It was 50 years ago uh, last Saturday

June 1, 2017 9:03 AM

The Beatles landmark Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was released 50 years and a couple of days ago.

Rolling Stone has detailed stories about each song:
Except for the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
"With a Little Help from My Friends"
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Julian Lennon’s painting that inspired the song)
"Getting Better"
"Fixing a Hole"
"She's Leaving Home"
"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (1843 circus poster that inspired the song)
"Within You Without You"
"When I'm Sixty-Four"
"Lovely Rita"
"Good Morning Good Morning"
"A Day in the Life"

Four different versions of the "inner groove."

Some stuff you may or may not have known:
50 Things You Might Not Know About Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is almost 50 – here are 15 things you didn’t know about The Beatles’ masterpiece
50 Fun Facts About The Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

Some hot takes:
The Beatles’ best album is really its worst. ‘Sgt. Pepper,’ we need to talk
‘Sgt. Pepper’ at 50: The Flaws and Misunderstood Genius of The Beatles’ Most Iconic Album
How ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Reinvented the Record Album

More info:
Why Remix 'Sgt. Pepper's'? Giles Martin, The Man Behind The Project, Explains
Why The 'Sgt. Pepper's' Cover Art Matters As Much As The Music
It was 50 years ago today… looking back on half a century of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has some recording details and cool photos.

Song rankings from Mashable and Newsweek.

Some stuff about the cover:
Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper' Artwork: 10 Things You Didn't Know
42 Awesome Takes on the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ Album Cover Art and A Guide to Who’s Who

Lots of previouslies.

posted by kirkaracha (76 comments total)

Oooooh I will have to dig into this more deeply later.

While I am not old enough to have been around when Sgt. Pepper first came out, I am old enough to clearly remember the "It was 20 years ago today..." articles of 30 years ago. Oy.

Fun story -- my parents, both huge music aficionados who came of age in the late-60s, married in 1970 and combined their extensive record album collections. The ONLY album that both of them already had? Sgt. Pepper.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:07 AM on June 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

Giles Martin's remix of Sgt. Peppers : The Beatles :: the Special Editions : Star Wars

there i said it
posted by entropicamericana at 9:13 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

So we're now as far away in time from the release of this album as its release was from Charles Lindbergh flying The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean.

(I also played this increasingly melancholic game with myself last weekend when I found a copy of The Traveling Wilburys at a garage sale, did the math and realized that it's been three years longer between now and when that album was released than the span of time between Bob Dylan's first album and The Traveling Wilburys.)
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:16 AM on June 1, 2017 [14 favorites]

entropicamericana: You've only ever heard the stereo version, I bet. Likely the 1987 CD master.

Go put on the 2009 Mono Masters version of Sgt. Pepper. Appreciate it. This was the version The Beatles worked on with George Martin. They basically ignored the Stereo version.

Once you've digested the Mono version, go put on the 2017 remix again. It's the Mono version, only given a gorgeous stereo treatment. This is what the original 1967 Stereo mix would have been, had The Beatles actually bothered to supervise it, instead of going "Oh, yeah, I guess there has to be a stereo version too."
posted by SansPoint at 9:18 AM on June 1, 2017 [7 favorites]

Giles Martin's remix of Sgt. Peppers : The Beatles :: the Special Editions : Star Wars
...which leads directly into the previously FPP'd Princess Leia's Stolen Death Star Plans
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:24 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Where they got the name.
posted by sensate at 9:38 AM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also, this seems as good a time as any to link The Residents covering "Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!" with The London Sinfonettia from 2007.
posted by SansPoint at 9:46 AM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

So we're now as far away in time from the release of this album as its release was from Charles Lindbergh flying The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean.

You're off by ten years. Lindbergh flew in 1927, 40 years before Sgt. Pepper.

A better one would be that we are as far from the release of Sgt. Pepper as that album was from the birth of John F. Kennedy, almost to the day.
posted by briank at 9:51 AM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

Or, if you want musical milestones, Sgt. Pepper's release is closer to Nevermind's release than we are now.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:53 AM on June 1, 2017 [20 favorites]

SansPoint: Got the mono masters when they came out, love it.

This is what the original 1967 Stereo mix would have been, had The Beatles actually bothered to supervise it, instead of going "Oh, yeah, I guess there has to be a stereo version too."

