Sgt. Pepper, there is so much to say about this album it almost seems undoable. If you don't get it or understand why it is number one, that's OK, not everyone does. Understand this though. It is ver much a turning point in pop music. It certainly effected everything that came after it. It is also an amazing culmination of different types and textures of music. It almost seems impossible for these songs to be from the same group of musicians, much less the same album. They are all so different and yet work as a group so well. The album comes at a time of change, not just for the Beatle, but for the world and certainly America. The Beatles were tired of being...well Beatles. They wanted to create and were less interested in the hype and being famous rock stars up on a stage. So they decided to end their touring carrer and just focus on being a recording act. This freed them up to focus on the music and not worry about being able to actually perform the piece live. They started using layers and layers of tracks in the studio. The recording techniques used by the Beatles not only influenced othe bands and engineers, it changed the industry as a whole. It changed how the technology of the equipment was made. New types of recording devices came about as result of what they did in that studio. That is a pretty powerful thing. People today are influenced by this album that have never heard it, simply because without Sgt. Pepper, the recording equipment and techniques they use wouldn't exist. That's not a reason to love the album though, love it because of it's great songs. Not my favorite album, not even me favorite Beatles album...actually it's not even the BEST album. It is, as the album that that ushered in the summer of love and whole new can of worms for the industry, the most important.
1 Comments
Apr 20, 2014, 6:25:59 PM
dean squishman - The fact that this album was released on my birthday when I was a year old is significant because on my birthday 21 years later a friend came knocking on my door. He wanted to wish me a happy birthday and introduce me to LSD. We ended up sitting up all night listening to an anniversary broadcast of Sgt Peppers on the radio and laughing ourselves silly. It was a full on psychedelic education for the completely uninitiated. We went on to listen to the white album after that and witness the sun rise in a glorious haze of youthful optimism with echos of the final piano note of Day in the life ringing with positive authority . I came away from the experience with the feeling that everything was happening in the world exactly on time and in it's own beautiful way. And I was only to learn later that the entire album was recorded on a 4 track recorder. A feat which seems unbelievable by today's standards. I have no qualms with seeing this album in the number one spot