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THE BEATLES
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

as reviewed by Jack Crompton at Amazon.com, April 30, 2008

I love to turn you on...

This album, in many ways, reveals the Beatles at their absolute creative peak and is an intelligent, artful recording that blew away an entire generation and defined an important era of change in history: The ‘Summer of Love” – 1967.

What makes this record special is the unique character of each of it’s songs and the fact that it really was the first ‘concept album’. By that I mean all the songs fit together as one cohesive whole. Mainly the product of Paul McCartney’s driving artistic vision, Sgt. Pepper would go down in history as one of the greatest works of musical art ever, and I have to agree. From the cover concept, the great art and packaging, to the memorable songs and the surreal lyrics they contain, this is a potent creative expression, the likes of which the world had never seen before its arrival. It also reveals the Beatles music maturing into a completely outside-the-box format where anything goes. And goes it does... wonderfully.

Every song on here is a strong one, most of them classic greats. I’ll forgo listing them, because most everyone already knows them (‘With a Little Help’, ‘She’s Leaving Home’ , ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’). A personal favorite of mine is ‘Fixing a Hole’. Same with ‘Getting Better’. I just love the optimistic ‘up’ feeling of these tunes, very reminiscient of the Beach Boy’s ‘Wouldn’t it Be Nice’, from Brian Wilsons’ masterwork ‘Pet Sounds’, which I understand played no small role in inspiring the boys in this recording.

There are so many gems here. But I do think they saved the real jewel for last: ‘A Day In The Life’ features the magical synergy of Lennon and McCartney at it’s best. The verses were written by Lennon and tell a story of a tragic car crash in etherial poetry. Lennon definitely had a potent gift for putting words together. Awesome. Then comes the bridge by McCartney, which juxtaposes the verses with a contrasting mood, yet fits the song as beautifully as anything ever could. Perfectly. Featuring a relentless vaudeville style heavy-on-bass-notes piano riff, McCartney continues the narrative of this ‘day in a life’. The tunes ends with a tremendous ascending crescendo, punctuated abruptly and oh so appropriately with the resounding bass notes of the piano.

Music doesn’t get any better than this. It stands as an example of a level of genius that is rarely matched by anyone of any age and a creative statement that will surely stand the test of time.

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