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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Emd Int'l
Salesrank: 83385
Released: July 15, 2008 |
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| Used Price: $107.31 |
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| Media: Vinyl |
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Track Listing:
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With a Little Help from My Friends
3. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Fixing a Hole
6. She's Leaving Home
7. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
8. Within You Without You
9. When I'm Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning Good Morning
12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
13. Day in the Life
14. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Mini-Documentary
Editorial Review:
One of the most famous and influential albums ever recorded, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had a huge impact on the music world, signaling the beginning of a new era of sophistication and maturity in rock. The musical experimentation was dynamic and fresh, several tracks were edited to create seamless transitions, and even the visual design was more elaborate than anything previously attempted. Producer George Martin and The Beatles searched for new sounds and studio effects. They added crowd sounds and animal cries from sound-effects recordings, sped up Paul McCartney's vocals in "When I'm Sixty-Four" (to make him sound younger), and sustained a single piano chord for 40 seconds to end "A Day In The Life." The orchestrations, scored by Martin, were hailed by critics as bridging the gap between pop and classical music, and many people who had never bought a rock record bought Sgt. Pepper's. EMI. 2005.
Description of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:
Before Sgt. Pepper, no one seriously thought of rock music as actual art. That all changed in 1967, though, when John, Paul, George and Ringo (with "A Little Help" from their friend, producer George Martin) created an undeniable work of art which remains, after 30-plus years, one of the most influential albums of all time. From Lennon's evocative word/sound pictures (the trippy "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," the carnival-like "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite") and McCartney's music hall-styled "When I'm 64," to Harrison's Eastern-leaning "Within You Without You," and the avant-garde mini-suite, "A Day in the Life," Sgt. Pepper was a milestone for both '60s music and popular culture. --Billy Altman
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reviews:
It Depends 
2009-12-19 - I have been a fan of The Beatles for many years and enjoy Sgt. Pepper to a certain degree. I enjoy other Beatle albums more. My enjoyment of Pepper is tempered slightly by the gap between the legend of the alleged months it took to record, the layers and layers of multi-tracking musical "innovations" that are proclaimed to have been achieved on Pepper and what I actually hear on this release. I find pre-Pepper Beatle albums superior partially because they did not have half a year to work on them. They contain more immediacy and zip to them because they were working on stricter deadlines.
There are some nice songs on the album. The title track, With a Little Help, Lucy in the Sky, A Day in the Life and When I'm Sixty-Four are good ones in my opinion. All the songs for the most part are the same tempo, though, which makes the album drag. Many of the songs seem phoned in, and in most cases simply competent rather than outstanding. I find the album flows well until running into the syrupy track She's Leaving Home which I rate as a misfire attempt at another Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby, in that it is a strings-only socially conscious ditty that to my ears simply doesn't work and disrupts the flow of the album. Within You and Without You is interesting, and on some occasions I find it enjoyable and other times find it tedious and want it to be over with. My non-Beatle fan friends loath it. Getting Better, Fixing a Hole, Being for the Benefit, Lovely Rita and Good Morning Good Morning are simply pedestrian filler songs that offer, to my ears, nothing musically or lyrically interesting.
As many have pointed out, this album is often rated highly because of the impact it had at the time of release. And others have pointed out the album has not aged well. I agree with both of these points of view. So the question is, should someone who does not posses this album but is thinking about getting it, do so?
Beatle fans of any age should acquire this album at some point.
If you are under thirty and not a Beatle fan, I would not recommend it. As time goes by, and musical styles and means of expression evolve, I would think may young people of today would find this album mundane and uninteresting. I find it slightly mundane and uninteresting. I would liken the idea of Pepper to young people today to my thoughts on listening to Glenn Miller or Frank Sinatra when I was fifteen. (I'm in my mid-forties.) That was "old people" music with cobwebs and dust on them. Though this album has significance to a large percentage of perhaps the 40 + demographic, young people, particularly those of perhaps 25 and younger think of this album and The Beatles for that matter, as positively pre-historic. I would qualify this, however, because of the release of The Beatles Rock Band game. It is possible that presenting The Beatles music in the context of a video game could generate interest in the 25 and under crowd.
If you are over thirty, and not a Beatle fan but want something safe and non-threatening to listen to, you should give Pepper a shot. It's pleasant enough and does have it's historical significance.
As for the quality of the remastered Pepper I find, with a side-by-side comparison with the earlier generation Pepper CD little to no difference. I am no audiophile so I am basing this simply on what I am hearing. It is perhaps a little louder. I don't here any more pop in the drums or a significant improvement in the quality of the bass as many have reported. If you already have Pepper as part of a comprehensive CD collection but are not a Beatle fan(atic) I would advise you to save your money. If you are a Beatle fan you will probably end up purchasing the remastered Pepper and most if not all the remasters anyway.
It's The Beatles!!---You Already Know It's Fabulous!! 
2009-12-18 - This marks the 4th and final incarnation of this classic album
that I will buy in my lifetime!
From vinyl (early 80's) to first generation CD (early 90's)
to 2nd generation (first digitized) CD (mid 90's) to 09/09/09...
I bought each of these new limited edition (stereo) remasters,
from "Rubber Soul" to "Let It Be", which is my favorite era of The Beatles'
stellar paradigm-changing mid to late 60's musical output!
