as the rest of the album 7/10

Lucy In The Sky With Diomonds
This is what I was looking for, progressive abstract floaty trip song, Debatable if its about an LSD trip or some supposed painting from lennons son, believe what you will. “plasticine porters with looking glass ties” indeed. 8/10

Getting Better
Another one I recognised as well, from the Philips ads, more of the older Beatles happy pop style but with a great guitar sound 7/10

Fixing A Hole
Wasn’t expecting this, very diverse. Although very slow it’s a great song with nice harmonies. Has a nice little catchy guitar riff, grows on you 7/10

She`s Leaving Home
This track is slower, but has a very strong chorus that just seems to stick in your head. Seems a very deep sad song. Brilliant vocals. 8/10

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite
Picks you up after the previous song, it’s a song about a circus, with some very weird sounds, was John Lennon experimenting with drugs, Yes! 7/10

Within You, Without You
I never heard anything like this before, Georges Eastern influenced track. Very moving lyrics and sound “We were talking about the space between us all / and people who hide themselves / behind a wall of illusion/ never glimpse the truth / then it's far too late / when they pass away” My second favourite from the album. 9/10

When I'm Sixty Four
Another older sounding song, I don’t like it, even less since the Blairs sang it, should have been binned 6/10

Lovely Rita
Great sound with some cool drumming, ignore the lyrics and it’s a great song. A bit quirky though, lose the piano at the end though 7/10

Good Morning, Good Morning
I always think of this song when I`m in a great mood in the morning, jumping around the kitchen, munching toast and singing “Nothing to do but call his wife in, badadadada bam”, Brilliant upbeat song. 8/10

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
, second version is included as the second last track. This 3minute beat song, is the reason why The Beatles where the most progressive experimental band ever, sets up one of the greatest songs ever…..

A Day In The Life
Without this song, the album would fade away imo, Mind blowing each time you listen to it, and ever more so on headphones as a clueless 14year old. The one song that made me get every Beatles album. There are so many good things here, the sound the lyrics the building up to the “end of the world” piece. I can even tolerate the McCartney middle bit. It all seems to fit, listen to it right through and your wonder just what you’ve heard. “I`ve read the news today…..oh boy” 10/10

Listen through to the end “Never could be any other way”

Its easily up there with great albums like Revolver and Pet Sounds

The best album ever, possibly
Most influential album, yes


What do you think?

shotamoose

Y'know, I really love the McCartney bit in the middle. Lennon's lyrics seem to be about ordinary everyday life being transformed by heightened perception, and Macca's bit fits into that perfectly. He methodically describes the automatic routines he goes through - woke up, combed his hair, drank tea, grabbed his hat, caught the bus, and so on - describing the journey from bed to work (if that's where he was going) in a few lines as if you barely think about what you're doing in that time (and a lot of us don't).

Then, he gets to his destination, has a smoke, somebody speaks and he suddenly goes "into a dream". Everything's changed, and we're back to Lennon singing about holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Musically I think it's a brilliant contrast too, and so well integrated into the rest of the song. Makes me wish there were more real John-Paul collaborations in the later years.

zAbbo

Cited as the Best Album ever, i certainly dont think so, maybe it has to be placed in the context of 1967. But it doesnt break any new ground that Revolver opened up(and Rubber Soul).

There are some very ordinary tracks on that album, but i think its the diversity of each song which makes it more a collection of music that a collection of songs.

Regardless, it has "A Day In The Life" which makes it okay

Doctor J

Yeah, very overrated in my opinion. A few great songs and a few fairly average ones. Definitely not the best ever, not even the Beatles best (or second best for that matter) but, hey, who am I to judge this?

robbie1876

Well, in my opinion it's the Beatles best album. Revolver is more of a collection of good songs than a full coherent album, if you get my drift. Sitting down to listen to Sgt Peppers is an event, the whole album needs to be played through to get what it's about. Whereas Revolver or most other Beatles albums are about the individual songs. But thats just the opinion of a recently converted Beatles fan.

Civilian_Target

I studied the album for my leaving cert 2 years ago and know every word, and every chord. It's a great album, and I remind myself of that by listening to it once every three months, but you can have overkill.

Good review though.

zAbbo

Well, what started as a concept album, the first two songs are in that vibe, first we have an introduction to the pseduo band then introducing Billy Shears. Which makes the album appear as an event, but then fades off into a collection of songs. That said you cant listen to one song, you need to listen to the whole album, thats why back when i was 14(21 now) I was amazed that i just heard something truly brilliant.