But they didn't. It had input from half of the official Beatles and was helmed by the son of the Fifth Beatle, who wasn't even alive when the album was recorded. It's revisionist history at best. That said, AFAIK, the original mono mix and original stereo mixes are still available, so this is definitely not the hill this fool wants to die on.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:54 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

It is possible to over-praise this album from the perspective of its U.S. release. That version had three outstanding songs: A Day in the Life; A Little Help from My Friends; and When I'm Sixty-Four, plus two stinkers: She's Leaving Home and Within You and Without You. But when you consider that the British version also had Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields -- Whoa! It suddenly Sgt. Pepper deserves all the praise and attention. If Penny Lane and Strawberry fields had not be previously released as single, but replaced She's Leaving Home and Within You and Without You on the U.S. version, the impact would have been incalculable.
posted by Modest House at 9:56 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

My wife bought this immediately. There is a huge difference between the (stereo) mixes I was familiar with and the remixes. Everything's so much cleaner (except for some of the vocals, where the primitive reverb was baked into the original take). It's worth a listen if you're not a Beatles fan.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:57 AM on June 1, 2017

Where is Beatles band?
posted by fallingbadgers at 10:25 AM on June 1, 2017

Release date was June 1, 1967.

Today's date is June 1, 2017.

Am I missing something about last Saturday?
posted by hippybear at 10:52 AM on June 1, 2017

But when you consider that the British version also had Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields -- Whoa!

Wait, what? Are you high? The original track listing for the original UK release of the original mono version shows clearly that those tracks are NOT on this album, and they never WERE on this album. They were a double-A-side single release that finally became tracks on Magical Mystery Tour. They were never a part of Sgt Peppers.
posted by hippybear at 10:56 AM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Release date was June 1, 1967.

Today's date is June 1, 2017.

From wikipedia:

Released on 26 May 1967 in the United Kingdom[nb 1] and 2 June 1967 in the United States

[nb 1] According to author Allen J. Wiener, the album's intended release date of 1 June has been "traditionally observed" over the ensuing decades, yet the true release date was 26 May.[1]

[1] Wiener, Allen J. (1992). The Beatles: The Ultimate Recording Guide. Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0816025114.

posted by Etrigan at 10:57 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

My favorite song on the album is I Want You. And my favorite visual interpretation of I Want You is this one.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 11:02 AM on June 1, 2017

OMG im so embarrased. that was abbey road.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 11:04 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

The 3 versions of A Day in the Life from the Anthology II made that song my favorite on the album. Holy cow.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 11:05 AM on June 1, 2017

My parents' musical tastes were far removed from the Beatles, but they had this album (complete with the Sgt. Pepper cut-outs-what I wouldn't give to get those back). I listened to it constantly starting about when I was 8 or so. I love it, event the bad songs. It reminds me of a certain time when life was simpler and all I wondered about was how Henry the Horse was able to dance the waltz.
posted by ElleElle at 11:11 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

(complete with the Sgt. Pepper cut-outs-what I wouldn't give to get those back)

Would you give $19.99 + shipping on eBay?
posted by fairmettle at 11:25 AM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

Once you've digested the Mono version, go put on the 2017 remix again. It's the Mono version, only given a gorgeous stereo treatment.

Stereophonic music is a fad. It will never last.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:25 AM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

There's also a Dolby Atmos mix which is being screened in a few Atmos enabled movie theaters today.

Disclaimer: I work for Dolby. Nice little interview with Giles Martin about this mix on the website.
posted by TwoWordReview at 11:28 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Honestly, after the Love remix album, I'm waiting for 5.1 mixes of all the albums from Revolver onward. I doubt it will happen, but a man can dream.
posted by hippybear at 11:29 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

She's Leaving Home is a stinker? You forgot the /s
posted by rhizome at 11:33 AM on June 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

Honestly, after the Love remix album, I'm waiting for 5.1 mixes of all the albums from Revolver onward. I doubt it will happen, but a man can dream.

Srsly. If there exists (there does) a Steven Wilson 5.1 mix of "Too Old To Rock n' Roll, Too Young To Die", then the Beatles albums ought to be done.

To this day I have never had a 5.1 system, I ought to try it at least once....
posted by thelonius at 11:37 AM on June 1, 2017

> You're off by ten years. Lindbergh flew in 1927, 40 years before Sgt. Pepper.

