Week 2: 50 Records That Changed the Face of Music.

[Swish]

Well, the first one started quite an interesting thread, and I can only hope this next choice will have the same results. I'm sure it will please Resident Loser since it's none other than The Beatle's - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

There are those who rate Revolver or the White Album higher (I do), but Sgt. Pepper's made the watertight case for pop music as an art form itself; until then, it was thought the silly, transient stuff of teenagers. At a time when all pop music wsa stringently manufactured, theise McCartney-driven melodies and George Martin-produced whorls of sound proved that untried ground was not only the most fertile stuff, but also the most viable commercially. It defined the Sixties and gave white rock all its airs and graces. Without this pop would be a very different beast.

Let the games begin,
Swish

[Stone]

While it certainly isn't in the same league as VU & Nico, I'm sure it influenced a few musicians along the way.

Plus, it's a half-way decent album to listen to, too.

[Resident Loser]

Well, the first one started quite an interesting thread, and I can only hope this next choice will have the same results. I'm sure it will please Resident Loser since it's none other than The Beatle's - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

There are those who rate Revolver or the White Album higher (I do), but Sgt. Pepper's made the watertight case for pop music as an art form itself; until then, it was thought the silly, transient stuff of teenagers. At a time when all pop music wsa stringently manufactured, theise McCartney-driven melodies and George Martin-produced whorls of sound proved that untried ground was not only the most fertile stuff, but also the most viable commercially. It defined the Sixties and gave white rock all its airs and graces. Without this pop would be a very different beast.

Let the games begin,
Swish

...I preferred the 'Stones...I did eventually buy Sgt. Pepper (in mono no less) and my fave cut is Good Morning...I like the beat and I like the lyrics...I give it a 95 Dick (is that gonna fall victim to the auto-censor?) a...er, Mr. Clark...

Me, Revolver and Rubber Soul are more...important... musically...but you would have to be an idiot to say Pepper wasn't the touchstone of the era...

I think the the whole British invasion is the real influence. How many people started bands because of it... SPLHCB is just it's apex...

I mean it's not like they re-invented the wheel...there isn't much that hadn't been done before...strings were used in pop...swirly-swirly backward calliope, etc. has it's roots in the previously mentioned musique concrete of the late 40s...Pet Sounds was cited by McCartney as being an influence for certain flavors and textures included in Pepper...like the dog barking...Putting it all together in a somewhat dismissed genre was the big trick...

It may have been influential, but more in other ways than musically I think...I mean the 'Stones had Satanic Majesties Request but other than a few cuts (Citadel and 2000 Man come to mind) it was an also-ran...Most of what Sir Paul did with Pepper just continued to be what Sir Paul does, solo, with Wings, etc...Lennon's post-Beatle work was the antithesis of Sgt. Pepper IMHO...American music was regrouping with Dylan, The Byrds, the Spoonful, CCR and such...I would be remiss not to mention the Mamas and the Papas et al, but now I'll have to clean my keyboard...and R&B was becoming Soul Music and was getting out from under the Goffen/King version of minstrelsy and into it's own...Let's not forget blue-eyed soul...and awful lot of good music competing for the listeners and their dollars...

How many groups would say the album was influential in their music? To my way of thinking there should be influences that one gathers over the course of time and ultimately coalesces into a style or sound unique to themselves...If you cite one group or album that is your influence, you might as well go for a tribute band...or Beatlemania.

jimHJJ(...well, let's run that up the pole and see who shoots off a rocket...)

[3-LockBox]

I'd have to go with Revolver as a more influencial album musically speaking, from the Beatles anyway. But yeah, this is the album that solidified the Beatles as one of the greatest recording rock entities of all time. It also open a pandora's box for what could and shouldn't be done.

It could never be replicated by anyone else, even The Beatles themselves. It has all the excesses of progressive rock that came a few years later, which most proggers point to the this album as the genesis of the progressive rock genre, as well as the psychadelic rock craze it so obviously spawned. At the time Sgt. Peppers sounded so experimental, but nowadays it sounds more like a quintissential 60's pastiche of pop and psychadelia. It also spawned a slew of imitations that fell so terribly short.

It is definately a milestone in pop culture as it redifined what was supposed to be hip in the eyes of corporate America, as well as the media and the buying public. This is the point where the 'hippy look' started to infiltrate fashion (although it was more a mix of psychadelia and roaring '20s). The Beatles appearence upon the release of Sgt Peppers influenced long hair as a viable alternative hairstyle for men. No, The Beatles weren't the first band to sport long hair, but they validated the look. Their appearence on the cover of Sgt Peppers was in stark contrast to the mop-topped look of their last album (which they quite frankly spawned that hair craze as well). The tremendous popularity and validation of the album sales meant that no respectable rock band would be 'clean cut' for years.

Beatle-influenced psychadelia also infiltrated television after the success of Sgt Peppers, most evident in the vareity show genre, where new editing technology lent itself to the over-indulgences of some video mixers, where nearly any pop band's TV appearences were accompanied by swirling, kalaidescope imagery, and zip zoom camera effects, as well as other distractions. This, coupled with poorly performed lipsyncing, is part of TV's most embarissing (and laughable) era.

