Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2008-06-09 15:37:13

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A Breakthrough Progressive Rock Album

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is perhaps the most popular album of the Beatles. The album was first released in 1967 and almost instantly became most talked-about, hailed, and even assailed by critics. It topped the US and other major international charts for many weeks.

The album is best remembered for many controversial features and firsts in the music industry. From the cover to the song lyrics and instruments used, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band created new trends in rock music that were never before attempted by other artists of the time.

On the twentieth anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a new CD version came out in commemoration of the album's contributions to rock music. Except for a slight change in sequence of the side one songs, the 1987 CD version contained all of the original thirteen cuts. New digital engineering enhanced the sound quality and enabled listeners to hear special sound effects more distinctly.

The Album Cover

The cover featured the four Beatles members along with life-size photos of known celebrities, writers, gurus, and even fictional characters.

The Beatles themselves wore colorful band uniforms, as they pretended to be members of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For the first time, the Beatles sported mustaches and glasses, shedding their boyish mop-top clean-shave looks in past years.

Song Lyrics and Music

The Beatles practically veered away from conventional rock music styles, using varied tempo, unusual lyrics and seemingly mismatched sequences. The album was also the first to use automatic double tracking, a system which combines the actual singing voices with pre-recorded voices to create multiple vocals. Unlike other sixties bands which utilized love themes, the Beatles experimented with strange and even outrageous themes which made many critic suspected as drug influences.

Instrumentation and Special Effects

Unlike the usual electric guitars, drums and organs of their contemporaries, the Beatles introduced unconventional instruments. Aside from a full orchestra, they also used the harpsichord, glockenspiel, and even an Indian sitar.

One of the songs, which was about a poster announcing a charity circus act, used calliopes and fairground organs to create a unique circus sound effect. The last cut of the album also had a distinctly dream-like vertigo effect coupled with extremely shrill sound effects.

Mixed Reviews

The album received a mixture of admiration and sharp criticism. Some music critics have hailed it as one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, while others blasted its distorted sound effects and drug allusions.

Nonetheless, the album had profound influence upon other artists and created a trend towards special effects and unique instrumentation in rock music during later years.


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