WE’LL F*** YOU LIKE A SUPERMAN!

On the 40th Anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pete Nash tells the story and celebrates the worldwide Pepper-related releases. Well… you’ve got to pick a pepper or two…

It was 40 years ago today that The Beatles taught every other band to play. Although the garbled backwards message in the run-out groove of the original vinyl LP is apocryphal, the Fab Four, appearing incognito as Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, metaphorically buggered all of their contemporaries and nearest rivals. Leaving a trail of beat and pop groups to forever tread water in the cabaret and nostalgia circuit, The Beatles had progressed so far, so quickly that even those who had attempted to keep pace were likewise heroically stuffed.

The Rolling Stones, aspirant pretenders to the crown, simply could not compete and merely produced a poor copy with the lacklustre Their Satanic Majesties Request. Dylan, whose 60s work had already peaked by the time Pepper appeared, kept a low profile for the remainder of the decade. Brian Wilson, perhaps the only real genius of equal standing, simply gave up once he heard Pepper. Recognizing that The Beatles had realised his own dream, he scrapped his unfinished opus, Smile, never to become a major player again. With one giant of an album, The Beatles had changed the way pop music was listened to forever, altered the genre into an art form and, for better or worse, more or less invented progressive rock.

Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is …

by Pete Nash
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