I guess my math's not getting any better in my old age, either.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:46 AM on June 1, 2017

Around this time in 1917 the US had just entered World War I and Russia was between revolutions.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:54 AM on June 1, 2017

I just listened to the stereo remixes on Spotify and they sound pretty great.
It's still not my favorite Beatles album but it sounds nice.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:56 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

kirkaracha: "Around this time in 1917 the US had just entered World War I and Russia was between revolutions."

When was revolution nine?
posted by chavenet at 11:59 AM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

When was revolution nine?

May 30–June 25, 1968
posted by kirkaracha at 12:22 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

it's not just a stereo clone of the mono version - the vocals have more presence in the remix and have a much fuller sound - there doesn't seem to be as much phaseyness of the leslie organ in lucy - you can really tell how much the drums were compressed, which i'm not sure is such a great thing - the acoustic guitar in rita is crisper, and throughout the album there's all sorts of subtle things that seem to be more hearable, especially keyboards - on the other hand some of the guitars seem to have lost something, especially the break in fixing a hole. - i think they must have taken every basic and overdub track they had and used these instead of th0e four track mixes and it shows

one thing i did not like - a day in the life just doesn't seem to have the same overpowering choas that the original mixes had - i'm not sure what happened here, but it's a little too precise sounding and they missed it - not by a lot, but they still missed it
posted by pyramid termite at 12:56 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Within You and Without You and a response to its putative "stinkerhood":

Jeeze Louise, I loved that song on that album when it came out, and I still like it!
So...there!... I guess.
posted by Chitownfats at 2:09 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Giles Martin remix will be the one that is listened to 50 years from now. It's a fantastic work. I am thrilled I got to hear it.
posted by zzazazz at 2:16 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

George Martin is on record as saying that he grudgingly disgorged Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields - both intended to be on Pepper - to EMI who were hassling him for a single, and it was the worst decision of his working life.

I can't imagine what it was like to hear Pepper in the context of its time; I didn't hear a lot of Beatles stuff as a kid and Pepper was the first Beatles album I bought, in the 80s, in my 20s, on cassette yet. I thought it... interesting, but not 'OMG Best Ever', even though I knew of its reputation.

But it's stuck with me since then and my appreciation of it has grown over the years. Got to admit, it's getting better. Other comparable stuff - like Pink Floyd - I was more into, hasn't made that trip nearly as well. The latest remastering/remixing is utterly splendid and very satisfying to listen to; the bass seems as if it's been in for a refit and had the barnacles and seaweed scraped from its bottom, the drums (oh, those drums on Day In The Life: those I did fall in love with on first listen) can breath...

I don't think 'best album ever' makes sense, except as a snapshot of some particular congregation's tastes at some particular point in time, and I don't much care. It's a great album to have along for the ride, and I doubt I'll ever throw it overboard.
posted by Devonian at 2:46 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm 70 and grew up with the Beatles. Probably had the mono version, but it's long gone. But the remix just brings on so many memories. I'm loving Spotify right now.
posted by jgaiser at 3:28 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

I loved it, and look forward to listening to it again. Giles Martin is in the enviable position that he can get away with doing some quite audacious stuff if you think about it - it's now fully stereo in a way that would be impossible if you were just mixing the four tracks. He's completely taken the recording apart and put it together again. It's wonderful to hear McCartney's bass parts, which I must have heard before, but didn't notice how imaginative they could be.

The ultimate version of Sgt Pepper is going to be the first one you heard, the way you heard it. I suppose for me that would be a stereo vinyl copy in 1978. Now one can listen to this, or the original stereo mix, or the remastered mix, or the original mono, or (if you want to be totally authentic) the original mono mix on a Dansette record player. I'm not mocking - some records sound fantastic on one of those, such as Motown records, or punk records or, strangely and probably uniquely to my tastes, the single version of Going For the One by Yes.

But this remix is genuinely lovely, I think, and I'm enjoying encountering an album I thought I knew inside out all over again.
posted by Grangousier at 3:42 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

I bought the mono version in 1967 because it was $1 cheaper. I bought it at what would today be Target (it was G.E.M.: Government Employees' Mart in St. Louis), took it home, put it on my bedroom record player, and my life was never the same.
posted by kozad at 4:07 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

related note: one of the earlier and more interesting compilation tribute albums to appear before tribute albums became a common thing is Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father, a 1988 fundraiser for Childline. Like the original, it's kinda inconsistent, and like the original, the best parts are amazing.
posted by ovvl at 4:13 PM on June 1, 2017

also, one of my favourite things about Sgt. Pepper is Ringo's drumming on 'A Day In The Life'. Another favourite thing is Shatner's cover of 'Lucy...'
posted by ovvl at 4:16 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

