The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album Released

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album was released 52 years ago today, May 26, 1967. As the Beatles eight studio album in the United States, it spent 27 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart and 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the US.

Beatles were tired of touring and wanted to do more studio recording. After a three month holiday, on a return flight to London, Paul McCartney had an idea to an idea for a song involving an Edwardian military band that formed the impetus of the Sgt. Pepper concept. The iconic cover, depicting the Beatles posing in front of a tableau of celebrities and historical figures, was designed by the British pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth.

In February 1967, after recording the title track "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", McCartney suggested that the Beatles should release an entire 'Concept Album" representing a performance by the fictional Sgt. Pepper band. This alter ego group would give them the freedom to experiment musically.

With George Martin producing the album, during the recording sessions, the band furthered the technological progression they had made with their 1966 album Revolver. Sgt. Pepper's most important musical innovation is its "integration of recording technology into the compositional process". According to Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' recording engineer, the "major difference" between the two albums was that, with Sgt. Pepper, there was no absolute deadline for completion.

In 1987, Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone described Sgt. Pepper as the album that "revolutionized rock and roll". Here is a cool ABC news short that covers why the is the album is considered the greatest of all time and how it has inspired many of todays popular artist's music:

Press the cool button if you like this post and

would like to subscribe to future post announcements!