Post by Amadeus on Aug 9, 2014 0:06:29 GMT
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Let's face it! It changed the world
First, a comment on so-called concept albums; what does that even mean? Does it have to follow a story line? Does it have to have recurring musical themes? Does it have to be about one topic? Who knows. Was Sgt. Pepper a concept album? Well, it purports to be Sgt Pepper's band playing a show. There's a crowd at the beginning and a crowd and musical reprise at the end. That's the concept. That's it. No deep attempt to consciously change the cultural landscape. At first it was just an album of tracks and about half way through the idea came up to pretend to be another group. What else do you need? It works for me and it worked for stoners and clothing designers and shopkeepers alike.
Now a comment on the whole 'stereo vs. mono' thing. Now PAY ATTENTION because most people aren't listening. The mono version is the one The Beatles intended to be heard the most so that's the mix that they spent great care on. There's a lot more phasing effects for instance on the mono than there is on the stereo. Why mono? LISTEN CLOSELY: Most people who consumed pop music in those days DIDN'T have stereos. They had record players. With little lo-fi speakers coming out the bottom or front. Just one speaker. Stereos were for grownups and classical music. SO......if you want to hear the album that The Beatles at the time considered the definitive version, listen to the mono. If you just want what sounds better on a stereo, play the stereo. Let's face it; listening to stereo is more pleasing to the ear because of the space between left and right.
Now, about the sleeve; We are all very familiar now with what's on it, what it looks like etc but did you know or remember that very very few record album sleeves up to that point were in colour inside and out? That's right. It was a very technicolour album sleeve for the time. And for the first time ever on a pop album the lyrics were printed out. AND, the Sgt. Pepper cardboard cutouts were a novel idea as well. And it didn't stop there; the inner paper sleeve was psychedelic too!
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
First off, this album is not a rock and roll record. Even Revolver with all it's innovation, was a rock and roll record, but Sgt. Pepper's is not! It is put together a bit like a big top show, in that they didn't have to play what was expected of them. Lennon said later that it was a concept album that lasted the first two songs then the rest was just doing tracks for a new record, but I strongly disagree. All the songs on here are exploring new ideas for pop music. Sgt Pepper must have been breathing life into the project when it became clear that it was to be an imaginary show. It's almost like the album as a whole is a chamber piece that fits together well and flows well. As a whole, it's a satisfying listen in one go. This opening track for instance isn't that great a song. certainly not hit single material BUT it worked very well indeed as the introduction to the show to follow. Not your average rock concert of the time. Or any time for that matter. Paul's voice is rousing and building interest in what's to come. The brass and the chorus singing was very opening/overture like. And then Billy Shears...
With A Little Help From My Friends
First off, it's a great great song AND certainly the first really good song the lads gave Ringo to sing. Lots of melody in the verses. A long way from 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. All the instrumentation is so well played and Paul is really playing 'lead bass' on this album. Nicely structured with the 'Billy Shears' thing opening the tune with the crowd sounds. It's not a rock and roll song is it?
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
This one definitely isn't rock and roll. With the time changes and key changes is this early prog? Along with the leslie speaker discovery they came across 'phasing' which gives the drums on this song the swirly effect. One big difference between the stereo and mono versions is the fact that the phasing is used a fair bit more on the mono. It's very clear it's used on Lennons vocal. I absolutely love the droning tamboura tones. The lyrics are very trippy, evocative, takes you on a trip don't it. Very Picturesque. Obviously about Lennon's fascination with chemical refreshment aids and sung in a little kid voice in the early verses. Lots of tasteful leslie and phashing on all the instruments. very nice.
Getting Better
A very bright tune. Basically a Paul dominated tune. At some point in the song the sharp guitar chords are ghosted by someone plucking a chord on the piano strings. The piano strings are especially to the fore in the fadeout. Again, I love the droning tamboura during the domestic violence verse. Violence is something that sounds cool to a youngster (or at least 'used to be' violent) and the drone was so cool in that exact spot. And the beat wasn't just regular 4/4 drums but a litle something special, a break beat for the verses.
