Sgt. Pepper

I gave Born in the USA some love earlier today, but Wednesday was the 44th anniversary of Sgt Pepper:

Sgt. Pepper marked more than a musical shift. It was the culmination of a cultural transformation that had begun only a few short years before, one that purposely redefined the band entirely. Indeed, the most astonishing thing about Sgt. Pepper isn’t simply its breadth of accomplishment, but rather the fact that it only took five years for John, Paul, George and Ringo to evolve from the simplicity of “Love Me Do” to a dramatic definition of “A Day in the Life.” It was an astonishing artistic evolution by any measure, one that’s yet to be equaled in terms of growth or maturity...Pepper redefined the notion of an album as a unified body of work, an artistic accomplishment as daunting as any artistic endeavor in mankind’s collective canon. Indeed, in the full spectrum of the world’s creative achievements, Sgt. Pepper retains its place in that pantheon.

When McCartney played a test pressing of “A Day in the Life” for Brian Wilson in L.A. prior to its release, Wilson was so shaken and outright intimidated that he abandoned work on what he hoped would become his musical masterpiece, the legendary and tragic Smile. Sgt. Pepper went on to garner four Grammys a year later, including Album of the Year, the first time that honor had ever been bestowed on a Rock record. Sales followed suit, with 32 million copies worldwide. It spent a total of 201 weeks on the British charts, 23 of them at Number One.

Sgt. Pepper is the Golden Mean of popular culture. The highest art, accepted by the masses. The Greeks came up with the concept of The Golden Mean, and hell, they came up with butt-fucking, so I say let's give them a listen, alright?

"Oh, camon...you've 'never heard of' Mr. Burns?"