The decline of Sgt Pepper's reputation

Over the past few years the reputation of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band has fallen. In polls of critics, the album tends to be placed third behind Abbey Road and Revolver.
#beatles #sgtpepperslonelyheartsclubband #sgtpepper

[TheActualCathal]

I was a bit stunned when this video stopped at 2:16, I was strapping myself in for a half-hour analysis.

[dirtylemon]

It’s all about context. I bought the album the day it came out. Everyone did. Nobody ever heard anything like it before. It was a major event. You can’t listen to it now with the same ears as 1967. But in retrospect it’s more of a technical achievement than their best album. A bit gimmicky. Also I would not pay too much attention to these magazine lists.

[charlesbronson]

Sgt. Pepper suffers from not having Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane leading off side 2.

[musedroid]

I think fashions just change. Sgt. Pepper was an ambitious concept album project that lived up to its ambition. That is a rare bird, and one more admired in the age when concept albums (and albums in general) were a bigger deal. Now not only do fewer people care about such things, but the whole Sgt. Pepper aesthetic is so firmly entrenched in the sixties, along with certain songs on the album, that I think people don't appreciate the timelessness of other tracks, and just consider it all dated by association.

[Kevin-mxvi]

As a 13 year old I heard Sgt. Peppers on the day of release, courtesy of a music nut friend who'd had it on pre-order, and in the company of half a dozen other mates.
At the end we sat in silence, speechless because of what we'd just heard. We all knew that _something_ had happened but didn't realise right away that our worlds had just changed.
Of course, we'd all heard Revolver and thought it was fine (though perhaps we didn't understand Tomorrow Never Knows) but something about Sgt Peppers made immediate sense. It wasn't "just a bunch of songs" as Revolver seemed to be, but a profound intellectual experience that changed how we thought about music.
Today I'd rank it 3rd, after Abbey Road and Revolver, but that doesn't lessen its impact at the time of its release.

[trebor]

Every album The Beatles made was notable. Sgt. Pepper was outstanding because it was so well produced and enthusiastically accepted by the public. However, Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road were also equally great as was the White Album. It would be a very tough decision to select which ONE to take to a deserted island with me.

[TheCranberrySource]

Great video. Twos things:

1. Revolver was only available in the US in its shortened version until 1987 when the catalogue was standardised to the UK one.
2. Pepper’s mono mix was deleted after the late 60s. Most people have only heard the stereo version from the 70s onwards. The mono sounds fine even as a digital format.

[gclip]

For me, i am convinced that it is because of the mixing. The 2009 Remaster (which is basically the original stereo mix) just sounds outdated to modern ears. The panning of the vocals, drums and effects especially doesn't compare to modern music. That being said, there is the 2017 Remix done by Giles Martin that basically fixes those issues. I have been a Beatles fan for a couple of years and always thought that Sgt. Pepper was kinda overrated. But then i listened to the 2017 Remix and my view changed completely.

Finally, the music sounds like it was recorded in modern times. The stereo image is full, the drums are centered and all of the psychedelic production really comes through - there are so many details to the music that didn't translate as well before. It has given me a new-found appreciation for Sgt. Pepper and i don't think that it is overrated anymore. Together with Revolver, Abbey Road and the White Album, it is the core of what i would consider the Beatles 10/10 albums. Rubber Soul is also a 10/10 for me, but others may disagree with that.

[ihbarddx]

I brought the Sgt. Peppers album home during Christmas season of 1967. I played a bit of it for my mother, who was very condescending about it. Fast-forward thirty years. My mother had been given the album, then praised as the greatest of all times, by an old woman friend of hers. I visited at Christmas, and she played it for me. Well... I had long since fallen out of love with it. Things had gone full circle,

[gnarfgnarf]

I was 18 when Sgt. Pepper was released. The music was deeply haunting, like opening a door to a new dimension.

[mojobrando]

There's just not enough major hits on Sgt Peppers. If the had Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, All you Need is Love. It would be an easy pic. Just in the same way the white albums suffer from being two records instead of one super strong record. A similiar thing happened by not including some of those Magical Mystery songs that they already had.