Fixing A Hole
Second solo Paul tune on the record. A little meandering. Nice sentiments. More lead bass playing and George's guitar parts and solo are very ear catching. AND I never would have got a heroin reference like some people have insisted on Fix? Hole? I like the song but does it sound like filler? If John was a little more active, I'm certain that this is the Paul song that would have been left off.
She's Leaving Home
A brilliant tune and I love the slight baroque melodramatic strings by Mike Leander. I think that secretly, George Martin got into it as well. A very excellent story song. Very Coronation Street. Very Paul. Just a beautiful haunting melody, especially John's background part with the extra haunting reverb on it. Always loved it. NOT rock and roll! I prefer the MONO of this one. I don't like the slowed down master on the stereo version. Sounds too draggy. The mono is at proper pitch.
Being For The Benefit Of Mister Kite
Yes, 'being'. On the out-takes, you can here Geoff Emmerick I believe saying before a take: 'For the benefit of Mr. Kite' and John responds: 'BEING for the benefit of Mr Kite'. It wasn't my favorite song when I was younger but I've gotten to appreciate it a lot more since. It's very circus. Also not rock and roll. I don't believe there's a guitar anywhere in sight of this track. All organs. And the famous story about the wash of sounds at the end, how they took a tape of the calliope and cut it up and threw it in the air and stuck some of it in a bottle of coke and put it back together all random? Rubbish. Geoff Emmerick said that they did try the 'up in the air' trick but after they spliced it all back together, it was almost all in the order it started out in. So they had to cut it up again and actually deliberately place the peices in different places. So there.
Now here's one comment about the mono vs. stereo. Is it just me or does the mono version end with a sudden fade out? Because I like the stereo ending better. It sounds like they slashed the tape and there's the residual reverb left over. A bitmore satisfying to me.
Within You Without You
Is this Indian music? Nope. It's western pop music played with Indian instruments. The stuff on Wonderwall is closer to proper Indian music. I knew a newly immigrated Indian girl back in '86 and she knew almost NOTHING about western pop music, depite the fact that India had an EMI branch. I introduced her to The Beatles and said they do a bit of Indian music and she listened to it and told me it was NOTHING like Indian music. So there you go.
All the same, it sounds very exotic and George totally earned a spot on this record with this song. I love the Anthology instrumental version. Just a beautiful string arrangement to go with the Indian instruments. And those slidy slurs that the orchestra does? I believe it was one of the first times in not the first time that a western orchestra would slide between notes in that obviously eastern way. The laughter was a nice touch. wasn't the maharishi always laughing?
When I'm Sixty-Four
ANOTHER Paul tune. From his adolescent years. I always thought it was too cute though. But for all the summer of love hippies it fit in with the rest of the record.
Lovely Rita
Another great Paul tune. Just a fun (in what became a sort of typical Paul way) diversion lyrically. Just sillyness. Those 'psychedelic' harmonies that seem to identify in ourminds the 'psychedelic' sound were really cool. As an impressionable youngster, I loved the slightly dirty atonal ending. I learned a lot from The Beatles about stuff you could do in pop music. These little subversive inserts that would be 'avant garde' (a clue) on it's own.
Good Morning Good Morning
A very good Lennon song in my mind. Sort of summed up his life a bit at the time. Lethargic in the suburbs. But a very good moving rock song with some more proto-shredding courtesy of Paul. George never shredded. The heavily compressed horn section was perfect extra colour. You might not notice but the time signature is a bit eratic. Possibly why Ringo was playing the snare every beat. John wasn't trying to be clever with it, it just sound like a natural progression to him and it obviously was because most people wouldn't notice the time sig changes.
Another stereo vs. mono thought; the blending of the duck into the opening guitar blurp for the Sgt Pepper reprise. The mono version just sounds SOOOOO clumsy whereas it sounded like they (George and Geoff) got it right for the stereo version.
