four thoughts on Sgt. Pepper

[calimac]

1. It was forty years ago today, or yesterday, or some time around then, an event I don't specifically remember, though I may already have realized that I rather liked the Beatles, but more than rather disliked almost everything else I heard with the "rock" label on it. I never owned a copy of the LP, but I bought the CD when it was released 20 years ago, and by now I have just about all the Beatles' authorized work on CD.
   
   
2. So there's been much newspaper and online chatter on the subject. One article was a list of other great rock & pop songs released in 1967. The list included "Sunshine of Your Love", "Light My Fire", and "I Second That Emotion". I recognize those titles; I've heard all those songs many times. If you admire them, good for you. But I still detest all three of them. I still like the Beatles.
   
   
3. It's trite now to say that Sgt. Pepper isn't as good as Revolver or Abbey Road. So what if it isn't? It's still the Beatles. An album with both "A Day in the Life" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" on it has nothing to apologize for. (A thought which keeps me from requesting an apology for "Within You Without You.") And if anyone's minded to claim that the presence of the charming "When I'm 64" makes the album too lightweight, may I remind you that the legendarily heavyweight Abbey Road has both "Octopus's Garden" and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"?
   
   
4. All the same, you can praise the Beatles' enduring legacy without going overboard and making specious comparisons. Daniel Levitin, overwrought author of This Is Your Brain On Music, writes,

   How many people can hum even two bars of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, or Mozart's 30th? I recently played 60 seconds of these to an audience of 700 -- including many professional musicians -- but not one person recognized them. Then I played a fraction of the opening "aah" of "Eleanor Rigby" and the single guitar chord that opens "A Hard Day's Night" -- and virtually everyone shouted the names.

   Even leaving aside questions of which field of music the listeners were professionals in, and which 60 seconds of 25-30 minute works - really, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, one of his least known? Mozart's 30th, which even I don't know offhand? Play the first five seconds of Beethoven's Fifth, or of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and then we'll talk. But this isn't about liking or disliking; it's just an invidious machismo competition. We shouldn't celebrate the universality of great music by tearing down that of other great music. Sheesh.