SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

When Sgt. Pepper was originally released in 1967, it was hailed as the Beatles' ultimate masterpiece and a key work in Western music history. There were a few critical voices at the time, most notably Richard Goldstein of the New York Times who felt it was more about effects than music - not to mention Frank Zappa who thought the Beatles were insincere in their approach to psychedelia, that they were "Only in It for the Money". Apart from that, the album was met with almost universal praise. In later years it has almost become a sport to downgrade it as insanely overrated, but I guess that's just the general fate of such monolithic albums (The Dark Side of the Moon is another example of that).

Is Sgt. Pepper the best Beatles album? Not necessarily. But is it overrated? Absolutely not. On a solely musical level an album like Revolver may be better. Several tracks may not be as strong when judged as individual songs, but if you take them out of the album, the whole construction would fall apart. They are all crucial part of the suite, because that is essentially what it is. The songs compliment each other perfectly and - as was then highly unusual - they often crossfade into each other, making it a unified musical journey. If the ending of one song doesn't entirely match the beginning of the next, then they are bound together by small intersections, like the one between the title track and "A Little Help From My Friends", or the chicken sounds between "Good Morning Good Morning" and the reprise of the title track.

Some have argued that the concept doesn't work because only the first two songs - plus the reprise on side 2 - actually relate to Billy Shears and Sgt. Pepper's band. I think that is a misunderstanding of the whole work. The overall frame is of course that of a concert with the band: first an introduction to the band (title track), then to the singer ("A Little Help?"), then at the end of side 2 there's the farewell song plus an extra ("A Day In the Life"). The songs in between are not related to Sgt. Pepper and his band as such, but if instead you choose to look at the album as the idea of this fictional orchestra painting a picture of modern society and the world around us in its different aspects, then all the songs make perfect sense to the album as a whole. We get around many different aspects: the psychedelic and spiritual ideas of the time ("Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", "Fixing a Hole" and "Within You Without You"), entertainment ("Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite"), generation conflicts and coming of age ("She's Leaving Home", "Getting Better", "When I'm 64"), and the absurdities of modern society ("Good Morning Good Morning", "A Day in the Life").

Musically we are far from Liverpool, and even Revolver is much more rooted in rock and roll than this album is. The compositions are becoming more complex: "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" have tempo changes, the title track and "A Day In the Life" abandon traditional verse/chorus song structure, and "Good Morning Good Morning" has irregular bars (plus a shift to a 6/8 time signature in the "chorus"). Another interesting aspect that sets Sgt. Pepper apart from their previous work is the swing feel of many songs: "A Little Help From My Friends", "Getting Better", "Fixing a Hole", "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and "When I'm Sixty Four". Not to mention the many unusual instruments, especially wind instruments like french horns (title track), saxophones ("Good Morning"), clarinets ("When I'm 64"), but also Indian instruments ("Lucy in the Sky", "Getting Better", Within You Without You", harpsichord ("Fixing a Hole"). And then there are the many sound effects, out of which the most radical are the cacophonic collage of randomly combined tape pieces in "Mr. Kite" and the orchestral crescendo in "A Day In the Life". Other interesting sounds include the piano intro of "Getting Better" where the piano strings were hit with hammers rather than with the keys. The great thing is the combination of, on one side these radical sounds, and on the other side some easily accessible compositions that you can sing along to. That itself is a great achievement.

McCartney was the main mastermind behind the album as a concept, and his songs outnumber Lennon's. But I actually think Lennon stands out more on this album - as opposed to Revolver where McCartney really shone. Apart from his magnum opus, "A Day In the Life", which I will come to later, there are really interesting things happening in "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", "Mr. Kite" and Good Morning". The latter really benefits from the previously mentioned irregular time signature whereas "Mr. Kite" also contains some intriguing key changes along the way. Lyrically these songs represent a side of Lennon which he sadly dismissed later on, probably due to the influence of Yoko Ono. Instead of writing from his own experiences, he takes on the role as the observer here.

Still, there is plenty of superb melody writing from McCartney on songs like "Getting Better", "Fixing a Hole" or the warm and charmingly altmodisch "When I'm 64" which clearly shows the influence from music hall (it was actually one of the first songs he wrote, and it was played now and then during the Hamburg years). "Fixing a Hole" might stand out as his biggest moment as a melodist on the album with its wonderfully dynamic wave-like melody, but the song also deserves praise for its play with minor (vers) and major (chorus).

On the flipside, a couple of songs recycle elements that had been done better on Revolver, most notably the string section on "She's Leaving Home" which sadly doesn't live up to "Eleanor Rigby"s intensity and complex emotional signals. Here the feel is more one-dimensional, and a tad sentimental too. Also Harrison's "Within You Without You" - another exercise in incorporating Indian sounds - isn't quite as strong as "Love You To". It is also rather long, and a bit monotonous without the nerve of the track from Revolver. On the other hand, there is also something meditative and hypnotic about it that fascinates anyway. Not to mention, the sequencing of that song and McCartney's cozy and old-fashioned "When I'm 64" is pure genius: after the spiritual journey we are back to something very down-to-earth, and it is contrasts like these that make the album such an enjoyable experience.

The absolute peak is without question "A Day In the Life"; the single greatest track of their whole career, and one of the greatest pieces of art in the 20th Century. Lyrically it is based on three unrelated stories: the death in a traffic accident of a member of the House of Lords, a war that had just been won, and the - in the context - absurd story of 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And then there's McCartney's everyday story about waking up and going to work. All in all a sort of collage that paints a picture of the world, and as such you could say it's the essence of the whole album cooked down to one song. The unease is perfectly captured in the music, both in the playing (Ringo's drumfills in particular), the unstable harmonic structure and Lennon's singing voice.It gets even more ominous with the cacophonic orchestral crescendos that really depict the craziness of it all perfectly, and then the dark prolonged piano chord at the end - a possible hint at nuclear weapons. Only McCartney's everyday story contrasts with its more down-to-earth feel. The vocal production captures this contrast perfectly: Whereas Lennon's voice has a lot of reverb, McCartney's is totally stripped of effects and sounds much more "close" to the listener. Had the song been a painting, his intermission would be the small spot of red in an otherwise mostly blue picture; it's the contrast that gives the whole thing balance. And yet, the everyday story of waking up is just as important to the picture as the traffic jam, the war, the potholes and the nuclear bomb.

So is Sgt. Pepper a perfect album on its musical merits alone? Not necessarily. But as an overall piece of conceptual art, I'd say yes.