Sgt Pepper's reprise
Nice reprise of the opening theme. A variation (I listen to a lot of opera and classical music. There's loads of that stuff going on all the time) of the opening theme in that the tempo and feel is different and only the one section of the opening song was reprised (played twice with a key 'step up'). The end of the show. It works. All you (not you guys) who say 'Tommy' was a concept album, Sgt Pepper was tosh!' ah,,, bugger off. The concept was stated very clearly at the beginning. A variety show. So suck it. Lots of people liked it and it worked. And then.........
A Day In The Life
From little acorns... We all know the stories, John had a song based on a newspaper, Paul had a song based on tripping in the morning, put the two together with 24 empty bars between them, the alarm clock to keep Mal awake while counting measures.,,,,, I don't believe the alarm clock was a happy accident. I believe,,,,hmm,,,,they planned it? What was revolutionary about this song? First of all, the mundane topic matter. The absolutely haunting Lennon vocal. He had the echo taped live. He was able to phrase his singing in reaction to the echo in his headphones. Beautiful.
I'd love to turn you on. A drug/higher conciousness reference being brought from the underground to the masses. And the initially scary orchestra score they finally decided on. Just, nobody in the pop world at the time could touch it.
It was such a monumental conclusion to what was a monumental sound experiment of an album. It wan't a pop or rock and roll album at all. It was, for it's time, a work of art. And it remains so today for it's quality of recording and quality of combining different elements musically and lyrically and it retains it's freshness. A lot of intial 'psychedelic' albums from the time sound very dated and tired. The team of The Beatles along with producer and engineer created a long lasting monument to the changes happening underground in London at the time.
ALBUM COVER. For it's time, very startling. Colour on both back and front AND inside the gatefold. The crazy inner sleeve that contained the record itself and the cutouts. Today a lot of this stuff might seem ho-hum especially in the years immediately following Pepper, everybody started going all out on inserts, posters, mail in cards, labrador puppies,,,,, but they were the first. What can anyone say.
Incidentally Dave Dexter Jr. ruined my life one last time with this record by cutting off the runout groove. I never heard it until America got it's version of Rairities in 1980. Bah!
Also, if you turn up the last piano chord REALLY REALLY loud as it fades out, you can hear a chair squeak.
First, a comment on so-called concept albums; what does that even mean? Does it have to follow a story line? Does it have to have recurring musical themes? Does it have to be about one topic? Who knows. Was Sgt. Pepper a concept album? Well, it purports to be Sgt Pepper's band playing a show. There's a crowd at the beginning and a crowd and musical reprise at the end. That's the concept. That's it. No deep attempt to consciously change the cultural landscape. At first it was just an album of tracks and about half way through the idea came up to pretend to be another group. What else do you need? It works for me and it worked for stoners and clothing designers and shopkeepers alike.
Now a comment on the whole 'stereo vs. mono' thing. Now PAY ATTENTION because most people aren't listening. The mono version is the one The Beatles intended to be heard the most so that's the mix that they spent great care on. There's a lot more phasing effects for instance on the mono than there is on the stereo. Why mono? LISTEN CLOSELY: Most people who consumed pop music in those days DIDN'T have stereos. They had record players. With little lo-fi speakers coming out the bottom or front. Just one speaker. Stereos were for grownups and classical music. SO......if you want to hear the album that The Beatles at the time considered the definitive version, listen to the mono. If you just want what sounds better on a stereo, play the stereo. Let's face it; listening to stereo is more pleasing to the ear because of the space between left and right.
Now, about the sleeve; We are all very familiar now with what's on it, what it looks like etc but did you know or remember that very very few record album sleeves up to that point were in colour inside and out? That's right. It was a very technicolour album sleeve for the time. And for the first time ever on a pop album the lyrics were printed out. AND, the Sgt. Pepper cardboard cutouts were a novel idea as well. And it didn't stop there; the inner paper sleeve was psychedelic too!
