Sgt Pepper 50th Anniversary splurge

Can’t work out if I like this more or less than the standard Partridge response :smiley:

Within You Without You is a 5 minute boring dirge.

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I like Indian music tho so I find it oddly soothing. It’s a chill track, especially the instrumental passage. Don’t like the lyrics or vocals tho.

Wasn’t their whole output up to the white album recorded on 4 track consoles or something cos abbey road wouldn’t buy bigger mixing desks? How they made the sounds they made is incredible.

Don’t necessarily dislike SLH I just far prefer Eleanor Rigby if we’re talking McCartney “story songs”.

I dunno. There’s another similar but more interesting composition on Past Masters Vol 2, but mainly it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the album at all and is very long. And dull.

Yes, recorded on 4-track but they would bounce down to one track so as to have more options. I think Abbey Road is only album they recorded on 8-track, even though they’d become available before that.

a song like She’s Leaving Home i mean… it’s so familiar it’s easy to forget someone had to sit down and magic the thing up out of the thin air in the first place.

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Oh no, apparently they got 8-track for the White Album going off Wikipedia.

This is what it says on Sgt Pepper’s:

Sgt. Pepper was recorded using four-track equipment. Although eight-track tape recorders were available in the US, the first units were not operational in commercial studios in London until late 1967.

Pretty impressive. Have you read about how they made tomorrow never knows? The tech was so primitive back then. Guess it forced them to be creative.

Will check out that past masters track too.

Will they be touring in support of it?

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Little tape loops that Paul faded in and out, you mean? I mean I watched the original 6-hour TV edition of The Anthology TV series and have Anthologies 2 and 3 on CD…

I recall when the Iron Curtain came down and Russia became more open there was a news section about Russian DJs who didn’t have records but reel-to-reel cassette decks. So instead of scratching they used to live chop up tape bits and make little loops they’d stick on the capstans and run. Something like that.

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Yeah, Eleanor Rigby another great social drama, I know what you mean, you’re comparing two great things.

She’s Leaving Home is absolutely monumental. I get a bit choked up singing it, depending on my mood. Musically gorgeous, lyrically poignant, just lovely.

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite is probably my highlight of the album. As someone else said – it’s madness. So good though.

My favourite Sgt Pepper’s Story:

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Love that make do approach. This is worth a read if you’re a music tech geek like me:

Each machine was monitored by one technician, who had to hold a pencil within each loop to maintain tension. The four Beatles controlled the faders of the mixing console while Martin varied the stereo panning and Emerick watched the meters…According to Martin, the finished mix of the tape loops could not be repeated because of the complex and random way in which they were laid over the music.

So I guess they were sampling before they had a word for it. Now you could just use a synth or something I guess. They got even weirder on Magical Mystery Tour which is why I prefer that to SP I think. Love the radio sample on Walrus and how Flying is like a proto-trip hop tune with that lovely ambient(ish) bit at the end.

Gonna dig my CDs out after work and have a listen I think.

That documentary looks pretty rubs doesn’t it

“Footage you’ve never seen before!”
piles of burning records in the bible belt

“Stories you’ve never heard before!”
People in the 60s took drugs

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what’s better?

  • Sgt Peppers
  • Pet Sounds

0 voters

Pet Sounds - partly due to long term over exposure of Sgt Peppers.

Pet Sounds vs Abbey Road would be a tougher decision.

Pet Sounds is crap.

the peaks of Sgt Peppers are some of my favourite tracks ever, A Day In The Life is amazing and She’s Leaving Home is one of a handful of tunes that can reduce me to tears every single time

but Pet Sounds is one of only two albums that is completely incomprehensible to me in terms of it being written. all other albums, no matter how good or how much i like them, i can understand how they were made

but the construction of pet sounds is just so fucking clever, i don’t get it. it’s like how apparently freddie walked into the studio one day having worked out the entire structure of bohemian rhapsody including all the harmonies… but across more than 10 different songs. the quality of the performances are also 110% across the album. utterly mad.

(the other album is Variations on Swing by MMISL, in my head all three ways of writing that album are impossible - fitting the vocals around the music, fitting the music around the vocals or writing them at the same time)

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please expand on this, if you can explain why i’ll accept your opinion :slight_smile: