Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

[chris]

Yeah! 40 years later, I don't get the criticism it seems to draw today! Weird how public opinion has kinda turned against it.

i wasn't aware there was a big backlash against this album. if i was forced to say something...anything...negaitive about this album it might be that it sounds sort of dated. it sounds like a product of the 60's (which, oddly, the white album and abbey road do not).

but even then, that's a reach of a knock. it began a string of albums (by bands other than the beatles as well) that were collections of music, not just songs... that had beginnings, middles, and endings. and rock music was truly never the same after. 

[Borris]

if i was forced to say something...anything...negaitive about this album it might be that it sounds sort of dated. it sounds like a product of the 60's (which, oddly, the white album and abbey road do not).

I think this album put a real stamp upon the summer of love which was perhaps the epitome of the 60's, there was a real optimism about it that has since vanished, and upon which many look askance. I really feel that you can see a sea change compare this to Pink Floyd's monster album from 1973 Dark Side of the Moon, which was also a connecting series of songs strung together with plenty of production innovation and also has Zeitgeist, the tone of this later album is one of resignation and weariness.

The optimism, colour and imagination that is Sgt Pepper is what makes it stand out for me, the Beatles were riding a wave of the time and they and the time seemed full of hope. This is probably my favourite pop album of all time.

[Greg]

Deconstructing Pepper:

[mervap]

Thanks for posting that....it's always cool to hear the different parts broken down like that.

[Kylenz]

Brilliant.. that lead guitar contains lots of bum notes and looseness but somehow it seems so right! Love the crude way the horns are punched in then back to the guitar again!

[oldasSoul]

Fantastic! It's so nice to hear slight imperfections in the parts a song: they're what make a song "perfect" as a complete performance.

Quite a different sound when there are real people playing real instruments together in a room, rather than everyone laying down a part on their computer, then having it all stitched together afterwards. No ProTools, no autotune, just real musicians rocking out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post!!!!

[Greg]

Yeah I was in a studio last summer recording bass on a couple tunes for a guy's cd.  What a joke.  Tricks and gadgets to make everything perfect.  No soul.  They actually never did capture a performance.  They just took parts that they liked from each take and pasted them to make one song that didn't actually happen. 

Some of the vocals on today's songs are just brutal to listen to because of the effects put on them.  Gimme some old Ojays or anything but that heavily manipulated stuff.