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It Was 50 Years Ago Today, Sgt. Pepper ...
May 28, 2017 6:41:07 GMT -5
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Post by beth on May 28, 2017 6:41:07 GMT -5
It Was 50 Years Ago Today, Sgt Pepper Taught The Band To Play
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We’re seeing a number of 50th anniversary pop culture events this year, with 1967 being the “Summer of Love” and all. That year The Doors’ first hit, “Light My Fire,” burned up the airwaves, The Who performed their first US concert, and Aretha Franklin’s version of Otis Redding’s “Respect” owned the summer.
Today, May 26, fans in the UK are celebrating the 50-year anniversary of perhaps the most revered rock LP of all time, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The US release was a week later, June 2, 1967. It became the first rock LP to win the Grammy for Best Album and the ‘60s best-selling record.
I was a stock boy in a grocery store that summer, working the 11PM-7AM overnight shift. A co-worker brought in a portable record player and blasted Sgt. Pepper over the store’s PA system while we piled the shelves with soup and cereal. It was a “holy cow” night, hearing sitars, wobbly tape speeds, orchestras and lotsa circus-y, majestic shit reverberate through the cavernous store. “Attention shoppers: brains exploding on aisle 5.”
Where was the hit single? Most Beatles albums produced three, four or more two-minute ditties that AM radio feasted on. But these new songs didn’t fit the AM format—too strange, too long or short, no gaps between songs, and you couldn’t dance to them. Before long this thing called “album rock” showed up on FM radio, where they played the entire record! A friend was a late-night DJ, lots of free time—put on Side 1 and kick back.
Until Pepper few cultural critics took rock music seriously. Even Paul called their early stuff “I Love You, Buy My Record.” But soon thoughtful album reviews, which also included social and political stuff, appeared in magazines like Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone, which started in 1967, the year Sgt. Pepper was released. WTF are those 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire? And who is Mr. Kite? Somebody tell me! I know what “I wanna hold your hand” means, but what the heck are “plasticine porters with looking glass ties”?
Then there was the cover, which we’d spend stoned nights deciphering—without Google to help. As a young teen I didn’t know many of the cultural references, so it was an educational experience to learn about Carl Jung, Oscar Wilde and the 60 or so other faces. Their next album would do the opposite: plain white, nothing, nada. It includes my favorite Beatles’ song, “Dear Prudence,” John’s plea to Mia Farrow’s sister.
Until Sgt. Pepper most of the Beatles’ albums were different in the UK and US. You didn’t hear “And Your Bird Can Sing” and a few other songs on the original US version of Revolver. While Sgt. Pepper isn’t a true “concept album” like we’d see with Tommy and others, it is an album experience and The Beatles knew it (there was no single release at the time), so their new contract stipulated that there would be no difference between the UK and US versions.
Many people probably haven’t heard Sgt. Pepper the way The Beatles preferred it—in mono. Recorded on a 4-track, it was mixed in mono and stereo but like most of their catalog, the band had virtually no role in the stereo mix. Of their dozen studio albums, the early LPs were released in mono, and only Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be were recorded and mixed solely in stereo, a format John didn’t seem keen on. When he first heard Rubber Soul in the re-enginnered stereo version, John said he about puked. After CDs took over, their albums were almost always released in stereo, even the early records. Today, though, there are a lot of mono collections out there, on wax and digital—back to the original.
I have all the records in mono and it is different. If, like me, you’ve listened to “A Day in the Life” a gazillion times, there are little jolts of variation—no separation and flash, just clean harmony. Producer George Martin’s son Giles just released a 50th anniversary edition of Pepper in stereo that Slate Magazine says “accomplishes the feat of finally delivering a stereo mix that feels both sonically and spiritually true to the original mono mix.”
Sgt. Pepper isn’t my favorite Beatles record, and I sure wish Sir George Martin had put “Strawberry Fields” and “Penny Lane” on the album—they were the record’s catalyst after all. Under pressure from manager Brian Epstein the two songs were left off Pepper, perhaps because they were the first Beatles’ singles that didn’t sell very well. While the amazing Rubber Soul and Revolver prepared us for what was to come, many fans didn’t like the new songs (check out this clip of Dick Clark introducing “Strawberry Fields”). Sir George later said leaving the two songs off Sgt. Pepper was the greatest regret of his career.
Fans and critics will probably continue to argue over whether Pepper deserves the “greatest album” or “watershed” label it’s often granted. Artistically, many critics and listeners rank it below other Beatles’ records like Rubber Soul or Abbey Road, but similar to Kind of Blue and Highway 61 Revisited, it’s often placed higher on the scale of importance.
That lots of people are even talking about a rock ‘n roll record 50 years later is a thing to hold onto during the dark days of Trump, where art, music, literature and creativity in general, not to mention historical truth, scientific fact and just plain thinking, are under assault in our schools and the public square. Eliminate NEA and NEH, cut public TV/radio, do away with scholarships and other assistance, subsidize Wall Street’s education nightmare that trains instead of teaches.
Corporations running education—yeah, good idea. Evil greedy lying shitheads and DeVos is the cheerleader.
