Sergeant Peppers

Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles
1967

The Group & its Times:

1950s: straight laced, conservative, pre-rock n roll,

No.1 in charts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AkLE4X-bbU

The Group & its Times:

1960: Coronation St., 1961:Berlin Wall / RTE, 62:Vatican 2,
63:Martin Luther King: I have a dream.64: 1 st cigarettes
warnings, Mary Poppins movie, 65:Mini Skirt fashion, 66:1 st
creditcard, England world cup
1967:1 heart transplantsummer of love psychedelic fashion - the Haight-Ashbury area in San
st

Francisco was the "hot spot" of the United States. The younger generation had come into its own;
teenagers were leaving home to join communes and were experimenting with mind-altering drugs. The
Beatles are considered to be the premiere songwriters of their day, partly because of the low quality of
other popular music being written at the time, but mainly because their combination of beautiful melodies
and insightful poetry made their work superior to that of their contemporaries. The Beatles Sergeant
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band revolutionized rock music through a combination of creative lyrics,
album unity, conceptual design, and the use of innovative studio technology. The after-effects of this
revolution are still evident. The album no longer belonged to the Beatles; it was "Sergeant Peppers"
album, and every song dropped into place. Since the album was about escaping their everyday reality
and entering a world that to them was surreal -- the world of the average person -- Paul McCartney
thought they should utilize different sounds and effects to make the album extraordinary.. Sergeant
Pepper portrays the lives of average people who use wild fantasies to break up the monotony of their
days.

Pop verus Rock

Pop: catchy, simple lyrics: for mass appeal: Love, Love Me Do
Rock: especially late 1960s rock: Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix
etc. more complex sounds, deep lyrics, psychedelic trippy feel &
effects etc. All Along the Watchtower
The Beatles were moving from being a pop boyband
(Beatlemania)to a serious, creative & influential rock Band
through the 60s!!! With compluicate chord progressions:
Michelle or lasting experimental rhythms & sounds:
Tomorrow Never Knows, or Psychadelic : Strawberry Fields

1967
So the Beatles had come of age.sick of screaming fans & inaudible
concerts (e.g. Shea Stadium), they wanted now to solely do studio
work
The 1st song Sergeant Pepper gave the idea for an album, an alterego group, pictured as if in a post concert shot, a mixture of heroes,
friends, artists etc. in a cannabis garden
Album took 4 months, 700 hours & $100,000 to complete; this was
unprecedented.
Other Firsts: 2 continuous sides of music, printed lyrics, cut-outs, full
orchestra plus lots of studio experimentation (splicing, samples
etc)