funny thing, Mr Soul, you’ve picked what I would argue were the two highest points of the album.
Which are half-finished songs & songs that don’t fit well together? Seriously, my opinion was formed after reading & thinking about Lennon’s criticism of the album.
I went to the web site & listened to the comments on the making of the album. I loved Ringo’s bit about he learned to play chess during the sessions. They spent 500 hours on the production of the album. It had better been good for that effort.
I personally like Rubber Soul, Revolver, Abbey Road (and of course the White Album for it’s sheer creativity) better than Sgt. Pepper; however, Sgt. Pepper’s did break a lot of ground.
Half-finished? I guess I can undestand the claim that the album as a whole doesn’t have the greatest coherence (although I’d have to disagree; I think people are looking for the wrong thing), but those songs are entirely complete.
Although I have always liked Abbey Road more.
On a tangent, has anyone here ever listened to Harrison’s electroic Sound?
On a tangent, has anyone here ever listened to Harrison’s electroic Sound?
It doesn’t matter what chords you play or what notes you sing - it’s only a Northern Song!
Abbey Road was great because they were at their best game and recording technology had gotten much better. Imagine if the lads had had DAW’s & unlimited tracks.
I have to agree with you both, Abbey Road was…is…outstanding. Every Beatles album is arguably ‘their best’, but I think Abbey Road has the strongest claim to that title.
I think that saying the technology had gotten better is only part of the story, the main part, is that they all sat down together like the old days, and played like a band.
For a while, they forgot the women, the money, the egos, and the many other conflicts, and were just “The Beatles”.
And as their final album, it’s more than a fitting memorial.
But just think where they might have gone from there if they had managed to keep that sense of professionalism.
Sorry, the board won’t allow me to edit my previous post, os I have to continue in another one.
Back to Sgt Pepper…
I think if George Martin had been allowed to include Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields on Sgt P as he wanted to, then that might arguably have been their greatest album.
You bet! Considering Penny Lane & Strawberry Fields might arguably be their “best” compositions (and they weren’t half-finished songs), they would be have indeed made Sgt. Pepper GREAT!
But alas, what would have happened to Magical Mystery Tour? Perhaps it would never have existed
Actually, now I think about it, Abbey Rd had a bunch of songs that I would also cateogrize as half-finished but they worked because they were thrown together in the “right” way.
My favorite Beatles songs are definitely on Rubber Soul, Revolver & The White Allbum (The Beatles), though.
Abbey Road is the better album to my ears too, but the sheer inventiveness of Sgt Pepper, combined with its’ mass appeal, how can you ever beat that?
But yeah, Rossi & co, their 70’ies output’s still holding up very well I think. I’ve given On The Level plenty of time recently and there’s a lot of good stuff going on there (and I first bought the LP back when it was new). Maybe the Yorkshire gang & I have something in common. The Vikings took York & named it Jorvik
Neither Penny Lane nor Strawberry Fields were on Magical Mystery Tour, not on the double EP nor in the movie.
Hmmm - I never saw the double LP but the album that was released in the US did indeed include these 2 songs. Also, I did check this before I posted:
1. Magical Mystery Tour 2. Fool on the Hill 3. Flying 4. Blue Jay Way 5. Your Mother Should Know 6. I Am the Walrus 7. Hello Goodbye 8. Strawberry Fields Forever 9. Penny Lane 10. Baby You’re a Rich Man 11. All You Need Is Love
Sure thing Mr Soul, all those tracks were on the US release, but they weren’t in the movie or on the movie soundtrack which was released as a double EP (not LP).
From wikipedia:
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Capitol Records released MMT as full-length album because EPs were not as popular in the US as they were in the UK. The Magical Mystery Tour LP was divided into two halves: The first side was the film soundtrack, and the second side was a collection of A- and B-sides released in 1967.
So you’re right, they were on the US release, but they weren’t originally intended to be.
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Two songs dropped from Sgt. Pepper, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane”, were both recorded in late 1966 and early 1967. The unusually long gap between Beatles releases, combined with the group’s withdrawal from touring, resulted in producer George Martin’s being placed under increasing pressure by EMI and Capitol to deliver new material. He reluctantly issued the two songs as a double-A-sided single in February 1967. In keeping with the group’s usual practice, the single tracks were not included on the LP (a decision Martin maintains he regrets to this day). They were released only as a single in the UK at the time, but were subsequently included as part of the American LP version of Magical Mystery Tour (which was issued as a 6-track EP in Britain). Martin would later express regret that the two songs from the single were not included on Sgt. Pepper, which, if it had a weakness, was that it did not contain particularly singable tunes.
And I also think that was a shame, those two tracks would have made Sgt P into a more complete package.
Perhaps that’s why Sgt P sounds unfinished Mr Soul, because in a way, it was.