I`m loving Magical Mystery Tour now

Kopf

Cited as the Best Album ever, i certainly dont think so, maybe it has to be placed in the context of 1967. But it doesnt break any new ground that Revolver opened up(and Rubber Soul).

Not true - it was the first album to feature a full coloured album cover, the first album to come with an inlay booklet, the first rock album to feature orchestral instruments with a string quartet, bassoon, oboe, etc the first rock album to feature vocal overdubs, and the first album to be without space between tracks, indicating it should be played from beginning to end as if it were a live concert performance.

Not the best album ever - since there is none - but certainly one of the best

Doctor J

Originally posted by Kopf
Not true - the first rock album to feature orchestral instruments with a string quartet, bassoon, oboe, etc

Elanor Rigby? Revolver? Pet Sounds? Frank Zappa & Mothers of Invention?

zAbbo

I`m beginning to think that Sgt. Peppers borrowed a lot on Pet Sounds, the range of sounds anyway

Doctor J

The link to this was put on the metal board, but I think it's interesting given the whole concept theme behind Sgt. Peppers. I don't know if many of you have 'Lateralus' by Tool, but it appears there's a lot more to this album than meets the eye.

"Tool's Lateralus is the most amazing piece of music ever composed. I think Tool deliberately wanted to give their fans something truly amazing, but wanted them to find it on their own. "Recognize this as a holy gift..." At first, I thought that the song Lateralus was about tripping acid - discovering true color by seperating the body from the mind. At first listen, I imagined the bending envelope as an intense visual. After becoming more familiar with the track, however, I had reformed my interpretation to something broader: think deeper. Lateralus, perhaps because it is the album's "title track", serves as the central clue for a puzzle that a friend of mine had read about somewhere on the internet. "All I know is that there is a different order for the songs - something about two spirals.

Oh yeah, and thirteen is in the middle." After scavenging through endless google search results, I gave up on finding more about this 'alternate order'. Intent to figure the album out, and very curious about the spirals - I put on the proverbial 'thinking cap'. I understood how the spirals could have a lot of significance, in that the album's title track offers the inspiring, "swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human..........And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been." In my internet scavenging, I had read one review, written by a drummer, who mentioned that Danny Carey's drum beat formed a fibonacci sequence during the song Lateralus. A drummer myself, I decided to get out the graph paper and follow Danny. I can't play like he can, but at least I can hear everything he's doing, and thus was able to construct the drum tabulature.

Sure enough, Danny repeats a Fibonacci sequence through the number 13: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. After 13, he starts again with 1. Bringing in my Algebra 2 knowledge of the Fibonacci sequence, when the equation for the Fibonacci sequence (which I don't actually know) is graphed, it forms a sprial whose vertex depends on the number at which the sequence begins. Coincidence? I began to think not. I had already known of Danny's obsession with sacred geometry and am familiar with Bob Frissell's book, Nothing in This Book Is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are , so the significance of what I had stumbled upon had actually begun to settle in. This is where I just had to play with Lateralus. I had doodled a few spirals in the corners of my graph paper, and in doing so made the first important connection to Lateralus. I knew that if the tracks were in fact intended to be heard in a different order, "Parabol" and "Parabola" would have to go together. In drawing my spirals, I had begun with a vertex and 'spiraled' outwards.


After writing the numbers 1 through 13 linearly, I could immediately see that Parabol and Parabola would have to be the middle of my spiral (in that 13 / 2 = 6.5). I drew a simple arrow between 6 and 7 and then pondered the next pair. At first, I actually drew a spiral connecting pairs of numbers whose sum equaled 13 (the number of songs on the album). This, however, left the last track in the same position and without anything to connect to. At this time,


I had used my copy of Lateralus and Cool Edit Pro to take out the silences between tracks and put the songs in the following order: 6,7,5,8,4,9,3,10,2,11,1,12,13. The transition from Parabola into Schism blew my mind, as the plucks, probably dismissed by listeners as a drawn out rant of an ending, perfectly transition into the beginning of Schism. When you count out beats as the strings are plucked, Schism resumes with the same time signature and tempo - mirroring the progression of notes. The transition from Schism into Ticks & Leeches is equally intriguing. Schism ends with strong double-kick bass and tom smacks, and Ticks & Leeches begins with what many would call a 'tribal' drum beat. The beat at the very start of Ticks & Leeches is slightly different every subsequent time it is repeated - the measures are two beats longer. Yup - you guessed it - those two beats are ACTUALLY the last two beats of Schism.


