nubi_fae

...The Beatles released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For those of you who don't give a shit, I'll break it down for you why this release is important:

While other groups have toyed with the idea, this album established the idea of the "concept album", paving the way for other musical artists to approach their craft as ... well, art. Since the rise of their career, the Beatles dispensed with the notion that an album was a collection of two or three hits and the rest throwaway filler. Every track mattered. SPLHCB furthered this idea by making all the songs and sounds on an album unified in vision, thus paving the way for others who wished to follow this template, from the Who's Tommy, and Pink Floyd's the Dark Side of the Moon to Green Day's American Idiot and even Dr Dré's the Chronic

This was the first appearance of the gatefold cover. You know, where you the cover opens up and there is more art.

There are lyrics printed on the back cover so you can sing along, because the singer is gonna sing a song, and he wants you all to sing along.

The role of producer became equally as important as the role of the performer. George Martin... make that Sir George Martin's arrangements, recording tricks (note the random tape loops on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" are his work.), attention to detail as well as his ability to get the four lads to effing focus helped this album become what it is. If someone else produced this effort, it wouldn't have been this successful, nor as good. All the tracks that are the most moving such as "A Day in the Life", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are nothing without Sir Martin's influence and penchant to bring out the most subtile of melody. A producer who stays true to the band's vision and helps them achieve excellence is the difference between one being a liaison of the muse and just someone twiddling knobs.

What's more amazing is that some the leftovers of these sessions became Magical Mystery Tour released in November 1967, which featured "All You Need is Love", introduced only a few weeks after SPLHCB.

These innovations, while today old hat, were nothing more than earth-shattering when SPLHCB was released. So much so, that it is often noted that the weekend after it's release, Jimi Hendrix opened a show playing a cover of the title cut, simply because it was ahead of what he was doing. And Jimi never wanted to be left behind.

Respect, love them or hate them. Once cannot discount the Beatles' influence. Some say they ruined rock and roll. Good for them. It needed to happen.