As a bass player, the best part of the remix is hearing Paul's parts much more clearly. Before this, if you had asked me my favorite parts of Sgt. Pepper, I wouldn't have mentioned the bass playing, but I would now.
posted by vibrotronica at 4:26 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

(I also played this increasingly melancholic game with myself last weekend when I found a copy of The Traveling Wilburys at a garage sale, did the math and realized that it's been three years longer between now and when that album was released than the span of time between Bob Dylan's first album and The Traveling Wilburys.)

Incidentally, when said album by that band of creaky old has-beens was released, Roy Orbison was the elder statesman at the ripe old age of 52. (52-year-old singers currently: Lenny Kravitz, Wynonna Judd, Eddie Vedder, Diana Krall.) Tom Petty was the baby old man at 37 (currently 37: Pink, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mya.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:45 PM on June 1, 2017 [11 favorites]

If I could just impose a notion?

Here (there and everywhere) a lot of people seem to think that a lot of other people present Sgt Peppers as the best album ever. That album is very important to me, but I don't think of it as the best album ever, or even the best Beatles album ever (team Rubber Soul and team Abbey Road here). What it was at the time was the most important album probably ever, and if it isn't that now, it is likely within contemptuous spitting distance of whatever album that would be.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:25 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Here (there and everywhere) a lot of people seem to think that a lot of other people present Sgt Peppers as the best album ever.

I think it is not so much the best album as arguably the most influential one. It was, along with Nevermind, one of two albums that divided popular music into Before and After.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:40 PM on June 1, 2017

plus two stinkers: She's Leaving Home and Within You and Without You.

well, there's always somebody wrong on internet

thinking specifically of Within You Without You here, but then what do you expect of Beatles fans? Vast hordes of them don't like Revolution 9 as well.
posted by philip-random at 5:40 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sgt Pepper might not be my favorite Beatles' album but it's probably the best sounding one. The fact that they got all that sonic goodness out of analog four-track recording systems is just astounding to me.
posted by octothorpe at 5:47 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Listening to the recent remaster right now and falling in love all over again. They might not all be the all of the strongest songs that the Fab Four ever wrote but the sequencing is just amazing, they all just flow so perfectly.
posted by octothorpe at 6:47 PM on June 1, 2017

I am curious as to what the blue thinks about this article by Amanda Marcotte. (Disclaimer: I have never heard of her before, but apparently, she is well known?)
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:08 PM on June 1, 2017

Also, while not having listened to the album in decades, just reading the lyrics to "She's leaving home" took me back to a place of... despair? for the parents for sure, and maybe the kiddo.

I have never ever liked For the Benefit of Mr. Kite, though.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:12 PM on June 1, 2017

One of the best music review articles ever: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/how-the-beatles-wrote-a-day-in-the-life/527001/
posted by xammerboy at 7:50 PM on June 1, 2017

I hope NPR's sample today was not representative of the actual mix, and NPR itself was responsible for the overwhelming bass I heard. It was really distracting.
posted by sutt at 7:50 PM on June 1, 2017

The Atlantic article contained a lot of revelations for me and I'm a Beatles fanatic:

Whose day in the life is it, anyway? The crowd’s life or simply the singer’s? And is it still your life if your crucial experiences are received secondhand, from articles and cameras? Was Lennon himself so famous now that he was forced to live life from the passive privacy of an easy chair?


That’s how he was writing, beachcombing inspiration from headlines and news briefs in the January 17 Daily Mail, which he had open at his piano (for this song); from a circus poster hanging in his home (“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”); from a cereal advertisement (“Good Morning Good Morning”); from his child’s drawing (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”). In the song, the young man whose death gets noticed in the newspaper references an acquaintance of the Beatles, a Guinness beer company heir named Tara Browne, who crashed his Lotus sports car at high speed. Lennon reimagines Browne into the half-recognizable, presumably upper-class man who has it made and then throws it all away. What does it say that one crowd is transfixed by a privileged stranger’s grisly demise, but another crowd rejects a film about the achievement of a generation, the world war won? Only the singer of the song is willing to go back there, and only because he’s read the book.


