Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band
There isn’t that many album covers that have become as synonymous as the music that lies underneath. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band was released on the 26th of May 1967, just at the start of the Summer of Love and was one of the bedrock albums for one of the most exciting and experimental years of music in recent history. After rocketing to the top of the charts, it proceeded to stay there for 15 weeks in the US and 27 weeks in the UK. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you that The Beatles had broken up, there was a new US President, man had been to the moon and there had been two more Olympic Games by the time the album left the UK Top 40, a total of 295 weeks later. This album was nothing more than groundbreaking and so was the cover.
Designed by Peter Blake the Pop Art designer but the original idea came from a sketch by Paul McCartney. The cover consists of the four band members standing on front of a huge group of life-size cardboard cutouts. These cutouts range from Bob Dylan, Lawrence of Arabia, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde to wax models of the band members themselves. They all stand behind a big bass drum with the words ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band’ depicted on it. The band also stands before an array of flowers, dolls and statues the create the word ‘BEATLES’.
This design was possibly the first time in music history that an album cover was not used for a primarily informative basis, for the first time, it was used to tell the audience something visually. Although you could argue that previous Beatles album covers such as Revolver with its abstract, black and white caricature of the band members doesn’t exactly centre around information, Sgt Pepper’s was the first time they were trying to tell a story. It tells a story of alter-egos and the experiences they had across their lives.
The alter egos of course being the four band members in the middle. We can see they are no longer the Beatles as we know them; they are depicted by the by the four wax statues. The story is of Billy Shears and his companions who form Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They speak of tales such as parking attendants in ‘Lovely Rita’, a girl running away from home in ‘She’s Leaving Home’ and the story of a circus with all its wonderful and exciting acts in ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’.
Another way that the album cover has become so successful is its tendency to draw in the viewer in, to make the viewer ask who are all these people, to look, to guess. I personally have never looked at an album cover as extensively as I have this one; all these influential people and the admiration that the band had for them. Many of these people are icons to me myself so in that way, it provides a way of connection between me and them. A bridge where I can look into their way of thinking.
On the back of the cover, the designer has put the lyrics to all their songs. This was in fact the first time that this had ever happened on a record sleeve. It gave the audience another way to look into the music, to really investigate and scrutinise what the lyrics and therefore the music meant. Before this, if a lyric was difficult to hear or inaudible but carried a great message, it would go untouched to the average listener. But now, everyone had a way of looking further into the music than they had ever done previously.
Most importantly, this album cover was a way for The Beatles to connect back with their fans. Not long after the group had decided to stop doing public touring, they wanted a way of allowing their audience to connect with them once again but in a completely different way. The story of Sgt Pepper’s is a bridge across the void that was created when they became a studio band. Many angry fans now had a way to look at a glimpse into their life and into their mindset, in a way they couldn’t have even imagined before. What more could you ask from an album cover?
