Sgt. Pepper’s 40th birthday
June 1, 2007
Today is Sgt. Pepper’s 40th birthday.
Forty years ago the Beatles issued their 8th album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the world of popular music was changed forever. You will read or hear everywhere why it was so, as every radio, newspaper, magazine, blog, TV will celebrate the event.
There are so many reasons why it was so innovative… a bunch of beautiful songs, the Beatles being at their peak as artists and riding the rising psychedelic era; the novel recording techniques — a stereo album! the phantasmagoric cover; the unifying concept that runs through the whole album; the absence of interruption between the tracks; the incomprehensible ghost track at the end after a long silence; the cracking, endless, final loop; the cardboard with the cut-offs (among them, the Sgt. Pepper’s moustache!)…
It was a real treat.
I own the original vinyl, pity that my brother and me actually cut all the cut-offs that got subsequently lost…
I remember going almost everyday to my local record shop to check whether the new Beatles album was finally out — Previous year’s Revolver was the very first record I bought in my life!
And then running home to play it on my rudimentary, mono record player…
It opened new horizons, it made me dream, it changed my life, too.
June 30, 2007 at 2:28 pm
‘phantasmagoric’
thats exactly what it is.
that cover is the biggest enigma of my life.
everyday i scratch my head and ask myself how it can be possible
June 19, 2008 at 11:40 am
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Charge.
June 19, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Dear Charge, I wasn’t trying to make any point… It is just that it is a record that changed my life!
January 1, 2009 at 3:20 am
I understand what you mean about the effect of this album. When I first found it, I listened to it non stop for 3 months and I still listen to it.
40 years is a long time.