As with The Byrds, the first name that drops from my lips when I speak of progressive rock is not that of the "Fab Four". Although I’m no fan and have heard little of their music beyond the singles, and I know they did a lot of experimental work later in their career, their contribution to the evolution of progressive rock has always been a bone of contention to me. I can’t deny that, like
Pet Sounds --- and on which much of this was based --- their concept album did open doors that others had not really tried, but really I see it more as a case of the Beatles opening the door but allowing others to rush through, taking the bones of what they had started and putting a lot more flesh on it, to create what was generally accepted by at least 1970 as the format of progressive rock.
As an aside, I must point out that the Wiki entry on this album goes into almost tortuous detail about every song, dissecting it until the various commentators have almost wrung every drop of soul or enjoyment out of it. It’s something like watching a dispassionate autopsy being conducted. I have never quite in my life read so much psychobabble written about music. Like Freud himself once observed, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys!
Nevertheless, this album has its place in history, and we would be remiss to exclude it, as it is hailed as one of the first proper concept albums, though to be honest I fail to see any common thread or plot running through it. To me, it’s more a collection of songs, though the idea of it being performed by a fictional band made up by the Beatles is interesting and certainly was, at the time, pretty ground-breaking. But was it progressive rock? Um...
Album title: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Artiste: The Beatles
Nationality: British
Label: Parlophone
Year: 1967
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Who hasn’t heard something by the Beatles??
Landmark value: Seen as not only very important in the evolution of progressive rock (though I would not call it a prog rock album by any stretch), but also in helping to establish the identity of albums opposed to singles and one of the first real concept albums, this set the standard for future recording techniques and was one of the few albums that was essentially recorded as a band other than the one the artistes were known for.
Tracklisting: Sgt 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 sixty-four, Lovely Rita, Good morning good morning, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise), A day in the life
Comments: We’ll all heard this album --- or at least, some of it, so I’ll skip the tracks I, and everyone else, knows, and jump to
Getting better, which seems to keep some of the basic idea from
With a little help from my friends, straightahead rock tune really.
Fixing a hole has more of a twenties feel about it, sort of music-hall idea there, and
She’s leaving home slows it all down to a moody dirge with some beautiful violin and cello. I’ve heard this of course before, and I like the way it’s seen from both sides, the runaway and the parents, each giving their reaction.
Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite! has the sort of melody that would be very much at home on a Tom Waits album, and I guess you can see the influence of this album in his later work, lot of carnival sounds and effects, seems to be an instrumental, then Harrison’s sitar introduces
Within you without you with some suitably Indian percussion (congas?) and a sort of droning, chanted vocal; I’ve heard part of this melody in a much later Marillion song. It’s the only one with Harrison on lead vocals, and almost the longest on the album: whereas most of the other tracks, bar the closer, are around the two or three minute mark, this runs for just over five. I think we all know
When I’m sixty-four, which bumps along nicely on tuba and horns, with
Lovely Rita coming back to the main theme of the title track, bopping along. Interesting that they use the description "meter maid", when they were an English band and on this side of the Atlantic we call them all "traffic wardens", male or female. Still, I guess “meter maid” rhymes better with “Rita”. Sort of.
I’m not too impressed with
Good morning good morning, bit ordinary, though it has some nice guitar in it. There’s a reprise then of the title track, then if anything is progressive rock on this album --- and little is really --- I’d have to mark the closer,
A day in the life as an indicator of the direction the subgenre was going to go over the next few years. I like the way it changes time signatures, tempos and particularly the crescendos that provide the real power behind the song.
Favourite track(s): With a little help from my friends, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, She’s leaving home, Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite!
Least favourite track(s): Good morning good morning
Overall impression: Given that I know so much of this album already, not the biggest surprise, but I’d still have to say the jury is out, as far as I’m concerned, as to how much of a role this album has to play in the genesis (sorry) of progressive rock. It’s certainly an important album, but though I can see some of the processes and thoughts here being used in future prog rock albums, I’m not sure I don’t see it as more of a psychedelic album than a progressive rock one.
Personal Rating: 
Legacy Rating: 
Final Rating: 