The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

(Album ©1967, EMI/Capitol Records)

Here is the other most important album in rock-n-roll, in my opinion. The Beatles had heard Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (which itself had been heavily influenced by The Beatles’ Rubber Soul), and responded with perhaps the most ambitious album to date. Paul McCartney had an idea to record an entire album as another, fictitious band in order to give the band more artistic freedom. And this was the result.

The cover is totally iconic, a photo taken by Michael Cooper, with design by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth and the art direction of Robert Fraser, all inspired by a McCartney sketch. The Beatles appear twice on the cover, once live and once as their 1964 selves in wax sculptures courtesy of Madam Tussaud’s. The remainder of the images were a combination of cardboard and wax – 62 in all. Living and dead, musicians and actors, even 4 Indian gurus (at George’s request). Rumor has it that John wanted to include Hitler and Ghandi, but got overruled.

Of all 66 people featured on the cover, I believe only 3 are still alive as of 2020 – Paul, Ringo, and Bob Dylan. The back cover presents all of the lyrics for the record – that had never been done before. And if ever there was an album that needed to make the lyrics available, imagine hearing these songs for the first time in 1967 without lyrics…whoa.

Having sold more than 11 million copies in the US, and 32 million worldwide, it is one of the best-selling albums ever, and is routinely ranked as the top album in rock-n-roll history (for whatever that’s worth). I’ve been looking at this album cover since I was born, and it’s so identifiable that I don’t know anyone under 30 who wouldn’t know what record this was at first look. The Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request later in 1967, with a cover that was vaguely reminiscent of the Sgt. Peppers cover, but the record was a bit of a flop – then again, the Stones were never an flower-power, art-y band, a fact they remembered the next year when they went on the greatest four album streak in music history. The Mothers of Invention directly ripped off the cover composition for their 1968 We’re Only In It For The Money. (see right)

Still, Sgt. Peppers is the ultimate album cover. It was art in and of itself. It focused the Beatles as the center of 20th Century pop culture. And the visual collage represented the explosion of ideas contained within, not only songwriting ideas (some of which was only pretty good) but also about how to make a record. After Sgt. Pepper, there were no more rules. And this cover signals that loud and clear.