For you Bill:
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Engelbert Humperdinck (b. Arnold George Dorsey, May 2, 1936, Madras, India) is a well-known Anglo-Indian pop singer who rose to international fame during the 1960s, after adopting the name of the famous German opera composer as his own stage name.
The board says that the reason I can’t edit Gizmo posts is because I’m logged on as Gizmo
More Englebert Bill:
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One of ten children of a British Army officer and his Indian-born wife, Arnold George Dorsey’s family migrated to Leicester, England when he was ten, and a year later he showed an interest in music and began learning the saxophone. By the early 1950s, he was playing in nightclubs, but he’s believed not to have tried singing until he was seventeen and friends coaxed him into entering a pub contest. His impression of Jerry Lewis prompted friends to begin calling him Gerry Dorsey, a name he worked under for almost a decade.
His budding music career was interrupted when he served in the British military in the mid-1950s, but he got his first chance to record in 1958, when Decca Records gave him a chance. His first single, “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” was anything but a hit, but Dorsey and the label would reunite almost a decade later with far different results. Dorsey continued working the clubs until 1961, when he was stricken with tuberculosis. He regained his health but returned to club work with little success, until, in 1966, he teamed with an old roommate named Gordon Mills who had become a music impresario and the manager of Tom Jones.
Aware that Dorsey had been struggling several years to make it in music, Mills suggested a name change to the more arresting Engelbert Humperdinck, borrowed from the composer of such operas as Hansel and Gretel. Mills also arranged a new deal with Decca Records. And in early 1967, the changes paid off when Humperdinck’s version of “Release Me,” done in a smooth ballad style with a full chorus joining him on the third chorus, reached the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic and went to number one in England, keeping the Beatles’s adventurous “Strawberry Fields Forever” from claiming the top slot.
Even in a year dominated by psychedelic rock music, “Release Me”'s success may not have been that surprising, considering Frank Sinatra’s chart comeback that began a year earlier, and stablemate Tom Jones’s success with a ballad or two in the interim, both of which probably opened some new room for more traditionally-styled singers. “Release Me” was believed to sell 85,000 copies a day at the height of its popularity, and the song became the singer’s signature song for many years.
Humperdinck’s deceptively easygoing style and casually elegant good looks, a contrast to stablemate Tom Jones’s energetic attack and overtly sexual style, earned Humperdinck a large following, particularly among women. “Release Me” was followed up by two more hit ballads, “There Goes My Everything” and “The Last Waltz”, earning him a reputation as a crooner that he didn’t always agree with. “If you are not a crooner,” he told Hollywood Reporter writer Rick Sherwood, “it’s something you don’t want to be called. No crooner has the range I have. I can hit notes a bank could not cash. What I am is a contemporary singer, a stylized performer.”
the beat’s were rung out like a wet rag,im surprised they lasted that long. and anything john lennon said has to be looked at,does he mean it or is he just tryin to shock us,i believe he said things off the top off his head ,sometimes more to see what kinda reaction he got,and just to nonconform,i love the guy,dont get me wrong,but he was a lil bit that way ya gotta admit. by the way,englebert was on the same bill with hendrix when the experience played thier first uk tour,also with cat stevens and the walker bros. what a package that was huh!!!
There’s lots of music history contained in this topic…
You know that after WWII and up to the end of the '60’s music took a transformation that hasn’t happened sense.
I wonder how this time in music will be perceived in a few hundred years… and… what form music will have taken in the same few hundred years?
Bill…
P.S. Here’s what’s going on at the local Beatle Scene next weekend… http://www.maritimebeatleevent.com/ These events go on in many places around the world… But this weekend it goes here…
I can’t really define a bad or un-finished Beatles song. Even “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” a b-side release of Let It Be (I think that was the single here) not a mainstream hit or something the masses would even listen too. Who to say it’s un-finished. I agree with Wozz on some of Lennons comments to the press. The only bad thing I can find about Sgt. Peppers is the crappy movie with Frampton, The Bee Gees, Aerosmith, everyone musta been hard up for dough.
and anything john lennon said has to be looked at,does he mean it or is he just tryin to shock us,i believe he said things off the top off his head
For sure, but there’s always a little bit (sometimes a lot of truth) in what he says. Usually when we say things “off the top of our head”, we are expressing what we really feel, which is sometimes not good to verbalize but it is what we feel. Lennon always said what he felt which is why he was so great & his lyrics were so good. Of course, the bit about Jesus got him into a LOT of trouble.
Read what Lennon says about Pepper in Emerick’s book. Of course, shortly after this incident, I believe Emerick quit because Lennon et al. were being real jerks.
The reason why you can’t edit your posts is that there probably is a time limit set now. You can edit right after you post. I don’t know what the limit is but it’s probably about 1 hour or so.
Seriously, my opinion was formed after reading & thinking about Lennon’s criticism of the album.
