Letters to the Editor
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Contrarianism for the sake of controversy is not a sign of intellectual strength
At what point did Salon turn into Slate?
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pay someone good after 40 years, bejaisus
I have to concur with those who are aghast at the shallowness of the article in question, and who call into question the judgment of the editors as well as the writers. This is middle/grammar school work and would not get a good grade in my son's 20th Century Popular Music high school class. Things anyone with any depth should have mentioned/considered/dealt with:
1. The packaging, stupid... not just the cover graphic but the inclusion of the words, and the CUT-OUTS DAMMIT!
2. The two best songs were left off for commercial reasons... Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.
3. As another poster mentioned, made stoned to be heard stoned, "I'd love to turn you on."
4. The mono vs. stereo issue... the mono mix was made with the band, the stereo without them as an afterthought. In '67 almost all listeners had mono record players. Very different experience... compare and contrast with Brian Wilson being deaf in one ear, Phil Spector and his mono-mania, etc.
5. As with sex and comedy, with music timing isn't everything, it's the only thing. You can't have criticism without context. The issue of impact is contextual to the max... the issue of overall quality is one that can be looked at in several ways (songwriting, production, performance, etc.) but is completely separate. There was nothing like Pepper before it, and cannot be since it used up that slot in this culture.
6. This is the single, full, cohesive album of the 'Pepperland' era of psychedelic pop production essentially invented and mastered by the Beatles and George Martin. Things before and after it (Revolver and singles, Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine partial/compilation albums) are relatively piecemeal... this is the whole magilla. Of course there could have been a better collection (see item 2. above) and of course people who benefited from hearing and internalizing this record made better 'concept' albums.
One could go on and on forever, but given the 'noteworthiness' of the 40th anniversary, and Salon's relative standing in our current cultural quagmire, it is best to just stop and lament how much worse the criticism published here about Pepper is than just about any good album of 1967. Get someone who knows music, history, culture, and something in depth overall, and have them start from scratch on this one.
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Salon is right.
'Pepper' is really not very good, and Revolver, Abbey Road & the White Album are all much better. It's the songs, stupid. Stop living in your sixties haze and actually *listen* ...
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here's something good
and note who it is written by: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/31/music.beatles.reut/index.html
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Gina Arnold: "Witty, Insightful?"
How could someone who wrote a book about Nirvana know so little about the band's music? So Gina, you don't hear the influence of the Beatles in Nirvana's music? Stop all of the things that you are doing right now that make you so witty and insightful and listen to "About A Girl." That's all the evidence you will need to change your mind.
Also, Rolling Stones "impossible to like?" What does that mean? Their four greatest albums (Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile) are impossible not to like.
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Impressive Analysis
For you next article maybe you could answer the age-old question: Who cut the cheese?
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You had to be there
Where you folks there when Sgt. Pepper came out, or are you too young? It was unlike anything that had come before, even Pet Sounds. Up till then, the Beatles and everyone else were recording albums that were comprised of 10 or more individual songs, each about three or four minutes long, with nothing connecting them, and nothing particularly innovative going on. This album changed all of that forever. I still remember the first time I listened to it in June of 1967. I was all alone in front of our stereo with nothing to distract me, and as the final chord of A Day in the Life wound down, I was paralyzed by the significance and beauty of what I had just heard. And no emotion? My eyes still get teary when I listen to "She's Leaving Home." If you weren't there when it happened, and didn't witness its influence first hand, then you really can't understand how important this album was.
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Nostalgia is the curse of the boomer class
Ah yes, the Innocence of the Sixties. The Summer of Love.
Speaking as an aging boomer who actually lived in (all rise) Berkeley, I'm really sick of innocence. 1960: Ike lies about the U-2. 1961: The Bay of Pigs. 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis. 1963: Medgar Evers gets shot, the Klan bombs the church in Birmingham, Whatsisname gets shot, the coup in Saigon (underwritten by the US) assures escalation of the war in Vietnam, and "Hey Paula" and "Sugar Shack" hit the airwaves. 1964: Something happened but my brain is so addled I don't remember. 1965: Malcolm X gets shot. As the feller says, and so it goes. For that matter, 17-somethng: Lord Amherst hands out smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians. 1609: slaves hit the dock in Virginia. So let's raise our right hands and swear never to combine "innocence" and "America" in the same sentence.
"Sgt. Pepper" wasn't about innocence. It was about getting wrecked. The colors, man, the colors. The chickens who turn into elephants or was it the other way around? Forty years later, none of the songs make me want to switch channels but I'd rather hear "Funky Broadway" or, for that matter, "I Saw Her Standing There."
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That's the point - if you weren't there, it aint that great
Seems clear the purpose of the piece is to look at the record now, and judge it more directly on its merits and how it holds up. The Beatles without tears. And I have to agree -- I wasn't around when it first came out, so I don't have any warm-fuzzy youthful associations with it -- and this is the Beatles record that has always left me cold. The writers say its formally impressive -- obviously -- but it's also a pretty contrived concept.
The poster who compares Pepper with "Psycho" was on to something -- except "Psycho" is still pretty harrowing. I'd compare it to "Star Wars," in that it was clearly influential and the first of its kind, but it's really not a lot of fun all these years later.