THE BEATLES
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Parlophone/Capitol
Produced by GEORGE MARTIN
The art of SGT. PEPPER'S is not in the LP itself, it's in the Beatles' ability to turn yet another album into an "event." The publicity generated, reviews exploding with completely ridiculous hyperbole and generations raised on the idea that this was unquestionably the crowning moment of pop music, seems as orchestrated as the strings on "A Day in the Life," because whatever the people saw in this that was revolutionary and daring in 1967 is all but nonexistent and impossible to see nearly four decades later.
Therein lies the truth, which is that an album cannot be judged by its impact, and although I doubt any single recording had the effect on the industry this one did, I'd also insist that just about every trace of that influence was negative. The Beatles did an album with a silly name and cover and tracks that segued, and all of the sudden the rock album is the definitive musical and artistic statement of our time? And hey, SGT. PEPPER is a dizzying album, fun and ceaselessly entertaining... but it is not Beethoven's 9th, it is not KIND OF BLUE, and it sure as hell isn't A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. If you believe otherwise, I'll gladly pay for your entrance into the rest home of your choice. The '60s were a long time ago and you did too many drugs.
The reputation of this as an effortless flowing masterpiece of one wonderful song after another ignores the fact that it is, if anything, substantially less cohesive than REVOLVER or RUBBER SOUL, or contemporary albums by the Byrds, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and even the typically schizophrenic Beach Boys. It also isn't a "concept album," thank God; the concept that is supposed to be there isn't. It's just there because, as Lennon later pointed out, they said it was. Virtually every book about the Beatles points out the lack of space between songs. Since these people seem to be deaf, I'll lay the cards down: the first song fades into the second song, connected by fake audience noise. Then they drop that... and on Side Two, the last three songs segue. This is just another album.
Although the Beatles mercifully had no real interest in psychedelia, an odd legend has risen that they were the inventors, if not with PEPPER then with REVOLVER. But albums stretching back to 1966 and possibly even late 1965 display the drugged-up dime-store imagination of the times. And in 1967 and 1968, plenty of others did it better, the Zombies and Love among others. Moreover, beginning psychedelia would be, to my mind, something of a dubious honor, since if anything it short-circuited the energy and intelligence of the best rock & roll. But hey, I wasn't there, what do I know?
Well, this much I know. PEPPER must be judged on its own merits away from the masses of critical bliss and audience reputation, away from the disturbing reputation it has managed to procure. Comparisons to the Beatles' earlier work must also be ignored. It could be argued that the pseudonym, the throwback quality of the music, and the intense reliance on production techniques were an escape from a lack of confidence in the newer material. The Beatles felt, correctly, that the current crop of songs would work better with more going for them, to create something intended more as entertainment than as the personal, enthused communication of their earlier work. It's no surprise that PEPPER bears some similarity to REVOLVER -- again, Paul writes classics while John gets by with about one and a half good songs and sleeps the rest of the time -- but the standards are lower, the songs more haphazard and incomplete.
And PEPPER side by side with RUBBER SOUL or A HARD DAY'S NIGHT or any of the classics of yore will reveal a band with vastly modified ambitions, and not just because their guiding light in the early years is hiding in a cloud of marijuana and acid. The intensity and warmth have been replaced with faux-highbrow resignation and a desire to be playful with recording techniques as opposed to music itself. It's undeniable that PEPPER seems cold and maddeningly impersonal in retrospect, given the many virtues of the Beatles through '65. It's also undeniable that no Beatles album surpassed this one for its sense of discovery and fun.