As the Trump administration craters, but not fast enough, perhaps a little back-and-forth between Paul and John on Sgt. Pepper offers some solace: “I admit it's getting better, a little better all the time (can't get no worse).”
from Amazon (I think) via Daily KOS
REBLOGGED BY
Subversive Agitation Team Action Network
An Ear for Music
Recommended
TAGS
Beatles
Music
Recommended
sgtpepper
Share this article
We’re seeing a number of 50th anniversary pop culture events this year, with 1967 being the “Summer of Love” and all. That year The Doors’ first hit, “Light My Fire,” burned up the airwaves, The Who performed their first US concert, and Aretha Franklin’s version of Otis Redding’s “Respect” owned the summer.
Today, May 26, fans in the UK are celebrating the 50-year anniversary of perhaps the most revered rock LP of all time, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The US release was a week later, June 2, 1967. It became the first rock LP to win the Grammy for Best Album and the ‘60s best-selling record.
I was a stock boy in a grocery store that summer, working the 11PM-7AM overnight shift. A co-worker brought in a portable record player and blasted Sgt. Pepper over the store’s PA system while we piled the shelves with soup and cereal. It was a “holy cow” night, hearing sitars, wobbly tape speeds, orchestras and lotsa circus-y, majestic shit reverberate through the cavernous store. “Attention shoppers: brains exploding on aisle 5.”
Where was the hit single? Most Beatles albums produced three, four or more two-minute ditties that AM radio feasted on. But these new songs didn’t fit the AM format—too strange, too long or short, no gaps between songs, and you couldn’t dance to them. Before long this thing called “album rock” showed up on FM radio, where they played the entire record! A friend was a late-night DJ, lots of free time—put on Side 1 and kick back.
Until Pepper few cultural critics took rock music seriously. Even Paul called their early stuff “I Love You, Buy My Record.” But soon thoughtful album reviews, which also included social and political stuff, appeared in magazines like Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone, which started in 1967, the year Sgt. Pepper was released. WTF are those 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire? And who is Mr. Kite? Somebody tell me! I know what “I wanna hold your hand” means, but what the heck are “plasticine porters with looking glass ties”?
Then there was the cover, which we’d spend stoned nights deciphering—without Google to help. As a young teen I didn’t know many of the cultural references, so it was an educational experience to learn about Carl Jung, Oscar Wilde and the 60 or so other faces. Their next album would do the opposite: plain white, nothing, nada. It includes my favorite Beatles’ song, “Dear Prudence,” John’s plea to Mia Farrow’s sister.
Until Sgt. Pepper most of the Beatles’ albums were different in the UK and US. You didn’t hear “And Your Bird Can Sing” and a few other songs on the original US version of Revolver. While Sgt. Pepper isn’t a true “concept album” like we’d see with Tommy and others, it is an album experience and The Beatles knew it (there was no single release at the time), so their new contract stipulated that there would be no difference between the UK and US versions.
Many people probably haven’t heard Sgt. Pepper the way The Beatles preferred it—in mono. Recorded on a 4-track, it was mixed in mono and stereo but like most of their catalog, the band had virtually no role in the stereo mix. Of their dozen studio albums, the early LPs were released in mono, and only Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be were recorded and mixed solely in stereo, a format John didn’t seem keen on. When he first heard Rubber Soul in the re-enginnered stereo version, John said he about puked. After CDs took over, their albums were almost always released in stereo, even the early records. Today, though, there are a lot of mono collections out there, on wax and digital—back to the original.
I have all the records in mono and it is different. If, like me, you’ve listened to “A Day in the Life” a gazillion times, there are little jolts of variation—no separation and flash, just clean harmony. Producer George Martin’s son Giles just released a 50th anniversary edition of Pepper in stereo that Slate Magazine says “accomplishes the feat of finally delivering a stereo mix that feels both sonically and spiritually true to the original mono mix.”
Sgt. Pepper isn’t my favorite Beatles record, and I sure wish Sir George Martin had put “Strawberry Fields” and “Penny Lane” on the album—they were the record’s catalyst after all. Under pressure from manager Brian Epstein the two songs were left off Pepper, perhaps because they were the first Beatles’ singles that didn’t sell very well. While the amazing Rubber Soul and Revolver prepared us for what was to come, many fans didn’t like the new songs (check out this clip of Dick Clark introducing “Strawberry Fields”). Sir George later said leaving the two songs off Sgt. Pepper was the greatest regret of his career.
Fans and critics will probably continue to argue over whether Pepper deserves the “greatest album” or “watershed” label it’s often granted. Artistically, many critics and listeners rank it below other Beatles’ records like Rubber Soul or Abbey Road, but similar to Kind of Blue and Highway 61 Revisited, it’s often placed higher on the scale of importance.
That lots of people are even talking about a rock ‘n roll record 50 years later is a thing to hold onto during the dark days of Trump, where art, music, literature and creativity in general, not to mention historical truth, scientific fact and just plain thinking, are under assault in our schools and the public square. Eliminate NEA and NEH, cut public TV/radio, do away with scholarships and other assistance, subsidize Wall Street’s education nightmare that trains instead of teaches.
Corporations running education—yeah, good idea. Evil greedy lying shitheads and DeVos is the cheerleader.
As the Trump administration craters, but not fast enough, perhaps a little back-and-forth between Paul and John on Sgt. Pepper offers some solace: “I admit it's getting better, a little better all the time (can't get no worse).”
from Amazon (I think) via Daily KOS