The
Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Super Deluxe Edition
50th
Anniversary Box Set
(1967/Parlophone/Apple Corp./Universal Music Blu-ray w/4 CDs + DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: Blu-ray: A-/DVD: B+/CDs: B Extras: A- Original
Music Album: A+
There
are many candidates for the greatest album ever made, including
several from great all-time recording artists like Elton John, The
Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Rod
Stewart, Yes, Radiohead and many more in more genres than we can
cover here, but The Beatles always have several entries on that list.
Having created some amazing music upon arrival, it is still amazing
many 'experts' and fans though the band might be washed up after
Rubber
Soul
and Revolver,
not seeing anywhere else for music, the industry or its formats to
go. Even after The Beach Boys made Pet
Sounds,
its hard to believe the lack of imagination or lack of high
expectation.
But
if you have talent, will, care, ambition and energy, there is always
somewhere new to go and the band, not being able to stand their mania
of success came up with the novel idea of becoming another band to
escape their public and private trappings. Some people would have
considered this commercial and career suicide, but the band could
have cared less about that and found a way find new creative space as
the title characters of Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(1967), but it was no musical. Instead, it was a concept album and
any actual reference to these characters would only appear in three
songs explicitly.
To
end the questioning of the doubters (though it did not totally work
in an era of redoubters from sudden 'Mr. Roots Music' Keith Richards
to alleged fans of The Beatles who say they like and 'understand'
every album of The Beatles but this one!), they all went for broke
and not only broke through their previous constraints, but took the
final step into total surrealism in an almost cinematic way
(promotion music films not even considered) and cemented the long
playing record album as a permanent art form after scoffing at the
time existed for decades since the rise of 78-rpm acetates.
Several
new versions of the album have been issued for the half-century mark
of this masterpiece, including a vinyl set, but we have the Super
Deluxe Edition 50th
Anniversary Box Set
with all digital discs. This also means we get no less than EIGHT
different sonic versions of the album based on various codecs and bit
range. For starters, a reminder of all those great songs in the
final order they settled upon:
1.
Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2.
With A
Little Help From My Friends
3.
Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds
4.
Getting
Better
5.
Fixing
A Hole
6.
She's
Leaving Home
7.
Being
For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!
8.
Within
You Without You
9.
When
I'm Sixty-Four
10.
Lovely
Rita
11.
Good
Morning Good Morning
12.
Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(Reprise)
13. A
Day In The Life
plus
the hidden two extra music pieces at the end.
The
various soundmixes throughout originate from the original 4-track
magnetic soundmasters as originally produced by George Martin by
Giles Martin (his son) and Sam Okell, appropriate for the album's
golden anniversary. As many fans know, The Beatles and George Martin
did not simply use four-tracks, but would take some four track
recordings and mix them down onto other tracks (single, double) that
resulted in the classic sound we here throughout, a rarely sited,
unifying aspect of the album.
The
first CD offers the 'new 2017 stereo mix' that is different from the
previous stereo separation on all previous version up to the 2009 CD
remaster, where you can hear how great the stereo really is, yet hear
amazing music with total separation on many of the tracks by playing
either the left or especially right track on its own. That is gone
here and to my ear, these two-channel mixes cut into the depth of the
stereo a bit. It is also the stereo mixes on all discs here. CD 4
is the album in all monophonic mixes, plus the following bonus mono
tracks:
Strawberry
Fields Forever
(original mono mix)
Penny
Lane
(original mono mix)
A
Day In The Life
(unreleased first mono mix)
Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds
(unreleased mono mix: No. 11)
She's
Leaving Home
(unreleased first mono mix)
Penny
Lane
(Capitol Records US promo single: mono mix)
The
remaining CDs are almost all outtakes, starting with CD 2:
1.
Strawberry
Fields Forever
(Take 1)
2. Strawberry
Fields Forever
(Take 4)
3. Strawberry
Fields Forever
(Take 7)
4. Strawberry
Fields Forever
(Take 26)
5. Strawberry
Fields Forever
(2015 stereo mix)
6. When
I'm Sixty-Four
(Take 2)
7. Penny
Lane
(Take 6: instrumental)
8. Penny
Lane
(vocal overdubs and speech)
9. Penny
Lane
(2017 stereo mix)
10. A
Day In The Life
(Take 1)
11. A
Day In The Life
(Take 2)
12. A
Day In The Life
(orchestra overdub)
13. A
Day In The Life
(hummed last chord: Takes 8, 9, 10 and 11)
14. A
Day In The Life
(The Last Chord)
15. Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(Take 1: instrumental)
16. Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(Take 9 and speech)
17. Good
Morning Good Morning
(Take 1: instrumental, breakdown)
18. Good
Morning Good Morning
(Take 8)
and
CD 3:
1.
Fixing
A Hole
(Take 1)
2. Fixing
A Hole
(speech and Take 3)
3. Being
For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!
(speech from before Take 1; Take 4; speech at end)
4. Being
For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!
