The Good: Generally excellent vocals, much imagination, Creative instrumentations
The Bad: Quality of music is inconsistent, Somewhat dated
The Basics: An overall very good album with wonderful vocals and good thematic unification, Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band still has some serious deficiencies in a few tracks that rob it of perfection.
Someone I respect greatly has been attempting to further open up my musical appreciation by sharing discs I haven't heard with me. She's a real sweetheart, too; she knows I'll review them and if I don't tell her all of my thoughts directly, all she has to do is read them here. She's perceptive like that.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a weird little album that does what no artist I regularly listen to save Sophie B. Hawkins does effectively and that is to mix a wide array of sounds into a single album. Every song on this Beatles album is so different from the one that precedes and follows it. And that's a fortunate thing; if you do not like the song that's on, odds are you liked the one that you heard before or will like the one that follows it. At least that was my experience.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a story of a night. It's a talent show, as I interpret it. So, it opens with introducing the show in a confused jumble of music (which shares its name with the album). The sound levels are drastically uneven on the first track, it starts quite quiet and then gets quite loud following the introduction. That doesn't work so much. Then the album is a collection of pop, ("With A Little Help From My Friends" and "When I'm Sixty-Four"), ballad (She's Leaving Home), Indian influence (Within You Without You) and - for lack of a better term - show tunes (Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite).
So, it's the story of a talent show, a night in the life of people. The overriding theme is the obvious loneliness suggested in the title, but even more an undercurrent of desperation. The lonely want to belong, usually to another, sometimes to an organization. Mr. Kite wants society's approval, the narrators in "She's Leaving Home" desperately want the nest not to be emptied.
Overall, it's a nice collection of thematically unified songs with very unique sounds. And most of them work. The opening (and its reprise) has a cluttered sound to it that is distracting and while I applaud most songs that go without a traditional rhyming scheme, that attempt fails with "Being For the Benefit Of Mr. Kite."
Out of the few Beatle's albums I've heard, I have to say, I enjoy the balance of this one most. The vocals are representative of the entire group, not just John and Paul. It's a very good album, but not a perfect one. It's certainly mostly easy to listen to and it's a nice change from the garbage that permeates the radio today. The instrumental talent on this album is worth the price alone.
The best tracks are the mournful "She's Leaving Home" and the fun and funny "When I'm Sixty-Four." The weak link is clearly the annoying sound and painfully grating lyrics of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite."
For other classic rock artists, check out my reviews of:
The Beatles Anthology, Volume 1 - The Beatles
Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones
7.5/10
For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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