Just saw this on the BBC website and it hit home just how old I am!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39350444For many,
the seminal album of the 60s and perhaps of the past 50 years. I remember buying it in the week after it was released and like many it blew me away. I was only 10 at the time and as the following years unfolded it made even more of a lasting mark on my musical memory.
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The following Sunday Paul McCartney went to see a Jimi Hendrix gig. Instead of his normal set, Hendrix played Sgt Pepper. He'd learned it in three days. All of it.
An important album yes, but not a patch on Abbey Road, Revolver or the white album imo.
The rest I find a bit frustrating.
My dad had the lot and we had a record player in the attic where I got to listen to this and Captain Beefheart, carpenters, Simon and garfunkel etc.
My dad was a Beatles fan and bought the albums. I now know my mum was a stones fan and didn't have the cash to buy her favorites.
Still so many good songs, with lots of experimentation of styles and arrangements in a good way.
'Good Night' such a great way to end the album, especially after 'Revolution #9'.
In terms of the actual songs, other Beatle Albums are surely better, not helped by the 2 of the best songs (Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane) being removed for a single
But for me, as an album, a collective, a memory and impact on me personally, and the fact that it was the last time the four actually worked as one, it is their magnum opus.
Mc Cartney was impressed anyway as he recalls....
“It’s still obviously a shining memory for me,” McCartney recalled many years later, “because I admired him so much anyway, he was so accomplished.”
To think that that album had meant so much to him as to actually do it by the Sunday night, three days after the release. He must have been so into it, because normally it might take a day for rehearsal and then you might wonder whether you’d put it in, but he just opened with it. It’s a pretty major compliment in anyone’s book. I put that down as one of the great honours of my career.
Due to 'copyright issues', the Saville theatre and his performances keep getting removed although I am sure McCartney and Hendrix themselves were pretty cool about those issues. According to Noel Redding he 'never received a penny from the record company anyway', albeit that his management company ripped him off as well as Jimi.
Just love the music myself.
Brian Wilson eulogises about "Revolver" and Paul McCartney has often stated that "Pet Sounds" is his favourite album and "God Only Knows" his favourite track.