It seems reasonable enough for the first MusicByDay.com retro album review to be for what is considered by many music critics to be the most important album ever recorded. As an example of the critical acclaim the album still commands long after it’s release in 1967, it ranked #1 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time list in 2003.

For those of us born well after the album was released it can be hard to understand the context of Sgt Pepper’s release. It’s often wondered why the album was considered so groundbreaking at the time when they had already released Revolver which included the song “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which is more “far out” and experimental than anything on Sgt. Pepper. They had also already released songs like “Rain” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” as singles which were at least as creative and adventurous as any of the songs on Sgt. Pepper.

This leads to the conclusion that it wasn’t just the songs themselves that made Sgt. Pepper such a ground breaking album when it was released in the summer of 1967 but the way the album held up as a single piece of work. While the “concept album” aspect of Sgt Pepper may seem quite subtle compared to many of the more fleshed out concept albums that have come since, at the time it was a revelation that an album could be something other than a compilation of songs. An album could have a personality of it’s own.

I would, and in fact I will, argue that it’s the looseness of the Sgt. Pepper concept that makes it stand up so well over time. More overtly themed albums like The Who’s Tommy haven’t aged as well. It becomes a bit overbearing over the course of an album to have the same theme in your face. With Sgt. Pepper you enter a different world with each song as each is significantly different than the one that came before. And that’s the whole point. It’s this “other” band taking you through all of these different styles of music. The surrealness of the trip is what’s so enchanting.

One moment you are watching a string quartet, the next you’re at a circus, and then you’re in India, and then you’re at music hall in the 1930s. There’s more variety in these four tracks than in most bands entire careers.

It was the first Beatles album where some of the songs bled into each other. Previous to Pepper all of the songs on their albums had space between them. This continuation of sound between the tracks, particularly the first two and the last three really helped to sell the idea of an album being more than just a collection of songs. Another major factor in selling the concept of Pepper is the title track reprise which ties in the end of the album with the beginning and makes everything in between feel more connected than it actually is. The crowd noise that began the album also makes a return in this track.

The album contains some of the Beatles most well known songs such as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “With a Little Help from my Friends,” and “A Day in the Life.”

The album closer “A Day in the Life” is considered by many, including myself, to be the Beatles greatest song. The song was co-written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon wrote the main verse parts and McCartney wrote the middle section. This combination of these two ideas somehow work perfectly together as representing two aspects of the same mind. McCartney’s section representing the day to day life of getting up and catching a bus and so on. While Lennon’s parts conjure a lost in thought feeling.

“Somebody spoke and I went into a dream…”

While it has become quite hip to say that Sgt. Pepper is overrated and that Revolver is the Beatles real masterpiece I must disagree. While the individual songs on Revolver are just as strong, if not stronger, than those on Sgt. Pepper, there is a certain magic to Pepper which Revolver does not have. When I listen to Revolver I feel I am listening to a lot of great songs, and that’s certainly enjoyable but I do agree with the music critics of the time that Sgt. Pepper was a step forward. Besides being a statement that says pop music can also be art music, it’s also a unique and enchanting listening experience.

While it is not my favorite Beatles album, that honor is saved for the White Album, I do think in many ways Sgt Pepper is their greatest album. It’s their most cohesive album and it showcases a great variety of styles without a single weak track in the bunch.

The Beatles on the making of Sgt Pepper

An ABC report on the album on the 40th anniversary of the album’s release

1967, 60s, The Beatles

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