Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles (The) > Reviews > All the fun of the fair

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	Some great songs
Disadvantages:	Some twee pop

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”

It seemed a far off question in those days when cute old Paulie was asking the question, but these days the boyish good looks have been replaced by the saggy jowels and wrinkles of a very old man, still with that hangdog eye expression, but somehow looking much older than his true age.

Comes to all of us in the end, I’m afraid, but we never really considered that those wild young things, the Fab Four would end up being sad old men, and for at least one of them, the hugely talented but eternally tormented maestro John Lennon, that Daltresy-esque plea of “I hope I die before I get old” would come bitterly to pass. George Harrison has been another recent victim of the passing over sickness, leaving just two, good old Ringo ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ Starr, and Paulie. Why do the good always die young?

Has any of this got anything to do with their 1967 tour de force album, though? Well, probably not but it brings it all home to you, the days of zip up slippers and cardies. SHUDDER!!!

Anyway, let’s get back to the knitting...

Sergeant Pepper was in many ways a bit of a watershed triumph, the set on which the Beatles and their regular producer George Martin finally spread their wings, stretching the boundaries of what was then the accepted boundary of what the studio could produce and the rock album could contain. At least that’s what the pop historians would have you believe, with their 20-20 hindsight and rose tinted specs, bleating about the mastery of the art and the pop song as classic rock. However, strip away the misty veils with which this album has been draped, and you actually get something which is just a pleasant little collection of overly optimistic and twee ditties, with only the phenomenal Day In The Life and the frankly bizarre Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite really leaping on to a higher plane.

The standard of this album is much more set by the pop by numbers of With A Little Help From My Friends, with good old Big Nose rendering the song a plinky plonk working men’s club standard, where Shaky Joe Cocker transformed it into a classic bluesy plea. You also get the happy go lucky Lovely Rita, When I’m 64 and Good Morning Good Morning, bland pop dross of the dullest kind.

But if the fare on offer is so bloody dreary, then why has Sergeant Pepper been acclaimed as one of the greatest of all 60’s albums, a huge revolutionary step forward in the annals of rock?

Well, to be honest, it’s really because of what the Beatles were at this point in their history, revered as the new Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, riding on the crest of a five year long wave which had swept them along to being the biggest band there has ever been. Historical perspective is a wonderful, wonderful thing, but sadly in this case it has rendered a very dull collection as almost the royalty of records.

Okay, slagging over - let’s not be too hard on the boys, because after all it’s only the hype that is the problem, not the material. As a collection of pleasant pop songs, it’s quite nice and refreshing and captures the Beatles in the half way house between the up and coming mastery of Revolver and Rubber Soul and the descent into self destructive back biting that brought us the White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

It was a shame to see such talented individuals who created such marvellous music disappear into a haze of sex and drugs and Eastern hippy dippy philosophising, but then that’s the way of the world and at least we get some halfway decent pop songs to remember them by, even if With A Little Help From My Friends is ultra depressing pap...

Still, to hear Day In The Life, with its revolutionary ramblings and “Thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” is to forgive virtually anything. Rest assured, you won’t regret buying this album, but just don’t expect the ultimate rock album, will you?

Full track listing –
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
Fixing A Hole
She’s Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!
Within You Without You
When I’m 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
A Day In The Life

It was twenty years ago today,
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play,
they've been going in and out of style,
but they're guaranteed to raise the smile.
So may I introduce to you,
the act you've known for all these years,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph.
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.
I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
but I just had to look
Having read the book.
I'd love to turn you on
Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I'd love to turn you on