As soon as I unwrapped them, I listened to each CD intently 1x, then smoked a
phat joint along with a strong daquiri, then listened down
to them all 3x more!! (-: Brilliantly remastered!
Flawless material to start with, but this go round I felt as if "the lads"
had actually set up camp in my music room and were giving me, just me, their best work in 3-D!!
Every breathe, syllable, finger cymbal, crash & high-hat, snare, toms, guitar lick,
bass riff, string arrangement and every other part is vivid, warm, pure and timeless!
There is no need for me to buy anymore Beatles material after this!
It can't be captured any better! (-:
I like the new fold out packaging, the booklets, rare vintage photos, the original-style
Parlophone logo on the discs, and I enjoyed the little mini-docs about each
album viewable via computer, Playstation 3 or XBOX too.
I was an 18 yr old kid in 1982 when I bought my first Beatles albums on vinyl,
age 26 in 1990 when I bought their first CD versions, age 30 when I bought the first
digital remasters in 1994 at the time of the The Beatles Anthology with
"Free As A Bird", which I now own on DVD.
Now at age 45 in 2009, this is the final frontier and I'm satisfied.
SUMMATION: Great music, great band, timeless, seamless & forever without peer! (-:
Sgt Pepper Defined a Generation: The Quintessential 1960's Album that Elevated Popular Music Into High Art
2009-12-16 - It's one thing to contribute art and/or entertainment that is popular at a particular time, but these come and go at will, often replaced by work that is just updated offerings of the former. The vast majority of top-40 pop tunes come under this category where the next decade's songs are simply updated versions of the last decade with a different beat. The next level of aspiration is to create contributions that transcend popularity within its era, in other words, something that withstands the test of time--works that express something that can't be replicated. Artists as diverse as JS Bach, Mark Twain, Vincent Van Gogh and Led Zeppelin fall under this category. Among these elite artists, how many artists can boast creating works that not only transcend the test of time but literally define a generation and an era? Very few. F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is one. Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age" may be another, and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" may be yet another. And in music, the Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" may the musical equivalent of a Kerouac or Fitzgerald. Pepper not only defined a generation, it may have helped invent it. Even the album cover's rhetoric speaks of a shift in the sensibility of the pre-boomer and boomer generations. The Fab Four were no longer sporting short haircuts, jackets and thin ties singing about holding a girl's hand. They gave themselves facial hair while decked out in 19th-century satin uniforms, and they are no longer singing about innocent teenage love. Much of The Beatles' earlier work was single-dimensional aimed to please young teenagers at proms. Now, their work had grown into a deeper subtlety that became an anthem and a symbol for the 1960's generation.
The music of "Sgt Pepper" includes a range of subjects that would have been unthinkable only a few years earlier when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time: psychadelics, relationships, intraspections, and social issues. Some of the songs are of such an abstract nature, such as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", and "The Benefit of Mr Kite", that they could not be pigeon-holed within the boundaries of acceptable popular culture; they were giving voice to the 1960's subculture or counterculture that had begun around 1965. The definitive answer as to how these songs are to be intrepretted is nonexistent which is the highest aspiration of art. I don't think even the Beatles knew exactly what their music was saying, and that's the beauty of Sgt Pepper. They were saying something that may have transcended their artistic objectives.
There were a few musical artists of the mid-1960's who were stunned with the release of Sgt Pepper. Here was a band who had made millions with their early records who ventured outside of the arena of simple popular culture. They did the unthinkable. They took rock 'n' roll and pushed into high art and high culture. "Pepper" did win album of the year at the Grammys of 1968, but none of its individual songs won any awards. ("Up, up and away" won best song, but who listens to that anymore?) Before Pepper, most of the counter-culture music was simply ignored by the Grammy Awards. But now they had to take a listen.
Hooray for a cool-eyed view
2009-11-27 - So much has already been said that I write this merely to agree with the two reviewers who have given the album just one star. I think one star is a bit of an overstatement, but let's give it something like three stars, because after all, it is quite pleasant to listen to. Important or impressive in any way it isn't. Sure, as someone pointed out, every little thing on it was an innovation at the time, but innovation is not always great music: electronic sounds, too, are an innovation, but unless masterfully put together to say something, they're cousins of all the electronic blips your computer makes - hardly music you can't live without, methinks. Sgt. Pepper was so overhyped at the time that openly not liking it could get you physical injury from both hysterical girl fans and aesthetically offended boy fans - a situation nearly incomprehensible today, if nothing else because hysterical girls have been replaced by women with independent tastes. That's why I hail the new reviewers, who don't give a damn about the hype of yesteryear - you guys cannot imagine how ostracized you would have been back in the day. Sgt. Pepper just isn't that great an album; it is, instead, an example of what happens when you're so rich that the cost of studio time is of no consequence and you can just come in when you please, having had your gentlemantly british breakfast or something, play with toys and gadgets for a few hours, then go do something more fun and return whenever you feel like it. It's a collection of playtimes by the rich and talented, recorded for posterity. Talented, of course: we won't deny that these playtimes sound much better than my playtimes. And just to make sure we're on the same page: yes, A Day in the Life is pretty incredible. Wish the rest of the album were on that level.
The Best
2009-11-27 - If one is a Beatles' fan, one won't be dissappointed. This was truly the best rock group ever.