Good Morning Good Morning was inspired by a cereal advertisement? I'd love to hear more about that.... Anyway, was given this album on my 12th birthday and can honestly say it changed my life. I listened to it again today looking for the re-mastered version. I didn't find it, but somehow ended up listening again to the whole thing even tho I just intended a quick listen to one song.
posted by xammerboy at 8:06 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

More from the Atlantic article about A Day in the Life:

To fill the empty space, they drew on their producer George Martin’s vast musical knowledge. John wanted “a musical orgasm.” Soon enough, half an orchestra of leading London classical musicians was assembled at Abbey Road Studios with instructions to play their instruments from lowest note to highest, navigating the allotted bars at their own pace. George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” begins with something similar, a solo clarinet glissando that was itself improvised at a rehearsal by the musician. In “A Day in the Life,” the idea was that the orchestra would slide up the scale micro-tonally, a free-form crescendo of accumulating pitches.

That recording session became a ’60s happening, with Beatles’ friends like members of the Rolling Stones and the Monkees and their sexy wives and girlfriends (like Pattie Boyd and Marianne Faithfull) turning out in the trippy regalia of the time. The orchestra wore proper dress-performance clothes. The Beatles handed out novelty-shop gag items: clown noses (for the very upstanding violins), plastic spectacles (for the more ebullient woodwinds and brass), wigs, balloons, whistles.


Paul conducted in butcher apron and groovy tie. It was a high-meets-low affair in which the Beatles took careful note of the relationship between the personalities of the classical musicians and their instruments: the violins were indeed prim and possibly high-strung; the horn players struck Paul as more fun—brassy. It was a big production to buttress the song’s big themes, and the inventive sound produced by the classicists for the rockers improved the reputations of both. They were all making music for the Everyman, and the next vocal section was Paul’s—about a guy waking up.

After John’s reprise, the orchestra returns for an even greater swelling of sound. It was like something blowing up, a tremendous wreck, the explosion of a gun inside a car. And then, after all the chaos and destruction, what next? George Harrison had suggested a fade to humming. But it didn’t work. Paul thought that the song needed firmer resolution. Three Steinway pianos and a harmonium were rolled into action, and at every keyboard the players were instructed to hit the single chord of E major simultaneously and hard, with the sustain foot pedal down, letting it carry as long as possible. There were nine takes. The tone is so big, so capacious and resonant because Martin and Emerick thought to put the recorder on half speed. It’s the sound of peace. Instead of love being all you need, here it’s music that gets you through all the days and nights.
posted by xammerboy at 8:15 PM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

a non mouse, a cow herd: "I am curious as to what the blue thinks about this article by Amanda Marcotte. (Disclaimer: I have never heard of her before, but apparently, she is well known?)"

Yeah, I've been reading her stuff for a long time but mostly politics, not culture. She's not wrong here although what she's saying isn't a very new observation.
posted by octothorpe at 8:47 PM on June 1, 2017

From The Atlantic article:

And then, halfway through, he pauses and, in the celebrated phrase, he wants to turn someone else on. In the ’60s, that expression signaled Dr. Timothy Leary and LSD, especially to the BBC, which banned the song because of the drug reference. But with Lennon, who reveled in puns, wordplay, verbal sleight of hand, you could never be so literal.

This is exactly why I will never believe "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" isn't about LSD.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:14 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

She's Leaving Home is a stinker? You forgot the /s

Yeah and "Penny Lane" and "When I'm Sixty-Four" are far and away my least favorite songs listed in that comment. Adding "Strawberry Fields" would be great though.
posted by atoxyl at 10:40 PM on June 1, 2017

Yeah, I've been reading her stuff for a long time but mostly politics, not culture. She's not wrong here although what she's saying isn't a very new observation.

She's right that the early Beatles deserve more respect, and that Revolver is better. Some of the other music history is a bit questionable/oversimplified though.
posted by atoxyl at 10:43 PM on June 1, 2017

and that Revolver is better.

