The Beatles are perfect to listen to any time. They covered such wide musical terrain that there is something for every mood. And every album has a seemless topology of highs and lows, slow songs and fast songs.

But today is the day to give centerstage to their biggest album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was 40 years ago today… on June 1, 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s was released. It was a #1 hit in the UK for 27 weeks (only their first album Please Please Me stayed longer) and stayed on the charts for 198 weeks (longer than any other Beatles album). In the US it was #1 for 15 weeks and on the charts for 175 weeks (both longer than any other Beatles album). It was the first rock album to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year (it won 3 others and was nominated for 3 more). In 2007, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awarded it the “Most Definitive Rock and Roll Album”.

(More on Sgt. Pepper’s and other music released this week after the jump.)

It’s difficult to understand now how revolutionary it was at the time. Because modern music has descended from it and it’s techniques reused and refined, it’s tempting to dismiss it by comparison to what came after it. But the fact that it measures up to music 40 years later is a testament to how high The Beatles set the bar with this album.

It wasn’t just a popular success. Critics often cite it as the most influential album of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it the #1 “Greatest Album of All Time”. The instrumentation, recording techniques and artistic concepts were like nothing before it. Instead of just being a “rock quartet” with guitars, bass guitar and drums, The Beatles began incorporating instruments from strings, brass, woodwind, percussion, Hammond organs, harpsichords, harmoniums, pianos electric pianos and sitars. They used wah-wah pedals, fuzzboxes and Leslie speakers. They pioneered techniques like Dolby Noise Reduction, flanging, phasing, looping, variable speed recording, reverse-tape effects and double recording the singer’s voice. They cut up bits of sound samples and put them back together into a sound collage. They ended the album with a tone so high-pitched that only a dog can hear it followed by a final sound meant to repeat when the recorded ended and skipped back from the innermost grove over and over. The list goes on… All of these techniques have become commonplace in a modern recording studio, but they were startlingly unique at the time.

Artistically it was also innovative. The album was designed as a cohesive whole, a “concept album”, not just a series of singles. The band took on an alter-ego. The infamous cover has 70 famous celebrities, cost 100 times more than most album covers of the day and won the Grammy for Best Album Cover in 1967. The album was one of the first “gatefold” album covers and included a page of cut-outs (moustache, stripes, badges, etc.), implying that the listener too could join in Sgt. Pepper’s band. The listener was further invited to participate—all of the lyrics were printed on the back cover, believe it or not, another first.

Sgt. Pepper’s represents a special time in the life of the group. They had just decided to stop touring. After years of unparalleled celebrity and a fair amount of controversy, Beatlemania was waning and they were getting tired of being just “teen idols”. They were ready to do something more musically mature. Sgt. Pepper’s launched this new richer period for The Beatles. It is the beginning of their best work: The White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be came after it. And in September of 1969, just two years later, they would split up.

Unfortunately, you still can’t get The Beatles on iTunes. They could be added any day now though. Apple settled their trademark dispute with The Beatles, The Beatles settled a royalty dispute with EMI and Apple just added Paul McCartney’s catalog. One rumor is that Jobs will announce it at Apple’s developer conference next week. My fingers are crossed. But until then, you’ll have to schelp down to the music store or dust off your old copy.

Also noteworthy: the BBC has gotten a host of modern bands (Oasis, The Killers, The Fratellis, Travis, the Kaiser Chiefs, and more) to re-record the album and it is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on June 2.

Notable Music Released This Week

• Dimitri from Paris: Cocktail Disco
• Glenn Gould: Bach: Goldberg Variations
• Immaculate Machine: Fables (singer Kathryn Calder is from The New Pornographers)
• The Kooks: Inside In / Inside Out

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.