Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles

Track	Score
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band	2	2
With a Little Help from my Friends	2	3
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds	1	3
Getting Better	1	3
Fixing a hole	2	3
She's Leaving Home	3	3
Being for the benefit of Mr Kite	2	3
Within you, Without you	4	5
When I'm Sixty-Four	3	3
Lovely Rita	2	3
Good Morning Good Morning	2	3
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)	1	1
A Day in the Life	3	5
Total:	28	40
70%

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
That should spark several ideas in different peoples heads. The first concept album ever. The first orchestral album ever (actually that was Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues, but lets not get into that). The first psychadelic album. The first progressive album. I'm sure it's the first for something you can think of. Which is why it's fitting that it's the first thing I'll be reviewing isn't it. As far as concepts go it was quite an interesting one, if not very well represented, especially compared to later concepts like The Wall and Tommy. The concept is about an imaginary band, performing for an imaginary audience. It isn't referred to very often in the lyrics, although the audience is heard at times.
The first song on the album shares the album's title. And it certainly makes a start. For starters, it sounds unlike most other Beatles songs. There are two parts to it. The first part is guitar heavy hard rock. The second part on the other hand features an instrumental brass section. Then it goes back to the first part, all the while featuring an audience. Already this is an influence to the progressive rock albums to follow in a few years. You could almost say it's King Crimson for normal people. But putting aside the history of rock this song is pretty much flawless, and when you consider that this is one of the few Beatles songs which isn't overplayed, it has to receive full marks.
As we move to the second song, we see one of the first uses of a now rather common element of albums now: the segue. In fact, this does one better than other albums and has the first song directly refer to the next ("and now the singer will sing a song"). Unfortunately, with a little help from my friends doesn't have quite the power of Sgt. Pepper, being a bit slower and less complex. It still is rather difficult to fault though.
Then we move to that oh so famous psychadelic hit, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Now people who know me well probably know how much of a Syd Barrett nut I am. Syd Barrett was the king of psychadelic rock, even before psychadelia was invented. Compared to anything from early floyd or some of Syd's solo works, Lucy is rather boring. On the plus side it features some rather complex lyrics considering Peter Gabriel was yet to enter the music world, on the minus side, it's far too accessible, even today.
And while we're on accessible pop songs, we move to Getting Better. As far as overplayed pop songs go, this might be one of the better ones. A healthy amount of both instrumental and vocal layering, and the use of some themes which aren't used in every other pop song in the universe. Ruined only because it's played far too much. Of course when you think about it, if pop songs today were like this the world would be a better place. How hard can it be to make a song happy and put guitars in it anyway?
Fixing a hole is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand the vocals are both droning and graining, and the lyrics are nothing to go for either. On the other hand, thats a pretty cool bassline. And the guitars fit it very well. If you put on the Rush filter, this song can be very good.
Then we move on to She's Leaving Home. This could easily be the most beautiful song on the album. Despite being quite a lyrical song, this song would still be near perfect with just the guitar and strings going on, in fantastic harmony might I say. But then the singing starts, adding to that harmony, to make it even better. Add to that lyrics with a definate concept, which is always nice, especially since the subject of the song is something which is reasonably uncommon, and fits with the music so well.
And then we move back to the psychadelic. Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite is both weird, and funny at the same time (and probably because of one another), and it achieves this both lyrically and musically. Somewhat like what Genesis would later be like. The music changes regularly from a rather boring bassline to a weird circus like tune. The lyrics fit this very well as well. The one major flaw with this song is the fact that it drones on a bit, and could probably be finished sooner.
The second side of the record (if you're listening to a vinyl, or if you're listening to a CD but pretending it's vinyl) starts with the only George Harrison composition on the record. It has a very central Asian feel, i.e. sitars and that particular style of percussion, as was popular at the time. The lyrics add to this foreign theme, by being rather vague and philosophical. All in all it makes for a good effect. I suppose my biggest qualm is the length. Not that this song is too long, but that the majority of Beatles songs weren't long enough. This is another good example of prog influences, for a number of reasons.
When I'm Sixty-Four is quite the opposite, in that rather than having thoughtful and serious lyrics, the lyrics are silly. The tuba is just brilliant to say the least. The combination of that along with bass, piano, winds, and percussion, makes for a silly yet very well done song. I wonder if Paul McCartney feels like that now, seeing as he's been 64 for a while as I understand it.
Unlike the past two, Lovely Rita feels somewhat par. The music and lyrics are fun, for sure. But it doesn't really have that much to add. The sound effects seem somewhat out of place; it could probably have been finished before then and had a better effect. Of course it didn't have any problems as such.
After this comes the brass driven Good Morning Good Morning. The brass itself is rather annoying, as are the multi-part vocals, and the sound effects which have no point. But that's still a darn cool solo.
The second last song is a reprise of the first. It's basically the same thing, but more drum oriented, and without the brass section. It's still great though. Only problem is it's so short.
Which leaves a Day in the Life; the longest song on the album. It's also one of the better songs on the album, featuring a bit of everything (vocal harmonies, sound effects etc etc), and it's also one of the more progressive. It doesn't really make sense in the context of the album (the band just finished playing) but as a stand alone song it's great. The main problem really, is that it finishes at 4 minutes, leaving weird noises, sort of like at the end of Pink Floyd's Bike, but these are more annoying.
And with that we end the album. There are always two ways to review a piece of art. Reviewing it from today's perspective, and reviewing it from the perspective of the time it was made. This review has taken count only of it's value as a piece of music today, and as such it fails to hit the mark of later albums. However the fact is that those albums would never have been made without this one first. That said, if you're into the history of rock music then there's no reason this shouldn't be in your collection already. However, every style on this record has been done better by someone else. If you just want good music, you'd probably be better of finding a band which specialises in whatever style it is you're looking for. If you want good music which had a lot of influence, you'd probably want this album though.
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