Revolver is only better than Sgt Peppers because we've all been told for decades that NOTHING is better than Sgt Peppers.
posted by philip-random at 11:34 PM on June 1, 2017

I am curious as to what the blue thinks about this article by Amanda Marcotte.

i think it's a troll by someone who doesn't understand music or musical history very well

first, what does she think all the young men were listening to before sgt pepper came along?

second, where the hell did she get the laughable notion that hip hop is based on disco samples? (fine, the sugarhill gang did, but come on ...)

the article and a lot of discussion i've read ignores a major impact of sgt pepper was on musicians and producers - including some of the names she cites as being the girl-pop that overcame that nasty manly sgt pepper - (hint - where did fleetwood mac get their late 70s drum sound from?)
posted by pyramid termite at 2:29 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I got SP on vinyl more than 35 years ago. I've heard it thousands of times. But just now hearing the remix for the first time. What a great rhythm section Paul and Ringo were. And so many of the effects are clearer. I really like it.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:57 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Like the harpsichord at the beginning of Fixing a Hole. And Ringo's cymbals. Nice.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:59 AM on June 2, 2017

That's a harpsichord at the beginning of Fixing A Hole? Holy crap. I mean, I've played harpsichords. I've been to harpsichord recitals. I've played at harpsichord recitals. That has never in my life once sounded to me like a harpsichord actually sounds. It must be the close miking of instruments that they were experimenting with that gives it such a ridiculously live and deep tone. Harpsichords in real life are very plunky and not very resonant instruments.

TIL!
posted by hippybear at 3:05 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

persona au gratin: "I got SP on vinyl more than 35 years ago. I've heard it thousands of times. But just now hearing the remix for the first time. What a great rhythm section Paul and Ringo were. And so many of the effects are clearer. I really like it."

This so much. Listening to Lucy right now and and Ringo is just so perfect and Paul's bass just moves the song right along, keeping it from getting lost in John's psychedelia.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I bought the album when it was first released in the USA. Then later that summer I went to a summer course at Stanford University in Palo Alto. The trip was paid for by RPI in Troy NY. I wasn't interested in the course at all, but the food at Stanford was great al fresco. For our course assignment, wait for it, we designed a more efficient shower head. We read Lewis Mumford et al and had discussions at Stanford professors' homes. One urged us to go and see what was happening in San Francisco. This is why I went. Twas a long strange trip.
posted by DJZouke at 7:25 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

the article and a lot of discussion i've read ignores a major impact of sgt pepper was on musicians and producers

This. Forgoshsakes, Leonard Bernstein used to put the album on at his fancy New York soirees.
posted by Chitownfats at 7:35 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

the article and a lot of discussion i've read ignores a major impact of sgt pepper was on musicians and producers

Sgt. Pepper is why Brian Wilson broke his brain trying to make Smile.
posted by Devoidoid at 9:47 AM on June 2, 2017

Comments on some of my favorite songs from the album:

“With a Little Help From My Friends” has one of my favorite bass lines ever. Part of what’s great about it is that it’s so simple, so easy to play. This band wasn’t about showing off the individual members' ability to play their instruments; it was about them coming together to bring us a seemingly endless stream of ideas (musical and otherwise), and allowing us to bring our minds in tune with theirs. Ringo Starr gave what many would call his finest vocal performance on this song; his usually modest baritone suddenly switches to a triumphantly soaring tenor high note at the end. One nice thing about Beatles songs sung by Ringo is that he had great backing vocalists in John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

“She’s Leaving Home” might seem overly sentimental or corny, but I don't mind that. The lyrics are wonderfully detailed; someone (Elvis Costello?) remarked that you don't normally hear the word "clutching" on a rock album. I love the interaction between Paul and John in the chorus, representing the main character's mother and father, respectively: Paul sings the title in falsetto, while John adds his distraught questions/comments in a lower register. I also love how a line that would seem prosaic on paper, “Waiting to keep the appointment she made,” becomes wound up with an exciting sense of possibilities as a result of the quivering vibrato of the strings. (Unusually for the Beatles, the orchestral instrumentation was arranged not by George Martin but by Mike Leander.) The wordplay of the father's hapless line, "We gave her everything money could buy/Bye bye," brings back the theme of the early Beatles hit "Can't Buy Me Love," while showing how much the band has matured since then.

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is a strange John song based on a 19th-century poster, which switches midway into a waltz overlaid with kaleidoscopic calliope music, thanks to George Martin carrying out John's instructions to conjure up a circus so vividly you can “smell the sawdust.”

The album's only song by George Harrison, “Within You Without You," is the spiritual centerpiece of the album — a beautiful merger of Indian and Western classical music. (Cultural appropriation? Yes please!)

