Music lovers still celebrate after almost sixty years since the release of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, the eighth album of ‘The Beatles’ known as the group’s most significant work. This album was innovative in all aspects, without any foresight of the influence it would have and with some uncertainty on the part of the band about its impact. It was also a determining factor for other bands since it is also considered revolutionary in terms of its production and the first conceptual rock album that was a set of songs united by a theme, a fictional band: that of Sergeant Pepper.
There were many characteristics that made this album an innovation and perhaps not less than revolutionary in the music industry itself. The use of technology in production at that time had no synthesizers or sampling machines except the Mellotron. The group just managed simple machines to make music that had new instruments, style, lyrics and much more like the commentaries at the end of the tracks. Managing tempo and key was introduced for making new music for the listeners. A four track machine which can now be called a portable studio was used by George Martin.
He linked two four-track machines to make an eight-track machine that provided us ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ which still surprises in the context of the depth of the music and simplicity of the lyrics that held bitter reality to it. However, it is important to know here that this innovation was not one specific activity or practice for it was the combination of many small things that made it innovative. Music was recorded from various instruments and the reels were cut and reposted to make the sounds as the circus theme oriented music in the song ‘A day in the life’ is just another example to prove the innovation of modern era five decades back.
Work Cited
“The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’: The Story Behind Every Song”. Rolling Stone, 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-beatles-sgt-peppers-the-story-behind-every-song-w485196. Accessed 9 Mar 2018.