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
First off, this album is not a rock and roll record. Even Revolver with all it's innovation, was a rock and roll record, but Sgt. Pepper's is not! It is put together a bit like a big top show, in that they didn't have to play what was expected of them. Lennon said later that it was a concept album that lasted the first two songs then the rest was just doing tracks for a new record, but I strongly disagree. All the songs on here are exploring new ideas for pop music. Sgt Pepper must have been breathing life into the project when it became clear that it was to be an imaginary show. It's almost like the album as a whole is a chamber piece that fits together well and flows well. As a whole, it's a satisfying listen in one go. This opening track for instance isn't that great a song. certainly not hit single material BUT it worked very well indeed as the introduction to the show to follow. Not your average rock concert of the time. Or any time for that matter. Paul's voice is rousing and building interest in what's to come. The brass and the chorus singing was very opening/overture like. And then Billy Shears...
With A Little Help From My Friends
First off, it's a great great song AND certainly the first really good song the lads gave Ringo to sing. Lots of melody in the verses. A long way from 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. All the instrumentation is so well played and Paul is really playing 'lead bass' on this album. Nicely structured with the 'Billy Shears' thing opening the tune with the crowd sounds. It's not a rock and roll song is it?
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
This one definitely isn't rock and roll. With the time changes and key changes is this early prog? Along with the leslie speaker discovery they came across 'phasing' which gives the drums on this song the swirly effect. One big difference between the stereo and mono versions is the fact that the phasing is used a fair bit more on the mono. It's very clear it's used on Lennons vocal. I absolutely love the droning tamboura tones. The lyrics are very trippy, evocative, takes you on a trip don't it. Very Picturesque. Obviously about Lennon's fascination with chemical refreshment aids and sung in a little kid voice in the early verses. Lots of tasteful leslie and phashing on all the instruments. very nice.
Getting Better
A very bright tune. Basically a Paul dominated tune. At some point in the song the sharp guitar chords are ghosted by someone plucking a chord on the piano strings. The piano strings are especially to the fore in the fadeout. Again, I love the droning tamboura during the domestic violence verse. Violence is something that sounds cool to a youngster (or at least 'used to be' violent) and the drone was so cool in that exact spot. And the beat wasn't just regular 4/4 drums but a litle something special, a break beat for the verses.
Fixing A Hole
Second solo Paul tune on the record. A little meandering. Nice sentiments. More lead bass playing and George's guitar parts and solo are very ear catching. AND I never would have got a heroin reference like some people have insisted on Fix? Hole? I like the song but does it sound like filler? If John was a little more active, I'm certain that this is the Paul song that would have been left off.
She's Leaving Home
A brilliant tune and I love the slight baroque melodramatic strings by Mike Leander. I think that secretly, George Martin got into it as well. A very excellent story song. Very Coronation Street. Very Paul. Just a beautiful haunting melody, especially John's background part with the extra haunting reverb on it. Always loved it. NOT rock and roll! I prefer the MONO of this one. I don't like the slowed down master on the stereo version. Sounds too draggy. The mono is at proper pitch.
Being For The Benefit Of Mister Kite
Yes, 'being'. On the out-takes, you can here Geoff Emmerick I believe saying before a take: 'For the benefit of Mr. Kite' and John responds: 'BEING for the benefit of Mr Kite'. It wasn't my favorite song when I was younger but I've gotten to appreciate it a lot more since. It's very circus. Also not rock and roll. I don't believe there's a guitar anywhere in sight of this track. All organs. And the famous story about the wash of sounds at the end, how they took a tape of the calliope and cut it up and threw it in the air and stuck some of it in a bottle of coke and put it back together all random? Rubbish. Geoff Emmerick said that they did try the 'up in the air' trick but after they spliced it all back together, it was almost all in the order it started out in. So they had to cut it up again and actually deliberately place the peices in different places. So there.
Now here's one comment about the mono vs. stereo. Is it just me or does the mono version end with a sudden fade out? Because I like the stereo ending better. It sounds like they slashed the tape and there's the residual reverb left over. A bitmore satisfying to me.
Within You Without You
Is this Indian music? Nope. It's western pop music played with Indian instruments. The stuff on Wonderwall is closer to proper Indian music. I knew a newly immigrated Indian girl back in '86 and she knew almost NOTHING about western pop music, depite the fact that India had an EMI branch. I introduced her to The Beatles and said they do a bit of Indian music and she listened to it and told me it was NOTHING like Indian music. So there you go.
