krista4
Footballguy
We have two more before we get to those in the top 1/3 of the rankings. W00t!
70. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Beatles version: Spotify YouTube
Gah, so many iconic aspects of this song. Raise your hand if you don't get a little chill when you hear that guitar intro. [No hands are raised.] Guitar riff - brilliant. Ringo's drum fills - brilliant. John, Paul, and George's vocals - brilliant. Handing off between the vocals and the instrumental French-horn-led #### - brilliant. (The cheesy laughing and gasping from the audience - not at all brilliant.) I'm excited every time I hear this, but I can't rank it more highly because it's not a fully formed song; it's more of an intro.
To be a "concept" album, Sgt. Pepper's doesn't really revolve so much around the concept, and John has said he contributed nothing to the concept idea, but before it veers off into other ideas, this song combines with "With a Little Help From My Friends" to start concept off strong. While I assume people in this thread know all of the background on the concept, I'll summarize a little of it in case of drive-bys. After their Candlestick Park concert in August 1966, the Beatles had had enough of the madness and decided to stop touring. It wasn't just the insanity at the shows themselves, but all the surrounding chaos - the threats coming in the US due to John's "more popular than Jesus" comment, the craziness surrounding their escape from the Philippines, the controversy surrounding their show at the Budokan in Japan, etc. Touring was a total ####### drag. After going their separate ways for vacation, on the way back from a safari Paul came up with the idea of a fictitious band that the Beatles could take the place of, perhaps to create some distance between them and the fans. According to John (WARNING: unreliable narrator): "As I read the other day, he said in one of his 'fanzine' interviews that he was trying to put some distance between The Beatles and the public – and so there was this identity of Sgt. Pepper. Intellectually, that's the same thing he did by writing 'He loves you' instead of 'I love you.' That's just his way of working."
I already did a partial write-up of this when talking about the Reprise, so the only other thing I'll mention here is that album cover, one of the most well-known of all time. It's a fascinating mish-mosh of 58 individuals, known and not-so-well-known, from actors and singers to writers and artists to philosophers and a guru or two. John had lobbied to include Jesus and Hitler, but was overruled. Gandhi was nixed as being possibly sacreligious, while Elvis didn't make it because they thought he was too big and would object. Of the people whose permission they sought to put on the cover, only one declined as not willing to do it without payment: Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys. Shark move, dude. Nice interactive analysis of the people on the cover here.
Mr. krista: "I really like the guitar that’s super-fuzzy and weird. I know Bob Pollard of Guided by Voices always talked about it, that the whole concept was taken directly from this ####, alter egos to allow them to do total nonsense, everything’s a tape experiment and can’t be reproduced live by four people. It’s hard to say because I feel like I’ve heard that song more than any song in the world."
Suggested cover: I know it's bad sound quality, but who TF cares: Jimi
70. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Beatles version: Spotify YouTube
Gah, so many iconic aspects of this song. Raise your hand if you don't get a little chill when you hear that guitar intro. [No hands are raised.] Guitar riff - brilliant. Ringo's drum fills - brilliant. John, Paul, and George's vocals - brilliant. Handing off between the vocals and the instrumental French-horn-led #### - brilliant. (The cheesy laughing and gasping from the audience - not at all brilliant.) I'm excited every time I hear this, but I can't rank it more highly because it's not a fully formed song; it's more of an intro.
To be a "concept" album, Sgt. Pepper's doesn't really revolve so much around the concept, and John has said he contributed nothing to the concept idea, but before it veers off into other ideas, this song combines with "With a Little Help From My Friends" to start concept off strong. While I assume people in this thread know all of the background on the concept, I'll summarize a little of it in case of drive-bys. After their Candlestick Park concert in August 1966, the Beatles had had enough of the madness and decided to stop touring. It wasn't just the insanity at the shows themselves, but all the surrounding chaos - the threats coming in the US due to John's "more popular than Jesus" comment, the craziness surrounding their escape from the Philippines, the controversy surrounding their show at the Budokan in Japan, etc. Touring was a total ####### drag. After going their separate ways for vacation, on the way back from a safari Paul came up with the idea of a fictitious band that the Beatles could take the place of, perhaps to create some distance between them and the fans. According to John (WARNING: unreliable narrator): "As I read the other day, he said in one of his 'fanzine' interviews that he was trying to put some distance between The Beatles and the public – and so there was this identity of Sgt. Pepper. Intellectually, that's the same thing he did by writing 'He loves you' instead of 'I love you.' That's just his way of working."
I already did a partial write-up of this when talking about the Reprise, so the only other thing I'll mention here is that album cover, one of the most well-known of all time. It's a fascinating mish-mosh of 58 individuals, known and not-so-well-known, from actors and singers to writers and artists to philosophers and a guru or two. John had lobbied to include Jesus and Hitler, but was overruled. Gandhi was nixed as being possibly sacreligious, while Elvis didn't make it because they thought he was too big and would object. Of the people whose permission they sought to put on the cover, only one declined as not willing to do it without payment: Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys. Shark move, dude. Nice interactive analysis of the people on the cover here.
Mr. krista: "I really like the guitar that’s super-fuzzy and weird. I know Bob Pollard of Guided by Voices always talked about it, that the whole concept was taken directly from this ####, alter egos to allow them to do total nonsense, everything’s a tape experiment and can’t be reproduced live by four people. It’s hard to say because I feel like I’ve heard that song more than any song in the world."
Suggested cover: I know it's bad sound quality, but who TF cares: Jimi
Sorry for being a downer earlier. I think it was because I had just put so much time into my "Girl" write-up - probably too much.
Haven't had a drink today - just misunderstood. 
Paul. He used the American term "meter maid" because he thought the term "maid" was sexy.