I can honestly say that I never understood the album's fourth track, Mantra until reordering the album's songs. What I had originally heard as whale calls now had begun to resemble the worst imaginable dry heaves - or a stylized choking. Fitting, seeing as how the last line in Ticks & Leeches is "I hope you choke." After this transition, none of those following it really seemed to make much sense. I certainly didn't like that Disposition and Reflection had been seperated - as they sound quite good when played sequentially on the album. This was the only real roadblock in my disciphering of the Holy Gift. Then I had remembered what my friend had told me - 13 was in the middle. At the time, probably just wanting to believe that there was more to this cd, I had equated this to the positioning of the song "Intermission" on the previous release, Ænema.


For the song to be in the 'middle' of the album it would have to be the seventh track in sequence, here having six tracks on either side of it. So I inserted Faaip de Oiad after Lateralus, and almost peed my pants when I discovered that (ever-so-faintly) the fading tone of the last note of Lateralus could be heard in beginning of Faaip de Oiad, and how the distortion of the guitars at the tail end of Lateralus resembled, and later transitioned seamlessly into, the static at the beginning of Faaip de Oiad. The lyrics of Lateralus justify this break in the spiral, almost instructing: "spiral out, keep going, spiral out, keep going." I went back to Lateralus to find the next clue. In Danny Carey's amazingly competent Fibonacci sequence, he had stopped at 13 and gone back to 1. This is what I chose to do to finish the sequence. A second spiral was now constucted, and the order for the Holy Gift now became 6,7,5,8,4,9,13,1,12,2,11,3,10. Already many of you are probably fascinated at what I have revealed to you, but I can not even begin to tell you what this new order has opened up for me.


The beauty of Lateralus is very, very fragile and has to be viewed with a very open mind. It can also be different when looked at from different points of view. Aside from the fact that the new order of the songs places them in an order where they flow together nicely - often ending and resuming on the same notes or within the same progression, and some times - in the case of Lateralus into Faaip de Oiad and The Grudge into Triad - even overlapping (though admittadly sound much better when actually electronically overlapped, this is kind of cheating. Consider this a hint, however, if you plan on doing this yourself), the two spirals help to tell a story that every Tool fan should hear. In the interest of not boring the only casually intrigued, I will try to keep this very brief. I would also recommend familiarizing yourselves with Frissell's book (yeah - the one I mentioned earlier). I consider Parabol and Parabola to be quite expository. Maynard wants us to know that no matter what happens, we must all know that this is not our only existance. Our very minds and the contents of our subconscious are intended to be immortal, and if we accept this into our lives (be it because of personal or religious reasons), it will be so. As such, pain is an illusion. At first, I called it "The Lateralus Prophecy" (for reasons you will soon understand), but I have since decided to call the 'reordered' version of Lateralus "The Holy Gift". As Maynard says, "Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing," I take the word "this" to mean much more than just his simple cautioning.


Since Parabola is the second track of the Holy Gift, it can be considered at the beginning (esp. considering the context of it's duality with Parabol), and as such, I interpret Maynard's words as more than just clever lyrics in a song. They are a plead for his listeners to listen to everything he has to say and truly celebrate the chance of immortality offered throughout. I would be lying if I said that each song has a specific translation. On the contrary, Tool's music is designed to make you think, not say something specific. It must be treated like great literature - much is hidden contextually. I will elude to Geometric-Drumming's previous post, where he explains the time signatures of Schism: "It represents the title...it's arranged in 12/8 time which is SPLIT into 5/8 and 7/8 - which only really FITS as you PUT THE PIECES BACK TOGETHER." Where Geometric-Drumming claims Schism as his favorite Tool song, I have heard some fans say that it was a retched pick for the album's only single - but I think it was brilliant. Not to downplay the interpretations of those who have posted before me (in fact, I agree with much of what %BlueSoulRobot% has to say), but I think that to the casual listener who knows nothing of Tool, it can be a powerful invitation.

Billy Shears? You call that a concept?

Kone

Beatles Verus Tool? That's a non-starter!

Sgt Peppers is a great album but a tad overrated IMHO.

Doctor J

Originally posted by Kone
Beatles Verus Tool? That's a non-starter!

Agreed, but you have to admit, as concepts go, Tool win hands down over anything else I've heard of.

Bungalow Bill

I too had to ruin Sgt. Pepper through the Leaving cert. But hey, studying the beatles for exams, easy marks Baby!.

