Letters to the Editor
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Hipper-Than-Thou
I happen to love "Sgt. Pepper," and consider it one of the top three or four Beatle albums, depending on my mood. I'd probably put it in my top ten albums of all time. But, hey, if it wouldn't make YOUR list, no problem. I'm not forcing it on anyone.
Why are Marchese and Arnold bothered by the fact that I and millions of other people adore this album? What's it to them? They admit that they haven't listened to it in years, so clearly no one is forcing it on THEM. What irks them so? What were they hoping to accomplish with this article? Did they think their inane banter would change my (or anyone else's) mind?
Sweet creamy Jesus, what a pathetic, self-congratulatory, condescending conversation these two clowns shared with us. Their combined ignorance and arrogance is stunning.
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It is my opinion that
Only those who were alive & aware (in other words, over the age of 12 or so, and music fans) at the time of Sgt Pepper's release are qualified to discuss why it was or is so important. I was not yet born. While I love the Beatles, Sgt Pepper is not my favorite of their albums (I prefer the White Album & Abbey Road, and Revolver to a lesser extent). But you can't undo the influence of later music on your taste and perspective, no matter how much you try. An analagy would be that in 20 years, I will scoff at a then-25 year old telling me about why NWA or REM or Nirvana or Sonic Youth was great, overrated, etc. "You weren't there!", I will likely tell them, even if their opinion happens to mirror mine. And then I will yell at them to get off my lawn and threaten to take their baseball if it lands on my porch again.
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Sgt Pepper
It is interesting to remember that the NYTimes music critic (Landau?) panned Sgt Pepper when it came out with the exception of A day in the Life, which he said was a masterpiece. So it seems as if you guys agree with him
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pfui
Okay feature this: the first time I had a chance to sit down and really listen to "Sgt. Pepper" all the way thru I was in college. Seriously! Not to mention this was in 1991, and I had been listening to tons of "nevermind" and "bleach" just prior. But as I listened to the Beatles, I caught myself singing along to just about every song. How'd that happen? Could it be because these songs are not so "detached" and "cold" as we're led to believe in this lousy exercise in criticism? Instead perhaps they are likable, approachable and evocative? I felt nothing jarring about going from wailing "I don't have a gun/no I don't have a gun" along with Kurt to "lovely Rita meter maid/nothing can come between us/when it's dark I tow your heart awaaaay" at the top of my lungs. Do people do this for bad songs? I suppose. I don't like to believe I'm one of them! Chacun a son gout.
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What's "better"?
I liked only two Beatles songs the first time I heard them: "A Day in the Life" and "Lady Madonna." I don't believe the latter ever made it onto an album, but it's a stupendously cynical song performed to an upbeat rhythm that is totally incongruous. Where do I think Gilbert O'Sullivan swiped the structure for "Alone Again, Naturally" from but the Beatles' "Lady Madonna." "ADITL" is a masterpiece: a dark vision that makes me envision winter, Bergman movies, a shred of hope in the midst of shit. The Beatles were authentic only when they were on the dark side, and I don't think the Stones were nearly as dark as they made out. "Sympathy for the Devil" is just fun, a good time confession of iniquity, not some twisted journey into the Interior.
Why Sergeant Pepper? I don't know. It was too "concept-y" for me even 40 years ago, and the only song on there that lives up to the vision is "She's Leaving Home." The rest is cute or embarrassingly dated ("I've Got to Admit It's Getting Better" today is sickening).
The chief beneficiary of Sgt. Pepper was Richard Goldstein, the Village Voice critic who purposely panned it in the NY Times to earn his bones. When Ned Rorem blasted Goldstein, Richard had arrived.
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Just read this "discussion"
Or tried to. Big yawn. Very poorly done. Several non points were made to prove one predetermined conclusion: Only really really clever people such as we can understand the many reasons why everyone else is entirely wrong. History is wrong, the hype machine is wrong, and Sgt. Peppers is really not a bit more relevant to the history of music than that really loud belch I emitted the other day.
Perhaps the most interesting quote was where they are so eager to make their case that they essentially call Kurt Cobain a liar. "Kurt Cobain claimed the Beatles were his touchstone, but you don't hear it in his music." Meaning, I guess, that Cobain doesn't even have a clue to his own influences, because it sure as hell couldn't have been the band he claimed was a touchstone. That's like me saying that I first fell in love with writing as a kid by reading the short stories of Ray Bradbury, and these two saying "Oh no, silly Tideswimmer. Ray Bradbury wrote sentimental tripe about rocketships landing and taking off in small-town America. Such nonsense!"
Bottom line: this sort of automatic negation is not criticism; it is boring and easy. Please do better next time.
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..overhyped?
Let's just put it this way, if indeed the album is overhyped, it didn't have anything to do with the horrendous Robert Stigwood production or Frampton and the Bee-Gees... Ask anyone who heard it in the day for the first time, or kids who got into the Beatles 12 years after the album came out and got to discover the Beatles "out of sequence". I/They would tell you the Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles thematic bomb and changed studio musical art forever.