[Music] Just how good is Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

[Tyrone Biggums]

You are obsessed by the Kinks (very very good band I admit), there are quite a few NSCers who are obsessed by the Who, The Sex Pistols and The Jam. It doesn't mean that they are the best bands though

Nothing to do with obsession. All to do with not accepting the group think as fact.

George Martin was a huge reason behind The Beatles success. Remove him from the picture and I doubt they'd have put out the albums they did as they exist now.

 

[Icy Gull]

Nothing to do with obsession. All to do with not accepting the group think as fact.

George Martin was a huge reason behind The Beatles success. Remove him from the picture and I doubt they'd have put out the albums they did as they exist now.

Take Ray Davies out of the Kinks and they wouldn't be as good either. Whenever we get a great bands of the sixties thread you bang on about the Kinks and no other band, I'd call that obsessive

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

It is an absolutely magnificent album, the best ever.

Will never forget listening to it for the first time as 16 year old in 1998. I remember that exact moment so clearly. I was mesmerised, couldn’t believe how good it was and couldn’t stop listening to it. That was the start of my Beatles obsession.

Every single track is musical genius. It is an under rated album by an under rated band.

 

[Binney on acid]

It contained some of the greatest songs ever written. It also featured a couple of glorified nursery rhymes. It therefore cannot be considered to be the greatest album ever.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Proves why Ray Davies was a superior song writer to Lennon/McCartney.

George Martin was a huge reason behind The Beatles success. Remove him from the picture and I doubt they'd have put out the albums they did as they exist now.

Not sure I could dispute either of these two statements. What made the Beatles so impressive is the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Given those parts had their own genius, whether Martin, Lennon, McCartney or Harrison for that matter, it was perhaps surprising they lasted as long as they did.

Ray Davies like perhaps Brian Wilson were pretty much the sole creative force behind their respective bands. Doesn't lesson their creative force, but this thread is about albums, and of course, do you have these great Beatles albums without Martin, of course not, an album isn't great on songwriting alone.

 

[Jam The Man]

Third behind Abbey Road and Revolver for me

 

[Jam The Man]

My favourite Beatles album? Tough one. I think I'd have to say The Best of The Beatles.

A-ha! Not a patch on Wings though of course!

 

[Icy Gull]

It is an absolutely magnificent album, the best ever.

Will never forget listening to it for the first time as 16 year old in 1998. I remember that exact moment so clearly. I was mesmerised, couldn’t believe how good it was and couldn’t stop listening to it. That was the start of my Beatles obsession.

Every single track is musical genius. It is an under rated album by an under rated band.

Likewise, you had to be there to appreciate just how amazing it was at the time.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Take Ray Davies out of the Kinks and they wouldn't be as good either. Whenever we get a great bands of the sixties thread you bang on about the Kinks and no other band, I'd call that obsessive

False equivalence.

I can bang on about many other bands of the 60's.

The Who had a better singer and superior musicians, just not as strong a songwriter.

The Yardbirds destroyed the Beatles for musicianship, not even close really in that department.

Not everyone is going to swallow the Beatles hype and myths.

 

[Icy Gull]

False equivalence.

I can bang on about many other bands of the 60's.

The Who had a better singer and superior musicians, just not as strong a songwriter.

The Yardbirds destroyed the Beatles for musicianship, not even close really in that department.

Not everyone is going to swallow the Beatles hype and myths.

I grew up with them and the Kinks I don't have to swallow anything, I know what my ears like and i'm not led on music at all

Dissing one group to boost the relevance of another seems a bit pointless to me. The Kinks and the Beatles and loads of others all influenced each other and we, the music fans, got to hear the often magical results.

 

[lost in london]

For me, the Beatles are a 'you had to be there' type band. Listening to it cold, with none of the context, they're a bit 'meh' for me with some good songs, but some really, really shit songs. Maybe that is artificial and you cannot strip the context from the music, but I wasn't there, didn't know what had gone before and how they changed things, so they don't have the same impact for me.

