album #8

sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band (the beatles)

This album is beyond review, it's an all time great. I just want thoughts on record for every album I own, so it's time for this one. The only song I don't like is "Good Morning Good Morning," because the Spector overproduction really makes it blaring and buzzy and annoying, especially compared to the stripped down version, from the Anthology, which I utterly love. I remember telling JD that this was one of my favorite Beatles songs, and his shocked reaction, and then listening to the proper album version and realizing how off we were. But hell, even listening to it now, it's all right.

"She's Leaving Home" is one of the earliest Beatles songs I remember hearing, along with "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," because my sister would play them- maybe on tape, maybe CD, can't quite remember. I knew right from then and there that it was a real beauty, always liked it. "Lovely Rita" spent a season as my favorite Beatles song, late junior year. Something about the head-bobbing, anticipatory perfection of the piano, really won me over. And I think "A Day In The Life," in wistful beauty and orchestral ambition, and for a lovely heads/tails union of Lennon/McCartney, ranks as The Beatles' Greatest Song (a different category than Best, which is much more open to dispute.)

Every song I haven't mentioned is terrific. Personally I think I love Revolver just a bit more, there's something sweeter to it that I enjoy; and perhaps even Magical Mystery Tour, which was my first favorite Beatles album. Still, no disputing this is a classic, it's always been good by me.

This album has always kept with me aesthetically- the legendary front cover, the red back cover, the portraits of the inside fold (the subject of my best middle school-era painting), the random mustache and insignia inserts that apparently came with the record- I was so excited the only time I ever saw these in person, when I visited my art teacher's boyfriend's music studio. I remember holding a mirror up to the center of the drum, looking for a message the internet alleged, re: Paul is Dead.