[benbrownjr.]

One thing was timing. Revolver came out after John's "were bigger than Jesus" remarks, which tarnished the band for some time. Revolver is simply a better record. Everything anyone loved about The Beatles is on that album, and in terms of songwriting, is better balanced with the inclusion of three George Harrison tracks. They also covered topics often too risky for pop radio at the times, such as death, and their innovative use of the studio is still being replicated today. I'm 55, and Revolver has always been my fave.

[MattTOB]

So weird how everyone includes Sgt. Pepper's in Beatles rankings; they were clearly made by two completely different bands, with different members. /j

[superslayerguy]

Sgt Pepper is definitely the most impactful album of all time. It told all the baby boomers “you can do whatever you want with your music and it’s okay”. Which lead to so many amazing sounds of the 70’s and all the stuff that was built from that. I think like you said though, people just got tired of ranking it #1 probably along with Pet Sounds as well

[thrillshow]

In an age of shuffle streaming, people are more likely to pick albums with better singles. Abbey Road undeniably has better singles on the A-side. Meanwhile, Sgt. Pepper's is the quintessential example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

[bosco]

The recent boost of popularity of Abbey Road has been propelled by songs like Here Comes the Sun and Something, which have been used non-stop in general media and have become synonym with "learn to play guitar", at least on YouTube. Same reason why Oasis managed to get back in the charts with a 25 year old album, really. Sgt. Pepper's is a more complex affair that doesn't really lead itself to be broken down into singles, and since the market is very much driven by individual song consumption, it suffered a bit of a decline.

[Spellchec]

It's simply that the songs as a whole aren't as strong or consistent as those on their other albums. The sound and "psychedelic" effects also date some of the songs, and many of them are not "playlist" friendly in a world of spotify and streaming services.

[flywings]

Sgt. Pepper's was more influental and technically brilliant as a concept album than anything else before or shortly after, that is why it was the most popular for a long time. People's perception and taste change over time.
Personally, I bought a very nice early 70s pressing of Sgt. Pepper's recently (since my 1967 US release was too worn down) and it sounds absolutely amazing on vinyl. Really mindblowing!!

[pepsiforbread]

Honestly, I don’t think it’s the fact that most people (like me) listen to Sgt Pepper digitally since I’d argue Revolver suffered way worse when the stereo mix of that album (which has aged poorly and is worse than Pepper’s stereo mix which I’d argue isn’t that bad) became the default standard and clearly people still loved it more than Pepper even back in the 80s when the anti Pepper sentiment came to rise and the first batch of Beatles CDs came out. I think it’s what you said in the first argument that less people who grew up in the summer of love started to disappear in the polls, that impact that album had has pretty much disappeared and other Beatles albums that were overshadowed like Rubber Soul started to get a sort of reappraisal. Also, almost everyone in the Beatles (except Paul) expressed their confusion of the hype of Pepper or just outright disliked the album like George.

[wallywutsizface]

I think points 3 and 4 are the most relevant here. The mystique around Sgt Pepper is not only about the music, but for its groundbreaking technical and musical innovation (at least on the mainstage, im sure others had done it before but didn’t get as much hype as this album) as well as it being a cultural landmark. I think that’s evident by hearing other musicians talk about the album. Roger Waters’s comments about how it “opened a door” come to mind. Now that it’s been almost 60 years and most people hearing it today weren’t around for it to come out, it may not live up to the hype and can feel a little dated, in contrast to Revolver and Abbey Road’s pretty timeless and tasteful pop sensibilities.

I feel like the latter half of the Beatles’ career was kind of an experiment. Revolver was toward the beginning of that, incorporating new techniques and sounds but sticking to the familiar. Abbey road was the natural conclusion of the experiment, tastefully combining all that “worked” from the experiment (synths and other new instrumentation, some odd song structures, and just more experience in general with songwriting) as well as the familiar harmonies and catchy Melodie’s from their earlier days. Sgt Peppers was pretty firmly in the middle of the experiment and can thus be pretty hit-or-miss for a lot of people.