After the reprise of the album's title song, which would feel to someone hearing the album for the first time like it must be the last song, the sound of the audience fades out as the band starts playing an encore, "A Day in the Life" — the artistic pinnacle of this album if not the whole band. It starts in a dream-like state as John sings about disconcerting imagery (with outstanding drumming by Ringo), before being interrupted by an orchestra with each instrument chaotically sliding from a low, quiet note to a high, loud note. That crescendo segues into a more relaxed, upbeat section in which Paul sings about the details of everyday life, using a melody that has some resemblance to John’s but in a different key and more choppy (staccato) and repetitive, which is appropriate to talking about such ordinary details (“woke up... drank a cup...”) — in contrast with John’s melody, with its legato, drawn-out quality that's more evocative of dreaming. One seemingly mundane detail in Paul's section is that he “had a smoke,” which at first calls to mind a man having his first cigarette of the day as he sets out in the morning, but then takes on a druggy meaning when he says he “went into a dream.” At that point, Paul sings in a more legato, John-like style over a disorienting sequence of chords, during which we have a hard time telling what key we're in (this is effective regardless of whether the listener knows music theory), eventually leading to John repeating the first line of the song ("I read the news today..." — which now feels like one more detail about an ordinary morning as in Paul's section). After John's last line (one of the defining statements of '60s rock: "I'd love to turn you on"), the orchestral crescendo happens again, and the song abruptly ends on a very loud and sustained piano chord in the same key as Paul’s section, seemingly closing the album by bringing us firmly back to reality. But there's one more surprise … before we're left to contemplate the genius we just heard.
posted by John Cohen at 11:02 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

So you're saying these are pants is correct. I want You (She's so Heavy) is the best song on Abbey Road.



What were we talking about?
posted by wittgenstein at 4:32 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

It has to be said that the statement "Fun is the one thing that money can't buy" is a long way wide of the mark. Fun is one of the few things that are readily available for the solvent, while among the many things that money can't buy one might count the planet Jupiter, the earth's core or the concept of interdependence.

I'm surprised that McCartney doesn't know this. He's had an awful lot of money in his time, and a fair amount of fun.
posted by Grangousier at 4:50 PM on June 2, 2017

I want You (She's so Heavy) is the best song on Abbey Road.

That is off topic but also objectively true.
posted by octothorpe at 5:57 PM on June 2, 2017

I believe Paul added the bass line to With A Little Help... after the other tracks were recorded, because he wanted to add more melody than normal for that part and it was more effective doing that with the framework in place. I heard an interview with one of the players from the orchestra, who said he was very impressed by the musicianship of the band, their focus in knowing exactly what they wanted and their openness and intelligence in finding ways to get there. I think that's one of the aspects of a lot of Beatles work and Pepper in particular that's easy to overlook through familiarity. It is a sustained exercise in virtuosity across the board, not just in the playing and vocals but in the songwriting and construction.

For example: She's Leaving Home not good? There's not a composer on the planet wouldn't give their grannies to write something that exquisite. George Martin compared John's counterpoint to a Greek chorus, and it absolutely takes that job on with complete assurance. When you start to look how the song's built, how it progresses and how much it says in three and a half minutes of what looks like a straightforward, slightly maudlin pop song... It's the kind of virtuosity you don't notice until you listen for it. Which is the best sort of virtuosity, in any form of art.

This new mix is just superb for that. Like xammerboy above, I put it on just to listen to a couple of tracks but just couldn't bring myself to stop listening. I'm genuinely excited and thrilled to rediscover something I thought I knew well, and that's a rare joy. I am gleefully seduced, all over again.

Bloody Scousers.
posted by Devonian at 7:25 AM on June 3, 2017 [5 favorites]

Aww, and just as the mechanical copyright on the original was running out too…
posted by scruss at 9:25 AM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Went to Amazon to buy the new release because I want the 5.1 surround mix... $120???? SERIOUSLY???

Yeah, that's not going to happen.
posted by hippybear at 9:14 AM on June 8, 2017

There's a single-disc version of the new mix for less than $20. It's also included on their streaming service, if you have that.
posted by spacewaitress at 10:50 AM on June 29, 2017

I believe Paul added the bass line to With A Little Help... after the other tracks were recorded

Yes, he did that on all but one of the songs on that album that have bass. According to the excellent Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, the only song where Paul played bass along with the band was "Fixing a Hole."
posted by John Cohen at 3:53 PM on June 29, 2017

According to the excellent Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald

MOST excellent
posted by philip-random at 1:20 AM on June 30, 2017