I Sgt Pepper, - I don't own Come On Over by Shania Twain.

You are comparing an album that from the late 1990's to an album made in the late 60's. You can only say that Come On Over has more recorded unit sold not that more people in the world own it. How would you know how many people own it? How many Sgt Pepper albums were copied from one person to another in the USSR and Eastern Bloc because they couldn't buy it.

Come On Over was relased during a time when when more people in the world owned audio equipment than people who owned record players at the end of the 60's. And CD sales were probably more accurately tallied compared to vinyl sales and digital downloads. So they are some things to consider when comparing the two album figrures.

We are talking about an album that was create on a three track (that's how Sir George Martin discribed it) that outsold hundreds of thousands of albums that were recorded on digital equipment. An album that outsold all previous releases by any other artist before it. If you look at the list do you see any album recorded before 1967 that broke 20 million units sold? List of best-selling albums - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The album came near the end of The Beatles career, at that time when they released the album it wasn't supported by a tour Sgt Pepper sold that many just on the reputation of the band.

I think the point you're making here kind of undermines itself. If it's unfair to compare an album from the 90s to an album from the 60s, then how is it fair to compare an album from the 60s to what came before? Keep in mind that in 1967 the whole emphasis on LPs over singles was still a really new concept so Sgt. Pepper's didn't exactly have much of a legacy to compete with.

The eastern bloc has been open over 20 years I don't think you can use that argument.

And I think you'll find that Sgt Pepper was in shops available for the past 45 odd years I don't really see how you can use owning more audio equipment in the 90s argument . If people want it it's there.

More people wanted Shania Twain.
No accounting for taste but that's how it is.

I think the greatest bands from the sixties and seventies are Better than the greatest bands from any other era. It's all a matter of taste.

I agree :)

What if the great band from the 70's also performed in the 80's? Or are we just working in base ten's for convenience?

That's counts. I'm just talking about bands that started in the sixties or seventies. It's those bands that influenced that influenced the bands of later generations.

So we should ignore the fact that the Sgt Pepper album was desired to be own, but had to be copied from one fan to the next and subsequently no information exist how many people owned a copied for the 20-some years that the Eastern Bloc been closed?

The bulk of sales happens when an album is released. How well Sgt Pepper sold was limited to the structure of market at that time with limit availabity for vinyl to be played on and other factors. 30 years later it is bigger market, more of a global market. Shania Twain had the ability to sell more because more people were able to play her CDs. The whole argument is like how do you convert a thousand pounds per annum circa 17th century England to be equivalent to today's Euro?

And your argument undermines itself too, because it was The Beatles that help make switch from 45's singles to LP albums possible especially with the Sgt Pepper album for the Rock/Pop market. Some musicologist believe The Beatles help created a new paradigm of AOR with Sgt Pepper but to you it gets nullified because there was nothing before it that could compete with it or compare to it.

I always thought albums were important to the Jazz and Classical community as well.

That's a fair argument, but I still don't buy the "the moved a lot of units" angle.

I think, especially in the 60s and earlier, there was much more of an emphasis on live performance in jazz and classical. There's certainly a long tradition of jazz musicians hating the recording process and feeling that it really put a damper on what they did best.

Just a question - are the sales of Sgt Pepper including CD and vinyl reissues? Because if so, The Beatles got to tap into the same global market Shania Twain did PLUS have twenty-five years or so before that global market to get a nice head start, and she still out-sold them. But if it just includes like initial release or a certain like statute of limitations on what counts then I can buy your argument fine.

Also, just a joke: I think you'd want to convert a thousand pounds per annum circa 17th century into today's pound unless you were trying to travel from 17th century England to modern France or Germany :p:

LP format was actually never that big a deal to those communities until it became the norm for music listening and they had to change with the times. I can't remember what article I read on it, but basically most of the classical community never caught on until CDs, but jazz surely had a nice little LP takeoff when LPs did become the standard music-buying format.

Well I really don't know, I wasn't the one compiling the statical information for the site that Wiki sited. I imagine it includes all sales for all formats - LPs CCs CDs. Well if you want to compare two albums 30 years apart isn't that in favour of The Beatles that we are even having that discussion? And numbers don't bother me the fact that cheap throw-away pop music is gobbled up by masses only reinforces my opinion that the more obscure music is the better it sounds.


I was trying to make apples to oranges comparison. Sgt Pepper was an album for the sake of an album - a stand alone identity supported by and The Beatles' reputation and the music on the album, it wasn't released and than supported by a worldwide tour where the band/artist also made their money by selling T shirts & CDs, which would make it more of a business venture than art for art sake.

:confused: So I guess people didn't buy albums from Alantic Records to listen to Jazz because it wasn't "a big deal." Ahmet Ertegün was just wasting his time and money setting up a record company - maybe he should've went into shipping like Aristotelis Onasis. :(

I'll quote wiki to support that that record company wasn't a "big deal" until the vinyl industry as a whole had mainstream success and became a "big deal." It's also unfair to jump down my throat with one example when that example is the one that blazed the trail of popularizing the format. It's like saying AOR was a big deal around 1967 and downplaying Sgt. Pepper's importance with that statement when really it's a reverse causality.

The Jazz era spans a long time & course there was a time in it's early history where the LP wasn't around, or important. Sgt Pepper was release in '67 that's 13/14 years after "The market for these records exploded during late 1953 and early 1954." When it says "records" that probably means both 45s and LPs, but it only shows there was a market for LPs before Sgt Pepper.

I'm going to be honest and say that I literally have no idea what we're even arguing about at this point and that my original post that illicited more responses was just a construction to serve as the vehicle for my "pounds to euros" joke since I was dumb and didn't get your comparison, so I suppose we'll agree to either agree or disagree, whichever one we're doing once I re-read what we've been talking about.

This what I thought we were arguing: Can the historical cultural importance and artistic value of Sgt Pepper (by The Beatles) be undermined by the sales performance of an artist thiry years after it's release?

Take heart, friend. I think the Knight of Neap is so irreverent that I can't honestly debate...it? I don't even know what the hell he is. Nice guy. Just robotic.

"so irreverent...Nice guy. Just robotic." You sound like Fry describing Bender.