It's easy to see why the critics of the time latched onto it... like the Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS, it allows a way in to the basic appeal of a band without the kind of magnetism and indescribable emotion that would be considered almost childish to praise. PEPPER goes one step further... unlike PET SOUNDS, it forgoes any direct feeling in favor of entirely intellectual pursuits. When a sad song is attempted ("She's Leaving Home"), it's so saccharine as to be insanely unlistenable and the sort of thing you hoped they'd never do, but it fits in with the thinking-man's approach because it allows easy interpretation without ambivalence or anger. It's just a sad story told in a direct fashion with no disagreeable "rock music" elements to distract from the weepy strings and projectile-vomit-worthy vocal execution. This is the kind of pop the stuffy elder statesmen could appreciate. Not for them the navel-gazing openness of "I'm a Loser" or the irony-free, powerful declarations of "Here, There, and Everywhere." They want an overblown song about a runaway that takes the side of the parents until deciding that "Fun is the one thing that money can't buy." Beg pardon?
Take away the massive production values and there are indeed standouts, though none that stand up to the best of the Beatles. George pens his finest cut ever with the delicate "Within You, Without You," applying Indian textures in a manner that doesn't seem tacked-on. John's "With a Little Help from My Friends" is inescapably grand, sung by Ringo in the album's most charming, human moment. Joe Cocker's cover version is a travesty; if Ringo's not singing it, as far as I'm concerned, it's meaningless.
Paul's "When I'm Sixty-Four" is truly sweet, though of course he can't be too direct or he'll lose the audience, so it's also full of jokes, but they're good ones. This particular cut finds -- for once (George Martin left "Within You, Without You" pretty much alone) -- the production working 100% beautifully with the song. There really aren't a lot of moments you'll hear as wonderful as the 4/4 takeover just before "You'll be older too."
"Getting Better" and "Fixing a Hole" are Paul's only songs here that come close to his REVOLVER efforts. The former is unsympathetic but somehow uplifting, and the latter is just typical charming Paul... though I do wish it was faster.
It's not so much that the title track and its reprise, "Good Morning Good Morning," and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" are bad. Taken for the breathtaking works of production and craft that they are, they're head-spinning, but they are not songs, they're recordings, with little personal meaning. This is forgivable in context, of course, but for those who point to the energy and human reality as part of the Beatles' key appeal, it's easy to understand why SGT. PEPPER is regarded by some as enormously disappointing. I suspect that the people who think of this as their favorite Beatles album are the same ones who are unable to understand why A HARD DAY'S NIGHT would be heard as a classic... but this, indeed, is part of the Beatles' legacy, that their career attracts polar opposites.
I can't help but feel that this presents a sad picture of the Beatles, exhausted and creatively strained, John Lennon in particular. He brings us the fun but rather cloying "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," a song that illustrates everything wrong about both psychedelia and Lennon's mindset at this point. "A Day in the Life," with a midsection from Paul, fares better and serves unsurprisingly as the album's weird, wonderful climax, all orchestral crescendoes, chilling lyricism, and that unforgettable wordless vocal break that leaves more of a mark than anything else on the record. SGT. PEPPER'S, for those who've heard it far too many times to be able to enjoy it on the same basis as before, is an album of moments, and that's the ultimate one... undiscovered beauty within an iceberg exterior.
It seems today that this album, thanks to its unimaginably awful effect on the industry and its self-contained dayglo artistry, is never judged fairly, but rather as either a disgraceful, bloated tombstone for rock & roll or as some sort of impeccable statement that can never be duplicated or improved upon. There is some truth to both arguments, and say this much: Nothing else like it exists. Such strong reactions have led to a firestorm of emotions from Beatles fans and it's easy to condemn the people with negative viewpoints both as making too much of a mere pop album and, again, looking at the album through the blurred glasses of retrospect... their opinions therefore rejected and ignored. My own judgement is less severe. SGT. PEPPER does not allow itself to be viewed in terms of any other time period, for the same reason that the inflated "legend" of the Beatles is meaningless outside the '60s. PEPPER is a snapshot of its times and is devoid of the same merits that produce the music we, in our heart of hearts, adore and return to time and time again. It's a classic album, a masterpiece of its form, an entity... but it is more fun to look at and think about than it is to listen to, all these years later. Resentment and career paths aside, this is an engaging document of a moment... and in the end, it never claimed to be anything more.
That, some may argue, is the problem.