SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

Often when an album is highly celebrated and exalted as this album is, the music can find it hard to live up to the hype. Not so with Sgt Peppers; this is an album that deserves the praise it has been given

IT is impossible to underestimate the impact this album had. Those of us that weren't alive in 1967 when this was released (and that is probably most of us), can find it hard to appreciate what Sgt Peppers would have sounded like in the context of mid/late 60's rock music. A lot of people that were alive though, if you ask them, will tell you how Sgt Peppers was so different from what had come before. Rock music before Sergeant Peppers was 2 dimensional; capable of excellence and brilliance, but it wasn't 'epic' and it wasn't 'art'. Sgt Peppers opened the door to music being just that. Its production and arrangement was incredibly innovative. It sounded so new and original then, and it still does now

The songs themselves are very worthy of this. While it is probably the album as a whole, its production, effects etc that people were most impressed with, the individual songs are also brilliant. You probably already know them. The title track is a wonderful upbeat song, Ringo sings wonderfully on the Lennon/McCartney 'with a little help from my friends', which IMHO is MUCH better than the pretentious version released later by Joe Cocker.

The psychadelic and juvenile 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is another great song, very 'trippy' and spacey. Getting Better and Fixing a Hole are delightful songs; there is nothing to fault with them. She's leaving home is a beautiful orchestral piece sung by Paul. Mr Kite is an interesting track, not my favourite, but well produced

George's 'Within You Without You' is indian-inspired, but great to mellow out to, if a little drawn out. When I'm 64 is a very famous, jaunty, older style song. I wonder how much that song will be played when paul McCartney really does turn 64.. (that will be next year I think - he was born in '42)

Lovely Rita is a great piano-tune about Paul's love for a parking inspector. (?) John's 'Good Morning Good Morning' is about his dissatisfaction with life in the suburbs; it has a lot of bustling noises and some wonderful vocal melodies.

Then the reprise of Sgt Peppers rounds the album nicely in a slightly different tempo from the first version of the title track. But the real star is 'Day in the Life'; a beautiful song that I find impossible to describe. It features a total tempo change in the middle, written by Paul, apart from the main Lennon-bit. It is interspersed at times with swirling orchestral and piano work which is meant to simulate (I'm told) the effects of 'tripping out'. A great end to a classic album in history

I won't say Sgt Peppers is the Beatles' best; that is incapable of definition. It is perhaps the most influential album in rock history and well worthy of that statistic.