spreading the word

[MrGongGong]

That's actually hilarious.

I love the music of that era, and even I think that's ridiculous. Even with the qualifier 'in the sphere of pop music' it would still be wrong.

why ?

(and it's not that I think it's great !)

[Bryn]

Burdon's hall of fame is full of holes. (I'll get me coat.)

[IRF]

No other cultural artefact "spoke" to so many people so quickly - nor, before mass media, could any. The album marks a change in the way people approach and disseminate "Culture", and the ways in which that Culture reflects their values . In this way, Ms Burdon (whether or not she meant it so) was quite correct.

Even by that analysis (and it is a valid analysis) I think she was wrong. Elvis "spoke" to multitudes ten years before Sgt. Pepper. The Beatles themselves "spoke" to an entire generation several albums before Sgt. Pepper was a glimmer in McCartney's eye. Sgt. Pepper was an evolution, maybe, but it wasn't a revolution.

[IRF]

why ?

(and it's not that I think it's great !)

I refer the honourable member to my previous missive on the subject :)

(I know, I should have made my full argument in a single post...)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sgt. Pepper was an evolution, maybe, but it wasn't a revolution.

I prefer Evolution to Revolution!

But aren't you also arguing here about the relative Musical merits between Elvis/early Beatles vs Pepper? Isn't it true that, with Pepper, Rock & Pop Musicians could demand sufficient Studio time to enable them to develop their ideas beyond the confines of the 45rpm single (or the album of a collection of singles)? That, regardless of artistic merit, Pepper demonstrated to record companies that "The (Concept) Album" had profitable potential beyond what they'd dreamt possible? Yes, it was an evolutionary step from the idea that "Pop" Music "was" a 3/6 single to (for example) Dark Side of the Moon; but it was an evolutionary step for which Pepper is primarily - and almost single-handedly - responsible. "Lucy in the Sky", indeed!

[french frank]

music IS a

cultural phenomenon

i'm not sure what the problem with that is ?

I was going to discuss the 'cultural phenomenon' angle yesterday but deleted it. What I was (or would have been, if I 'd posted it) meaning was the Beatles-Harry Potter-Lady Gaga &c phenomenon which can only happen in a global, mass market situation. Never before have so many ...

The nightmare will be of a world where there is an endless succession of such phenomena - and nothing else. We are all 'the masses' and lurch from one new thing to the next with no concept of critical appreciation because there are no points of comparison.

That seems to me to be the mentality behind a pronouncement like: 'one of the most important cultural creations in the history of mankind.'

I was a Beatles baby, never bought a Beatles album and, looking through the list of songs on it, have never knowingly heard most of them.

I'd guess that - statistically - most people in the world are no better acquainted with Sgt Pepper than I am, many of them less so. To think otherwise is to be enclosed in one's own cultural bubble.

[laz]

schubert was 200 years ago Since then we`ve had stravinsky who WAS pushing the rhythmic and harmonic envelope over 100 years ago

I think the renaissance and the age of enlightenment were universally beneficial..Tallis Mozart etc were musically representative and part of them. Sgt Pepper represents an era of mind altering substances generally to the detriment of those participating and a culture of freedom without responsibility

[IRF]

I prefer Evolution to Revolution!

Isn't it true that, with Pepper, Rock & Pop Musicians could demand sufficient Studio time to enable them to develop their ideas beyond the confines of the 45rpm single (or the album of a collection of singles)? That, regardless of artistic merit, Pepper demonstrated to record companies that "The (Concept) Album" had profitable potential beyond what they'd dreamt possible?

Sticking with the Pink Floyd comparison you raised, their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded between February and May 1967, some months before Sgt. Pepper's was released. They -- a completely untried, untested band -- were allowed three months in an EMI studio to do whatever they pleased (including recording a nine-minute instrumental improvisation).

This was before Sgt. Pepper's had "demonstrated" anything. (And any such demonstration would be of dubious worth to the industry anyway, as there was a ready market for anything stamped with the word "Beatles" in that year, and no guarantee the formula would work for other bands.)

There was a lot of evolution going on in that year, but I don't believe Sgt. Pepper directly triggered it. It was just something in the air. (Or something in the chemicals )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think the renaissance and the age of enlightenment were universally beneficial..

laz-y thinking: the victims of Christian in-fighting during the Renaissance, the devastation of the Natural landscape and exploitation of people in the Industrial Revolution, the Slave Trade, the growth of the European Empires during the Age of Enlightenment (to say nothing of the origins of "mind-altering substances"!) all suggest that to summarise these eras as "universally beneficial" demonstrates not so much a poor as rather a blinkered view of History.

And, if this is acceptable, then so must be an equally blinkered view of the era of Pepper which solely rightly applauds the way young people were encouraged to question authority, encouraged to discover their own truths, encouraged to reject repressive lifestyles promised to them. Watching newsreel of Hitler mystifies kids today; how could anyone take that poisonous clown seriously? That such a view is a "default" setting in young people's mindsets nowadays is down to attitudes established in the '60s - attitudes which were most singly expressed in the work of the Beatles. "Freedom without responsibility"? Preferable to the responsibilities shouldered by responsible adults in Germany in the 1930s.

[MrGongGong]

I think the renaissance and the age of enlightenment were universally beneficial..Tallis Mozart etc were musically representative and part of them. Sgt Pepper represents an era of mind altering substances generally to the detriment of those participating and a culture of freedom without responsibility

Shades of David Tame ?
This is lazy thinking indeed as ferny says

[Sir Velo]

Burdon's hall of fame is full of holes. (I'll get me coat.)

4,000 in a certain Lancashire town so I'm led to believe.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sticking with the Pink Floyd comparison you raised, their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded between February and May 1967, some months before Sgt. Pepper's was released.

The "some" being "one"! (And Pepper was begun in late '66). And the worldwide sales of Pepper in 1967 far outstrip Piper's. Piper is a wonderful album, (as McCartney was one of the first to notice) but in terms of the larger cultural impact it didn't/hasn't yet match/ed the Scousers'.

[MrGongGong]

eerrm

What is "the word" that is spreading ?
or in need of spreading ?

[Flosshilde]

Pepper's cultural status is remarkable. No other cultural artefact "spoke" to so many people so quickly - nor, before mass media, could any.

I think 'mass media' was here sometime before 'Sgt Pepper's ...' was.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think 'mass media' was here sometime before 'Sgt Pepper's ...' was.

Yes; I was covering my tracks - the speed of the large number of sales of Pepper was something that could not have occurred before radio, magazine, television coverage ... nor, indeed, before the Long Playing Stereo recording.