But seriously congratulations to Tool for being so inventive as to have a concept album around 30 years after the beatles did it!
And they had no pro-tools or any sh1t like that to help them.
Much as I love Sgt. Pepper's it isn't as easy to listen to as maybe Help or Rubber soul or something. But it is far more advanced than them. See Within you Without you or A day in the Life, possibly the greatest song ever recorded.

As for overrated? Definitely not.
It must be considered in the context of the sixties when everyone was happy to record nice simple happy songs like California dreamin and baby love and delilah, they simply cannot be compared. The beatles could have played it safe and released another album full of individual good songs but they released Sgt Pepper, an album that really takes getting used to.

quarryman

Originally posted by bazH
That said you cant listen to one song, you need to listen to the whole album, thats why back when i was 14(21 now) I was amazed that i just heard something truly brilliant.

I`m loving Magical Mystery Tour now

actually i find it quite easy to listen to one song and then skip to another. within without you for example. 9/10? i can't say i agree there.

sounds like you're working your way through chronologically. for me Magical Mystery Tour is the definitive collection-of-songs in that they are very good individually but a bit inconsistent throughout.

i have to say i'm envious since (if?) you haven't got round to the White album and Abbey road. Abbey road for me is a as close to a perfect album (i'm careful using that term) as an album can get. it is also the kind of album that you cannot just skip tracks on. the first time i heard it i was disgusted by the lack of hooks and regularity but after a few more listens I realised that was its true genius. from beginning to end (bar one hiccup, any guesses?) it is a masterpiece.

If you are working your way through the albums at the moment i think you will find this indispensible reading. It is referred to by myself and a friend as the Beatles bible. It has a studied analysis of each song and where the inspiration may have came from. Ian MacDonald's level of research is astonishing.

enjoy MMT then give us a write up on that.

Bungalow Bill

Originally posted by quarryman
...er a few more listens I realised that was its true genius. from beginning to end (bar one hiccup, any guesses?) it is a masterpiece..

"'I've been eating Yorkshire pudding..."

Octopus' garden??

"Her majesty's a pretty nice girl..."

shabbyroad

MMT as an album is a bit of a mis-nomer. It was 2 x EPs that hang together quite well as an example of what was left over from Pepper (released & unreleased) and what they did that summer and autumn. The "album" only came into existence because the USA 'rackers' (the manufacturing, packaging & distribution lines) couldn't handle a double-EP. So Capitol did their usual crap ... put the EPs together and created an album to milk-the-masses. EMI eventually followed suit (see also 'Hey Jude' album) by releasing this alleged album.
That's why it's a good collection of songs and inconsistent - that's because it's a collection and not an album.

Good review - I first heard 'Pepper about 22 years ago when I was still in my infancy as a fan of the Beatles. At the time it was very uncool and I took a good beating in school one day because of it.

It wasn't the first full-colour-cover but it was different in that the lyrics were printed on the back cover and there was a gatefold. The original pressings also had multicoloured sleeves for the vinyl as well as the cut-outs.

I'm off to Abbey Road in April for a dream come true - recording in studio two [I've hung out in studio one but this time it's a real session for an album I'm involved with].

Mindbender indeed.

zAbbo

Ive heard all the songs and stuff many times, but because all the albums are accessible I dont have a great sense of the time that the stuff was written and were it comes. I`d actually prefare Abbey Road (Oh Darling!), without some of the quirky songs, the album would be too serious im my opinion, which is not what has been the general feeling with The Beatles stuff.

Expect another mini review of some album soon

Oh and "Within / Without You" is an incredible song, easily meriting a 9/10, but i only put scores in to sum up my opinion of each song.

weak infant

I really love this album and i probably rate it more highly than you do. but, I cannot say enough bad things about within/without you. i only listen to it when i havent enough energy to skip on to the next track. for me, the whole album is like this unbelievably deadly concert, the band (sgt pepper's) go and do their set and wrap up at the end. if i was at it, this magic concert, i'd go for a pint and a piss when within/without you comes on. I feel like the beatles are going ha, look what we are making you listen to. infact they probably are, trying to broaden minds and the like. the sickly sweet syrupy vocals chirping these glib 'knowing' lyrics and the crappy use of the eastern instruments matched to the same irritating vocal flow really does my head in. thankfully it's over quickly. bla!

fibonacci iirc is
n2 = n0 + n1

so 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc

add the two numbers before the entry to get the entry
0 + 1 = 1 , 1 + 1= 2, etc ez pz

zAbbo

this imaginery concert only last for the opeing two songs, then the beatles piss off and we see more off the seperate writing talents.

And its more of George Harrison`s eastern infleunce which has been seen on the previous two albums to this one ( Revlver + Rubber Soul)