All the same, it sounds very exotic and George totally earned a spot on this record with this song. I love the Anthology instrumental version. Just a beautiful string arrangement to go with the Indian instruments. And those slidy slurs that the orchestra does? I believe it was one of the first times in not the first time that a western orchestra would slide between notes in that obviously eastern way. The laughter was a nice touch. wasn't the maharishi always laughing?
When I'm Sixty-Four
ANOTHER Paul tune. From his adolescent years. I always thought it was too cute though. But for all the summer of love hippies it fit in with the rest of the record.
Lovely Rita
Another great Paul tune. Just a fun (in what became a sort of typical Paul way) diversion lyrically. Just sillyness. Those 'psychedelic' harmonies that seem to identify in ourminds the 'psychedelic' sound were really cool. As an impressionable youngster, I loved the slightly dirty atonal ending. I learned a lot from The Beatles about stuff you could do in pop music. These little subversive inserts that would be 'avant garde' (a clue) on it's own.
Good Morning Good Morning
A very good Lennon song in my mind. Sort of summed up his life a bit at the time. Lethargic in the suburbs. But a very good moving rock song with some more proto-shredding courtesy of Paul. George never shredded. The heavily compressed horn section was perfect extra colour. You might not notice but the time signature is a bit eratic. Possibly why Ringo was playing the snare every beat. John wasn't trying to be clever with it, it just sound like a natural progression to him and it obviously was because most people wouldn't notice the time sig changes.
Another stereo vs. mono thought; the blending of the duck into the opening guitar blurp for the Sgt Pepper reprise. The mono version just sounds SOOOOO clumsy whereas it sounded like they (George and Geoff) got it right for the stereo version.
Sgt Pepper's reprise
Nice reprise of the opening theme. A variation (I listen to a lot of opera and classical music. There's loads of that stuff going on all the time) of the opening theme in that the tempo and feel is different and only the one section of the opening song was reprised (played twice with a key 'step up'). The end of the show. It works. All you (not you guys) who say 'Tommy' was a concept album, Sgt Pepper was tosh!' ah,,, bugger off. The concept was stated very clearly at the beginning. A variety show. So suck it. Lots of people liked it and it worked. And then.........
A Day In The Life
From little acorns... We all know the stories, John had a song based on a newspaper, Paul had a song based on tripping in the morning, put the two together with 24 empty bars between them, the alarm clock to keep Mal awake while counting measures.,,,,, I don't believe the alarm clock was a happy accident. I believe,,,,hmm,,,,they planned it? What was revolutionary about this song? First of all, the mundane topic matter. The absolutely haunting Lennon vocal. He had the echo taped live. He was able to phrase his singing in reaction to the echo in his headphones. Beautiful.
I'd love to turn you on. A drug/higher conciousness reference being brought from the underground to the masses. And the initially scary orchestra score they finally decided on. Just, nobody in the pop world at the time could touch it.
It was such a monumental conclusion to what was a monumental sound experiment of an album. It wan't a pop or rock and roll album at all. It was, for it's time, a work of art. And it remains so today for it's quality of recording and quality of combining different elements musically and lyrically and it retains it's freshness. A lot of intial 'psychedelic' albums from the time sound very dated and tired. The team of The Beatles along with producer and engineer created a long lasting monument to the changes happening underground in London at the time.
ALBUM COVER. For it's time, very startling. Colour on both back and front AND inside the gatefold. The crazy inner sleeve that contained the record itself and the cutouts. Today a lot of this stuff might seem ho-hum especially in the years immediately following Pepper, everybody started going all out on inserts, posters, mail in cards, labrador puppies,,,,, but they were the first. What can anyone say.
Incidentally Dave Dexter Jr. ruined my life one last time with this record by cutting off the runout groove. I never heard it until America got it's version of Rairities in 1980. Bah!
Also, if you turn up the last piano chord REALLY REALLY loud as it fades out, you can hear a chair squeak.