Classic Album Discussion - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

[johnniegold]

all of the Beatles remasters were in the Billboard top 50 within 5 days of their release--all separate stereo CDs, the stereo set, and the mono set--selling 2.25 million copies in the U.S., Japan, and the U.K.

A tribute to how relevant the Beatles and their music are by today's standards. Maybe even a commentary on the current state of rock and roll/pop music today. Then again, whenever The Beatles come up with a new project, it always hits the charts whether it was Beatles 1, the Anthologies, Live at the BBC. That's just the way it is.

 

[HoratioCaine]

Where on earth did they ever get they idea to take songs from other recording periods and put another album together?

Spoiler

Hey nice, you got the butcher cover on there.

MMT is one of the few examples I can think of where Capitol's variation actually made sense. In fact, it was so popular that it became the official version in the U.K. in the '70s, which is why it's included with the set now. Plus, unlike the other Capitol albums, it didn't obliterate the English MMT EP; it merely enhanced it with other great songs. My only concern regarding the album is it makes the second-side songs seem as if they were a part of the MMT project, detracting somewhat from their period significance - especially true for Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane. Recognizing that those two songs preceded the release of Sgt. Pepper, and were not part of the MMT project, to me makes a world of difference in terms of how they're viewed. People were blown away by Sgt. Pepper, but nearly everything Sgt. Pepper was had already been revealed four months earlier with the SFF/PL single. But I digress. I think the MMT album serves the catalog well.

 

[The Knize]

Where on earth did they ever get they idea to take songs from other recording periods and put another album together?

HENCE:

Spoiler

Good point!

As usual, HoratioCaine is way ahead of me on all of this. Unlike him though, I at least feel a litle bad that the early stuff in particular is in a way different order, etc. than it was released in the States, only because that is the way i experienced this music. Capitol was out of its mind.

Consider that replacement cover for Yesterday and Today. Does it look like any thought was put into it at all given the covers for Rubber Soul, then Revolver, and then SP? Pretty nice set of cuts on that album. Unrated album.

And, so, 1967 was a pretty productive year, and if MMT and YS seem kind of weak to me, they are still pretty good for a sideshow away from the main efforts of that time.

SF and PL should have been on SP. SF after all was the cut that supposed discouraged Brian WIlson from completing "Smile," in restrospect likely (I can feel the flames already!), for the best as far as his reputation.

 

[sandmountainslim]

My opinions have changed as I have gotten older.
I have been a Beatles fan since I was a teen and as a teen I thought John was the "best" and most talented/important Beatle and Sgt. Pepper and White Album their best work...........Today I am 39 and I clearly see that Paul is and was the most talented of the lot and Lennon was mostly just hype and post mortem sympathy and that their best work was either Rubber Soul or Revolver followed by Abbey Road.
To me Sgt. Pepper is the only Beatles album that sounds REALLY dated and out of place.
Wp

 

[HoratioCaine]

My opinions have changed as I have gotten older.
I have been a Beatles fan since I was a teen and as a teen I thought John was the "best" and most talented/important Beatle and Sgt. Pepper and White Album their best work...........Today I am 39 and I clearly see that Paul is and was the most talented of the lot and Lennon was mostly just hype and post mortem sympathy and that their best work was either Rubber Soul or Revolver followed by Abbey Road.
To me Sgt. Pepper is the only Beatles album that sounds REALLY dated and out of place.
Wp

My appreciation for Paul has grown considerably over the years, but my respect for John's work has not diminished. I have come to recognize that, in the later years with the band, John became a real bear to work with, and could be bullying and very hurtful with his words. But that is regarding the man himself, rather than his work. I think his work endures well, and his contributions to the band's output stand up just fine next to the best Paul had to offer. I fail to see how talent behind songs like Norwegian Wood, In My Life, I'm a Loser, Help!, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, And Your Bird Can Sing, A Day in the Life, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Come Together, to name a handful, can be dismissed as owing to mere hype or postmortem sympathy. I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that.

