SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

The Beatles are here on Prog Archives because of their enormous importance to the history and evolution of rock, and their undoubted influence on early prog artists. (An influence which continues to be heard to this day.) No other band has ever been, or will ever be, as big as the four lads from Liverpool were. When it came to well-crafted, melodic and catchy pop songs that had the power to resonate with listeners of almost all ages and cultures, no one could touch the Beatles. A testament to the timeless quality of their work is the fact that their material continues to be played all over the world. Legions of other artists, representing diverse genres from pop, to jazz, to soul, to country, to disco, to Celtic, to prog have seen fit to cover one or more Beatles songs. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find any adult on planet Earth who doesn't have at least a passing familiarity with songs like "Let It Be," "Help," "Revolution," "Eleanor Rigby," etc, etc, etc! Love 'em or hate 'em (and there are many more in the former camp than the latter), unless you're a modern-day stone age tribesman, you've heard of, and heard, the Beatles. No comprehensive library of popular music would be complete without at least a couple of Beatles albums, and no student of musical history would have a complete education without an exposure to their enduring work.

Given the Beatles massive impact on music and the wider culture (not to mention the fact that their music is just darned good stuff), every prog fan, young or old, should own at least one of their seminal albums, and SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND would be a very good choice. The importance of this ground-breaking recording cannot be overstated. Everyone, but EVERYONE - including the pioneers of progressive rock -- owned a copy (or was at least more than passing familiar with it), and most of those who did adored it. Over the near forty years since SGT. PEPPER'S release, the list of important artists who have cited it as having had an influence on their musical development has been a long list indeed. I have all of the Beatles' albums, and still play them all with pleasure, but it is the band's latter-day, mustached and more "psychedelic" phase that will be of most interest or relevance to the progressive rock fan. SGT. PEPPER'S looms large among those deeper, "longer haired" albums (from REVOLVER through to LET IT BE), and it's the only one I plan to review here.

To critique a Beatles album without a view to, and appreciation for, its historical context is, I believe, to do it a disservice. SGT. PEPPER'S is not just a loosely-connected collection of thirteen well-made pop songs from 1967 - this album set the standard for studio craft, and the wider possibilities of pop as an artistic medium. Simply put, it raised the bar (by a wide increment), and let developing artists and the industry see that rock could be made to do much more than it had to that point. To a large degree, to properly appreciate this album, you "had to be there."

It's all quite good, of course, but the most "proggish" tracks include the dreamy/psychedelic "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," (a ditty whose initials caused quite a stir at the time), the touching "She's Leaving Home" with its exquisite orchestral accents, "Within You Without You" (a George Harrison composition, which reflects his interest in Eastern spirituality and music), and the awesome "A Day in the Life." This last masterful, moving album closer might seem somewhat unremarkable now (especially to younger listeners), but its contrasting sections, time changes and greater length that moved beyond the usual two to three-minute radio-friendly format were bold, brave developments for its day. (Granted, you can point to other artists from that bygone era who were also writing longer, deeper, more complex rock songs, but none had the enormous reach, influence and audience of the Beatles.)

I would never counsel owning only one Beatles album (if only because you'd thus be missing out on a LOT of great music), but if I were to be so cruelly limited, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEART'S CLUB BAND would be the one I'd bring along for my exile to that fabled desert island. A five star masterpiece of (small P) "progressive" music!