Bob Dylan’s instant reaction to the recently completed album Paul McCartney brought by his London hotel room for a quick listen in the spring of 1967 may not sound like the most thoughtful analysis ever offered, but it still hit the nail on the head. “Oh I get it,” Dylan said to Paul on hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for the first time, “you don’t want to be cute anymore.” In time, the Beatles’ eighth studio album would come to be regarded by many as the greatest in the history of rock and roll, and oceans of ink would be spilt in praising and analyzing its revolutionary qualities. But what Bob Dylan picked up on immediately was its meaning to the Beatles themselves, who turned a critical corner in their career with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on June 1, 1967.
Writing in The Times of London in 1967, the critic Kenneth Tynan called the release of Sgt. Pepper “a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization,” but 30 years later, Paul McCartney called it a decisive moment of a more personal nature. “We were not boys, we were men,” is how he summed up the Beatles’ mindset as they gave up live performance and set about defining themselves purely as a studio band. “All that boy [stuff], all that screaming, we didn’t want any more,” McCartney said. “There was now more to it.” With Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles announced their intention to be seen “as artists rather than just performers.”
Sgt. Pepper is often cited as the first “concept album,” and as the inspiration for other great pop stars of the 60s, from the Stones and the Beach Boys to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, to reach for new heights of creativity. For the Beatles themselves, 1967 marked not just a new creative peak, but also the beginning of a three-year period in which the group recorded and released an astonishing five original studio albums, including two—1968’s The Beatles (a.k.a. “The White Album”) and 1969’s Abbey Road—that occupy the 10th and 14th spots, respectively, on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the Greatest Albums of All Time. Also in the top 15 on that list are Rubber Soul (1965) at #5, Revolver (1966) at #3 and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at #1.
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That song inspired Peter Gabriel of Genesis’ fame “From Genesis to Revelation” which I still own in original jacket. I also own the original LP “Sargent Pepper” from the Beatles.
According to some people Paul was replaced between Sargent Pepper and Abbey Road.
Supposedly right after Revolver in late ’66, Paul left a recording session and had a car accident, which decapitated him; the other Beatles hired the winner of a Paul look-alike contest, supposedly named William Shears Campbell, to replace him on Sgt. Pepper’s (how this doppleganger could also sound exactly like Paul is beyond me).
So they started leaving clues in some of their album’s songs, starting with Sgt. Pepper’s, to mess with fans’ minds — like in “With A Little Help from My Friends,” when Paul sings, “so let me introduce to you the one-and-only Billy Shears,” for example. That’s what started the “Paul Is Dead” story, but not until 1969 did some DJ notice it, and then people started putting the puzzle together.
It is interesting to hear George Harrison refer to Paul as ‘Faul’ in many interviews.
Writing in The Times of London in 1967, the critic Kenneth Tynan called the release of Sgt. Pepper a “decisive moment in the history of Western civilization”………………………….
Stop it. You’re killin’ me.
:>)
The best thing Lennon ever did was call out Mick Jagger for “all that fag dancing”.
I was in lust with Marianne Faithful in those days.
Georges S
“I was in lust with Marianne Faithful in those days.”
Proof of normalcy accepted.
Actually, I think they sucked except for a couple of songs. Never got what the deal was except they were one of the 1st back in the day. By the time I was in my teens they had come and gone. To me, the Who were more durable
Totally different genre. As mentioned above their work gave birth to Genesis (prior to the arrival of Phil passthemoney Collins)
I’ve heard Oasis were brilliant. I’ve also heard there are scones that don’t suck.
Sorry Bobby D…Dark Side Of The Moon is the greatest LP ever .
The beatles? Who fucking cares?
“But I thought that you might like to know,
That the singer’s going to sing a song,
And he wants you all to sing along.
So let me introduce to you
The one and only Billy Shears
And Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”