 

[The Knize]

My appreciation for Paul has grown considerably over the years, but my respect for John's work has not diminished. I have come to recognize that, in the later years with the band, John became a real bear to work with, and could be bullying and very hurtful with his words. But that is regarding the man himself, rather than his work. I think his work endures well, and his contributions to the band's output stand up just fine next to the best Paul had to offer. I fail to see how talent behind songs like Norwegian Wood, In My Life, I'm a Loser, Help!, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, And Your Bird Can Sing, A Day in the Life, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Come Together, to name a handful, can be dismissed as owing to mere hype or postmortem sympathy. I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that.

I think we are on the same exact page. My respect for PM has grown, frankly especially with these remasters. But they also bring out just how central JL was in the beginning. And with the better recording playback it seems clearer to me that it was JL's voice that was the killer instrument for the Beatles. (No dis to their harmonies at all.) But arguably JL did less, at least as a team player, and even "dogged it," as time went on. Let It Be, for instance, seems like Paul's album to me. (I realize LIB was recorded before AR. It seems to me that the Beatles somehow rallied as a team for AR.)

And no doubt JL was a flawed and difficult guy. You do not sing to your Mother that she left you but you never left her with the kind of conviction JL did and not have a big, unrepairable hole in your psyche--and I am so, so sorry to say that. In the day, JL seemed like a hero to me--probably remains a hero to me.

But Paul seems to have been a stabilizinig force with stunning musical talent of his own--actually somehow greater muscial talents than JL, but to me JL had more to say, was more creative, etc.--with interests that that do not seem to be as closely aligned with mine as JL's were. At the end of the day, I do not think that PM felt or was capable of feeling as deeply as JL. I do not think he felt the internal ups and downs are broadly as JL. But PM got it done, stuff with it, worked it and until it fit. Maybe age does do it, but I think with age comes more respect for the guy that has talent but is also able to stay on task and be a reasonable person.

And I am more convinced than ever that the whole of JL/PM relationship was much bigger than the sum of the parts. There must have been real yin and yang there. Somehow they completed each other, even when they were not working so closely together.

The solo work--with the exception of Imagine, perhaps the sole exception of Imagine--just does not seem that exceptional, expecially as time goes by. Band on the Run was really good. I would say the same about John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Hard to know what to say about Double Fantasy. A pretty good 1/2 of an album. Would any of us run out and buy remasters of Ram or Walls and Bridges?

And the other fascinating element to me is how is it that George Harrison ended up having at least three of the Beatles' very, very best songs. To me there is nothing about his solo work that seems better as the years have gone by. Again, good, not bad, stuff. Just not Beatles level stuff by any means, to me.

<That their best work was either Rubber Soul or Revolver followed by Abbey Road. To me Sgt. Pepper is the only Beatles album that sounds REALLY dated and out of place.>

I agree with the first sentence, but I have always felt that way. And the remastered SP does not sound so out-dated overall, Day in the Life Does not sound outdated at all, and there are lots to like really throughout the album. And SP does not sound out of place. It really sounds larger of a piece with Revolver, Rubber Soul, and the singles of the era, many of which were on Yesterday and Today.

For me it is clearly MMT (with enormous exceptions--Strawberry Fields does not sound out-dated; Penny Lane really is the Beatles answer to Pet Sounds) and, God help us, YS, that sound out of date and out of place, with the Whtie Album seeming out-dated in spots (did anyone ever like Revolution No. 9? what were they thinking?) and overly long, perhaps repetitive, but still a wonderful piece of work.

But at the end of the day, I got nothing but love for the Beatles. They did excellent work, album after album, that holds up extraordinarily well.

 

[raisindot]

And, yes, I was born before the original album came out.

SP hasn't aged particularly well compared to the other Beatles' albums. If you remove all of the technical wizardry, you really get a bunch of mostly sub-par songs, with the exceptions of "With a Little Help from My Friends" and 'A Day in the Life." Most of the McCartney compositions other than the title track are straight from the British music hall, more like variations on "Penny Lane" than strong rockers.

On any day, I still think "Rubber Soul" was their best album in terms of great melodies and lyrics, "Revolver" was their most adventurous, and "Abbey Road" their most well produced and played.

One interesting exercise when considering SP is to first listen to the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and then to SP. McCartney admitted that influence of Brian Wilson's production on SP, and you can hear it all over the place. Just listen to Lennon's "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and compare it to "God Only Knows" and you can hear the similarities in the way the bass and keyboards are mixed and ther overall "airiness" of the sound.