 

[studio150]

Nothing to do with obsession. All to do with not accepting the group think as fact.

George Martin was a huge reason behind The Beatles success. Remove him from the picture and I doubt they'd have put out the albums they did as they exist now.

Unless the group produce their own album then the producer and sound engineer will have an input. Often its the producer finding solutions to the artist's vision so that what the artist visualized is as near as possible transferred to vinyl.

You prefer the Kinks, fine its just not a view shared by many

 

[brakespear]

Is correct.

Is not - Abbey Road

 

[Bold Seagull]

For me, the Beatles are a 'you had to be there' type band. Listening to it cold, with none of the context, they're a bit 'meh' for me with some good songs, but some really, really shit songs. Maybe that is artificial and you cannot strip the context from the music, but I wasn't there, didn't know what had gone before and how they changed things, so they don't have the same impact for me.

Around 230 odd originally written and recorded songs in 10 years - think we might allow them the odd dud. At one time I did share this opinion as I wasn't born until the early 70s, but actually as time has gone on, the time and context are irrelevant, you listen to some of these tracks and think bloodyhell, that is what xxxx are doing. You can hear them permeate so many genres that they're almost impossible to ignore or dismiss.

The light bulb moment for me came with Tomorrow Never Knows (as previously mentioned). I heard that and just couldn't believe a 26 year old Lennon recorded that on tape loops on an 8 track or whatever it was in 1966! Could anyone seriously distinguish this from the Big Beat hey day 30 years later!? I don't think so. Was unsurprised to then see Chemical Brothers call it their manifesto for all that they did.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

A couple of years ago my wife and I were driving back from Italy on holiday. We had a smallish number of carefully selected CDs in the car, of which Sgt Pepper was one. When I suggested playing it, she who must be obeyed was a bit reluctant....... but we ended up playing it twice straight through, and then one more time before we hit home shores. It is a masterpiece in every respect.

In the late 1960's I went on a German language holiday to Austria - I know, sad isn't it. One of the learned tutors, who must have been in his late 50s, in private conversation actually compared the lyrics favourably to a number of respected 20th Century poets.

 

[Icy Gull]

Is not - Abbey Road

It's great how we all have such different opinions, Abbey Road and Let it Be are my least favourite Beatles albums

 

[brakespear]

It's great how we all have such different opinions, Abbey Road and Let it Be are my least favourite Beatles albums

'Abbey Road', along with 'The Beatles' is pretty much the only Beatles album I will listen to all the way through. The others are good but just don't match up for me.

 

[Bold Seagull]

False equivalence.

I can bang on about many other bands of the 60's.

The Who had a better singer and superior musicians, just not as strong a songwriter.

The Yardbirds destroyed the Beatles for musicianship, not even close really in that department.

Not everyone is going to swallow the Beatles hype and myths.

All great bands. Don't think any of them covered the breadth of genres the Beatles seemed to cover or even invent, not always successfully mind, but the breadth of creativity is hard to compare. I'll agree with you again, that you probably couldn't say any of the Beatles were the best drummer, or best guitarist, or best this or that, but as said to you earlier, they just formed a whole that exceeded all their sums combined.

What is the hype and myth for you, that they were the best at everything? Not sure I've met anyone who'd say that, their solo careers post Beatles wouldn't suggest that either. If hype and myth is an astonishing catalogue of music recorded by a group of lads in their 20s that shone brightly for just a decade that would influence music for the next 60 years, then yeah, I'm buying that.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Proves why Ray Davies was a superior song writer to Lennon/McCartney.

Not any better, but great nonetheless. They wrote about different stuff. Liked the Kinks immensely and still enjoy playing their stuff.

I still think Pepper is their best overall album, although it doesn’t include some of their best individual songs.

 

[BadFish]

A-ha! Not a patch on Wings though of course!

The band the Beatles could have been.