Anniversary poll: How many good songs are there on Sgt. Pepper's?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

7

I love when the news media talks about music. This album was described as 'edgy and experimental' on Sky News this morning. "When I'm 64" wasn't mentioned by name but nonetheless...

I skip Leaving Home / Mr Kite / Within You every time I play this album. Home and Within are too slow and draggy, and Mr Kite is psychedelia in search of a melody.

Lets do how many good songs on Be Here Now next.

Sgt P, WaLHFMF, Getting Better, Fixing, Sgt P Reprise, DitL - Good, I like
Lucy, She's Leaving, Within You, 64 - Good, but I don't particularly like
Mr. Kite - not that good, but I like it
Lovely Rita, Good Morning - not good, don't like

So 9 I guess.

o.nate correct, u nitpickers

WYWY absolutely works in context: amid the character sketches, George's Eastern foray puts them in a grand scheme. You don't have to like it, of course.

i'm listening to the whole album for the first time right now

IT'S A TRAP

I have no regrets b/c I'd never heard "Fixing A Hole" and now I have

When you're done with that one, check out the George Burns cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC0q8OEfM7g

I forget who covered WYWY – Dionne Warwick?

You don't have to like it, of course

Phew, what a relief.

I like George Burns' version tbh.

xxxp wait, isn't that the album we're listening to

... of Fixing A Hole, I don't think he did WYWY too.

a whole album of WYWY covers

haha i was gonna post Burns' version to FB imminently

are there any good "Day in the Life" covers besides The Fall?

Robyn Hitchcock has a good one

fyi Within You Without You is the best song on the album

thinking about the title of that song doesn't it have a strong sexual connotation?

My favourite part of WYWY is the snorting laugh track at the end. Must have been Lennon.

I went for 7. Never liked the title tune.

I agree with akm upthread

Sgt. Pepper is such a cohesive, conceptual statement that it seems wrongheaded to regard it as a collection of individual songs — it's more of a hyperambitious suitelike pomo performance art piece disguised as a conventional pop record

...and that performance art piece just happens to suuuuuuuuuuck, so I voted '0 good songs'. The Beatles can fuck off afaic

http://i.imgur.com/UzNOilj.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlhcyWLORes

lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

averages to 8.444444444444 good songs

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2017/06/sgt-pepper-50

Here Comes The Sun has been streamed almost as much as the entire Sgt. Pepper album.

hi, George!

Love the SY version of WYWY; all the better that it's Ranaldo-led

averages to 8.444444444444 good songs

― sexualing healing (crüt)

yeah but what if you do a bayesian analysis on it

Sgt Pepper's is better than Abbey Road. In the past, I didn't understand that.

Revolver is equally good. The White Album is behind Abbey Road.

Here Comes the Sun sucks

no

So then ...

13	28
Hate "Within You Without You"	14
Have critical thinking skills	75

White Album
Abbey Road
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper

In that order

I skip Leaving Home / Mr Kite / Within You every time I play this album. Home and Within are too slow and draggy, and Mr Kite is psychedelia in search of a melody.

― LimbsKing, Thursday, June 1, 2017 3:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the bit when the album gets good, son, WTF?

A1 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Useless, but sometimes I force myself to sit through it as a patience exercise
A2 With A Little Help From My Friends - Can't separate it from the hoary old Joe Cocker version I heard when I was really young and didn't like very much. Come to appreciate some of the lyrics (What do you see when you turn out the light etc) and Ringo is a sweetheart
A3 Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds - Pfffff just so bored of this
A4 Getting Better - Does for the album what it says on the tin. Everything up to this point has been a bit 'classic rock' or something. This isn't exactly mindblowing but I like the tune at least
A5 Fixing A Hole - Yes this is good classic McCartney stuff. I like the fact Lennon was in approval of the pseudo-psychological nature of the lyric
A6 She's Leaving Home - Had to study the lyrics of this in A-level English for some reason. Weirdly, that hasn't put me off it. Great work, but kind of a retread of Eleanor Rigby and not as catchy
A7 Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! - I'm a sucker for fey psychedelic whimsy and this delivers it in spades. Great instrumentation, inventive lyrics. The 'eye-of-the-duck' of this album
B1 Within You Without You - Another retread. It's good but I prefer Love You To.
B2 When I'm Sixty-Four - See BFTBOMK! Lots of people hate the Beatles' silly novelty-psych songs but I think that's their best work and worth a million Back In The USSRs. Lovely instrumentation again. I like woodwind
B3 Lovely Rita - Doesn't really work well with me melodically speaking. The whole thing come off as awkward. The lyrics jar with the metre (pun not intended)... It's not awful, but reminds me of Doctor Robert in that it's a character song where every element feels like a square peg in a round hole.
B4 Good Morning Good Morning - Tempted to say the same about this as Lovely Rita, but it's grown on me especially in this new mix. Also, LOL animals
B5 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) - At least it's better than the full version
B6 A Day In The Life - You know that meme on Facebook that goes through the different stages of brain activity? This is the last one. If it weren't for this, the album would probably be seen as a dud

Had to study the lyrics of this in A-level English for some reason.

So did I, hated the lyrics ever since, tune is quite nice in a sort of Peter Skellern/ Gilbert O'Sullivan way.

If you think that either She's Leaving Home or Within You Without You are retreads then you just aren't listening to anything other than the instrumentation.

lol we had She's Leaving Home in English class too - makes no sense, the lyrics are so on the nose

xp I've always felt that Revolver and Sgt Peppers kind of mirror each other in terms of style/structure and of course there are superficial similarities between the two. These songs share instrumentation and lyrical content, but clearly they're the product of each members' obsession of the time: George's interest in Indian philosophy and metaphysics; McCartney doing the orchestral arrangements and kitchen-sink narratives. Of course they're all good in their own rights but I just prefer the Revolver analogues.

I think it was Southy who admonished me on a prior thread for saying this before and I get that. He pointed out that Sgt Peppers is a huge step up in terms of musical ambition compared to Revolver, which is true, but I prefer it as an album overall and think the step-up in terms of songwriting and concepts between Rubber Soul and Revolver are much more noticeable than between Revolver and Peppers.