Jeff in Boston

 

[sandmountainslim]

The solo work--with the exception of Imagine, perhaps the sole exception of Imagine--just does not seem that exceptional, expecially as time goes by. Band on the Run was really good. I would say the same about John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Hard to know what to say about Double Fantasy. A pretty good 1/2 of an album. Would any of us run out and buy remasters of Ram or Walls and Bridges?

Maybe I was a tad harsh in declaring Lennon to be "Post death hype" as he was very talented early on.
As to the solo albums I WOULD buy a remastered Ram I think it is one of the most underrated albums of the seventies by anyone, I put Venus and Mars in the same category. Lennon was GREAT on Plastic Ono and Imagine and took a dive on Sometime in NYC but regained a bit on Mind Games (Imagine part II) and I liked Walls and Bridges. I look at the end of JL's career with Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey and all of the demos I have heard from that era and all I hear is Whiny Love Songs
I had a discussion on another forum in which I put forth my opinion that JL would not have survived musically the MTV explosion of the early eighties and I do not believe he ever would have toured again had he lived. I also believe his health would have gotten the best of him and he would have either OD'd in the eighties or went of natural causes by the early nineties.
There would have been no great Dylanesque Revival in the nineties and 21st Century as many fans like to imagine.
Wp

 

[johnniegold]

I do not believe he ever would have toured again had he lived

Then again, had John Lennon (and George Harrison) lived:

I believe the Beatles would have performed at Live Aid at both Wembley and Philly shows.

I believe the Beatles would have played the last show at Shea Stadium and opened CitiField.

I believe the Beatles would perform the half-time show at Super Bowl 50.

I believe the Beatles would have performed on Saturday Night Live for the $3000.00 Lorne Michaels offered them in 1976 ("If you want to give less to Ringo, that's up to you.")

I believe the Beatles would have performed a show at the Berlin Wall after it came down.

I believe the Beatles would have performed at President Obama's inauguration.

I believe the Beatles would have performed together on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater on Letterman's show.

I believe the Beatles would also perform on the roof of my house as well as all my neighbor's rooftops.

I believe the Beatles would have gone on a World Rooftop Tour playing all the great rooftops around the world (The White House, The Kremlin, The Taj Mahal, The Red Roof Inn on Route 3 in Secaucus.)

I believe the Beatles would also play at my daughter's Sweet 16.

I believe the Beatles would have recorded several more albums (Get Back and Forth, Sgt. Pepper Meets Gen. Tso and A Hard Day's Night... Naked) and they would have sold a gazillion records.

Listen, you don't sell 2.55 million units in 5 days on songs that were recorded 39 to 45 years ago because you're a hype.

 

[HoratioCaine]

I believe the Beatles would have performed on Saturday Night Live for the $3000.00 Lorne Michaels offered them in 1976 ("If you want to give less to Ringo, that's up to you.")

Considering Michaels made this offer four years before Lennon died, when exactly do you think this would have occurred?

Listen, you don't sell 2.55 million units in 5 days on songs that were recorded 39 to 45 years ago because you're a hype.

Indeed not. 50,000,000 Beatles fans can't be wrong.

 

[The Knize]

You/we are all right! And all wrong. Fun thread. I will to listen to Benefit of Mr. Kite and listen for Pet Sounds. I am sure you are right. I can see where SP would have PS all over it.

However, move over SP, next on the chopping block, Pet Sounds.

Name two other songs from Pet Sounds other than the opening cut, the last cut on the first side, the first cut on the second side, and the last cut on the second side.

Of the really exceptional cuts on Pet Sounds, the ones that folks reall remember, which ones, if any would not sold good played on an acoustic guitar with Carl Wilson singing lead.

You have just been offered a recording contract by a major studiio. Would you like Brian Willson of 1966, or any year you like, running the board and prducing the album?

I love Pet Sounds and Brian Willson is/was a musical genius, who deserves enormous credti, but not everything on PS holds up all that well for me. Cuts like God Only Knows and Caroline, No are absolutely sublime. But they should be. They are wonderful songs song and played by wonderful muscians.

 

[johnniegold]

Considering Michaels made this offer four years before Lennon died, when exactly do you think this would have occurred? .

My guess is 1992 but no later than 1995.