Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles (The) > Reviews > Trippy... but oh so good.

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	Wonderful lyrics, great sounds .
Disadvantages:	Some of the tracks don't sit that well together .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Strange isn't a strong enough word to describe this album. So much of what's on it has been copied that it would be strange to call it experimental, but that's exactly what it was when it first came out.

The Beatles spend the whole album pretending to be a band called "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". It's a rather odd charade and it doesn't really add all that much to the album, but the songs are fantastic, and it doesn't take anything away from them either.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2:02): The introduction. You can hear the band's loving audience laughing and cheering in the background. The sound is a cross between the regular Beatles' sound mixed with the sound of some sort of army marching band.

2. A little friend of my friends (2:42): The track flows straight on from the last one with just an introduction of "Billy Shears" (who will sing the song) between them. The song is the same one as is used in the title sequence to "The Wonder Years", though the rest of the song is, in my opinion, better than the bit they actually use.

3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (3:28): The pretence of a live concert is dropped as there is a short gap of silence before a completely different sound. The track itself is probably my favorite on the album, though I've no idea what any of the lyrics are meant to be. It's said to be about taking LSD (look at the initials of the title), and the lyrics are almost as random and tripped out as "I am the Walrus".

4. Getting Better (2:48): I've had this track totally ruined for me by those Phillips ads that copy a piece of it ("Got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time"). The Beatles' version sounds far better than the version sung on those adverts, though.

5. Fixing A Hole (2:37): A relaxing, slightly trippy, track. Nice work on the instruments, even if they do send you to sleep a bit.

6. She's Leaving Home (3:35): One of the most gentle and tender tracks the Beatles ever wrote. Classical instruments in the background and slow lyrics create a brilliant sound, but one that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the track.

7. Being For The benefit of Mr. Kite (2:35): A more upbeat track. It describes a load of circus feats that are going to be perforrmed, and the music sounds quite circusy as well.

8. Within you without you (5:04): Reminding us how experimental the album is, some extremely oriental sounding music. Different instruments and a very different sound to the rest of the album, but still an equally good one.

9. When I'm 64 (2:38): Much more conventional track... In fact it's more conventional than anything else the Beatles ever did and sounds like it was written 20 years earlier. Very quaint and bouncy tune, with enjoyable lyrics.

10. Lovely Rita (2:42): "Lovely Rita, meter maid", the lyrics to what is probably the worst track on the album. Slightly awkward lyrics and a weak tune. It does stick in your head, though.

11. Good Morning, Good Morning (2:41): One of the only "morning" tracks that I can bear to actually listen to in the morning apart from "Wake Up Boo" by the Boo Radleys. The lyrics describe a guy with a rather dull life, but who seems to have woken up in a good mood. It's a good track to listen to when not having a very good day, but you're not prepared to be put in a bad mood.

12. Sgt. Pepper (reprise) (1:18): Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band thank the audience (who you can hear once again) and announce that the concert is almost over. It sounds very similar to the first track, but is more upbeat.

13. A Day in the Life (5:33): This track varies wildly, with calm but bouncy bits with prominent vocals to trippy and epic bits where the instruments are prominent and someone sounds like they are having an LSD trip in the background, to quite dramatic music. At the end, there are a few seconds of pause followed by the Beatles saying something, but the tape being played backwards. I've no idea what they say (It sounds like "never could be any other way" the way it ends up on the track), since if you don't play it on a record deck, you don't have the ability to turn the record backwards. It's okay to hear the first time you play the album, but you don't want to hear the gibberish every time you listen to the album, especially if it's just on as background music!

The individual tracks on this album are some of the best work that the Beatles ever did. The only minor problem that I have with the album is that some of the tracks don't really sit with each other properly. The Beatles clearly tried to hard to make each track outstanding in its own right that they were prepeared to sacrafice the flow of the album. This is only a minor gripe, though, and there aren't any really jarring differences between tracks.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the best selling album of all time in the UK (Unless What's the Story (Morning Glory) has managed to sell a few thousand copies in the past few months), and it's very easy to see why. There are some truly classic tracks on the album, and no fan of British music should be without it.

I just wish I could understand what all the tripped out lyrics were supposed to mean...