I love this album, but haven't listened to it in whole for years. Maybe I should whip it out (the CD) and try to wash William Shatner out of my ears.

[nobody]

I gotta toss this one in the bin with those albums that were certainly influential, but which never really did it for me. I think I have an old copy floating around without a cover somewhere, too scratchy to matter that it never gets played.

Thing is, I just never really have been too interested in the concept album thing...the operatic rock thing...the happy little trippy lyrics...strings and things tossed into the mix kinda nature of the whole thing. And, frankly, there's not much I really do like that fits the mold of this one at all. Even Smile, much to J's chagrin I would imagine.

Personally, about the only Beatles stuff I really like is when they wore matching suits and shouted a lot. Parts of revolver still sound pretty good to me...but I'm basically done after that and can't really think off hand of any bands that really sound much like their later stuff that I've really gotten into.

Not just because it’s not to my tastes, but as to lasting affects, I do think a case could possibly be made that the album was more important culturally than musically.

[Swish]

Personally, about the only Beatles stuff I really like is when they wore matching suits and shouted a lot. Parts of revolver still sound pretty good to me...but I'm basically done after that and can't really think off hand of any bands that really sound much like their later stuff that I've really gotten into.

...if not for A Day in the Life, I would not miss too much from this record. Really. The White Album, with Dear Prudence and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, two of my favorite Beatles songs, is likely my favorite, although Revolver is a close second. That's not to say I don't think SPLHCB wasn't influential, which is the whole point of the list.

Swish

[Resident Loser]

...I feel like Art Linkletter hosting "Kid's Say The Darndest Things"...

Prior to '64, men's hairstyles consisted of crew-cuts, flattops and greasy DAs...The term longhair referred to those involved with classical music (think Toscanini) and the occasional nutty professor...

Brian Epstein revamped the lads look from the pompadoured leather jacket-clad Teddy Boy-types into the mop-topped, trendy mod icons introduced to America...By '67 and SPLHCB their hair just got longer, keeping them a step ahead of most of the rest of us...military style and Nehru jackets were in and Edwardian affectations were also beginning.

jimHJJ(...there's more but, time's up for today...)

[3-LockBox]

sometimes...I feel like Art Linkletter hosting "Kid's Say The Darndest Things"

uuhhhh....okay

zzzzzzzzz

[superpanavision70mm]

Brian Wilson Says, "that's my favorite album!"

[BradH]

Not much to say that hasn't already been said for years but here are a few random thoughts.

I've got a 2-hour documentary on Revolver done by Public Radio International about two months ago. To make the case that Revolver was the Beatles' best they slight Rubber Soul to a criminal degree. But one interviewee noted that every generation wants to plant its own flag so it's no wonder that younger Beatles fans prefer something like Revolver over Sgt. Peppers. And it's true, you can here Revolver's influence much more today than Sgt. Pepper. But what kills me is we're talking about the same band here. Two consecutive albums that are deemed to be worlds apart! It's a testament to the power and influence of the Fab Four. Sgt. Pepper was a real Pandora's Box and a touchstone that guided most of the experimentation that would follow for the next ten years. (Can you imagine King Crimson's debut without Sgt. Pepper?) But by the late 70's, Paul Weller of the The Jam was working toward his own Revolver and felt he'd finally acheived it with Sound Affects in 1980. It's amazing that an artist would focus is early career in that manner, especially considering most things punk and new-wave masqueraded as anti-60's and anti-Beatles. Zappa hated Sgt. Pepper's and saw it as a sellout to the hippie crowd, partly because of its cover and title. Lennon said the title, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a reference to the long-titled Bay Area bands like "The Grateful Jefferson Dead Airplane", as he called them. Yet, this album is distinctly English like few albums are. This was arguably McCartney's creative high point in the Beatles. (I would argue Lennon's was A Hard Day's Night.)

Btw, Sgt. Pepper sounds killer in mono. For all its accolades as a sonic breakthrough, the truth is Martin didn't have a firm handle on stereo mixing and relied on a lot of hard left/hard right effects. (The drums are clear and ringing, though. That would be lost by the time of the White Album.) Mono Beatles records were usually a different mix altogether, not just the collpasing of the two channels.

More disjointed thoughts: I don't think The Stone's Satanic Majesty's was a knockoff of Sgt. Pepper. I know that goes contrary to conventional wisdom and tons of ink by the critics but there's a lot of spacey, free-form jamming on that record and the Beatles weren't into that other than on a couple of occasions. Satanic Majesty's owes more to the psychedelic London underground bands like Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, etc. Those bands were obviously influenced by The Beatles but Revolverr had them up and running by 1966.

[Dusty Chalk]

Less influential than many claim.

I hear a lot of early Beatles in contemporary music, but I don't hear Sgt. Pepper. Not meant as a slam against the album, au contraire, I believe it to be rather unique. It's got such a particular sound, that even though zillions of people have listened to it, I see very little attempt at imitation, regurgitation, homage, or otherwise. And those melodies...

[Dusty Chalk]

I like being hit over the head. I also like being tickled with a feather.

[3-LockBox]

I like being hit over the head. I also like being tickled with a feather.

TMI...