(Take 7)
5. Lovely
Rita
(speech and Take 9)
6. Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds
(Take 1, speech at end)
7. Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds
(speech, false start, Take 5)
8. Getting
Better
(Take 1: instrumental; speech at end)
9. Getting
Better
(Take 12)
10. Within
You Without You
(Take 1: Indian instruments only)
11. Within
You Without You
(George coaching the musicians)
12. She's
Leaving Home
(Take 1: instrumental)
13. She's
Leaving Home
(Take 6: instrumental)
14. With
A Little Help From My Friends
(Take 1: false start; Take 2: instrumental)
15. Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(Reprise) (speech, Take 8)
They
are all presented in PCM 16bit/44.1kHz 2.0 Stereo sound and save my
misgivings on the new stereo mix, are as good as they are going to
sound in this format. We also get two version of the album in
higher-sound capacity video formats. The DVD has PCM 2.0 Stereo at
48kHz/24bit, which is the same dynamic range as the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 and lossy older DTS 5.1 mixes. The 5.1 mixes (especially
the DTS) handily beat the CD stereo versions here and on the CD, but
the Blu-ray is the one to beat, offering its three mixes in lossless
96/24 sound from that 2017 Stereo mix to high bitrate, lossless Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 to an especially impressive and sometimes jaw-dropping
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix that I liked best. Along
with the album, you get Strawberry
Fields Forever
and Penny
Lane
in the three mixes on each video format, two songs (especially
Fields)
that could have made the album and can be found on the second CD in
this set.
Particularly
in DTS-HD 5.1, the music is stunning! Having heard this album
literally hundreds of times and several of the songs on their own a
few hundred more over the years, it is like hearing the lost
first-generation version of the album. The new mixes have not
tampered with or altered the original masters, the clarity will be a
revelation to most people who have not heard The Beatles in the
highest fidelity formats in recent years (the DVD-Audio 5.1 mixes on
the Love
DVD/CD set, DTS lossless on the Criterion A
Hard Day's Night,
the DTS lossless on Yellow
Submarine
movie Blu-ray, the DTS lossless on the #1s
collection) showing the still ahead of its time fidelity, engineering
and production this album actually possesses. It is not to say other
albums of the time were not great (just listen to the 192/24
DVD-Audio 2.0 Stereo side of the 1967 Casino
Royale
soundtrack, the Super Audio CD 5.1 mix on The Who's original Tommy
or The Moody Blues' Days
Of Future Past,
DTS lossless tracks on the Blu-ray edition of The
Yes Album,
the DVD-Audio 5.1 mix on Pet
Sounds)
at the time, but yet, The Beatles and George Martin were still
working on a higher, more advanced level that would be their
experimental peak (despite the decline being VERY slow before their
break-up) and would push Brian Wilson to temporarily self-destruct
with his unfinished Beach Boys answer to this album, Smile.
While
many bands would be going psychedelic (in itself avant garde and
opening wide levels of experimentation, like The Pink Floyd) or
pushing higher levels of Rock sound (The Who) or the highest levels
of actual recording fidelity (Burt Bacharach and Hal David on
Royale),
The Beatles and Martin had already established the higher fidelity a
few years ago everyone was trying to catch up on (save Motown's
stylized recordings of the gruff sound of The
Velvet Underground and Nico)
and beat everyone to the next stage on pretty much everything. Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
can show its sonic age in sone ways, of course, yet even that is
offset by the character of the surrealism and experimentation,
including more than a few instances that could NEVER be created or
originally exist in the digital sound realm.
By
bookending the set with the narrative first two and last two tracks,
they could create new sonic landscapes, worlds and ideas that mixed
older music forms with a Rock sense without selling out either part
of each song whether using Classical Music, circus music or kazoos.
It matched their British whimsy (something Wilson could never fall
back on unless he intended to spoof it) and the result is a new power
and strength to these works as recordings alone that play like the
next step for the band. They were still ahead of virtually everyone
else in the music business save the occasional genius of a Tom Dowd,
one of their few peers at the time.
It
all starts innocent as if they have transformed into the other,
implied-older, music act, but drug references are just the beginning
of the rules they broke to make this THE album that transformed the
music industry and by association, the entire entertainment industry
forever and for the better. For those who complain about concept
albums, why? Why dumb-down the artform? Sure, many albums that
wished to be this one tried and failed, but at least they tried.
Then you have the artistic success from Fragile by Yes,
to Elton John's Goodbye
Yellow Brick Road,
Stevie Wonder's Innervisions,
Marvin Gaye's What's
Going On?
and Here,
My Dear,
Fleetwood Mac's Tusk,
Sign
O' The Times
by Prince, several Pink Floyd, Radiohead, David Bowie and Rolling
Stones albums and even the insane triple album successes that marked
the debut of Donna Summer. That's just the tip of the iceberg of
what the album spawned, yet it is still so uniquely its own that even
The Beatles (and better acts) never really tried to attempt anything
exactly like it again.
So
what about the songs on the album itself. You get the title song you
expect to bookend the whole affair (Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
and lands up not, a deceptively simple song about needing love (With
A Little Help From My Friends)
later proven otherwise quickly by Joe Cocker, one of the greatest
imaginative fantasy songs ever made (Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds)
with one of the greatest vocal performances of all time (making any
drug reference(s) incidental), a tale of masculinity gone wrong
(Getting
Better),
an existential piece easy to underestimate (Fixing
A Hole),
a brilliant ballad (She's
Leaving Home)
with a really sad tale to tell about what we now know as the
generation gap, a circus song (Being
For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!)
that fits the theme of the album and offers so much more, the song
meant to original bridge the two sides of the vinyl release (Within
You Without You)
that actually makes total sense if you actually listen to what George
Harrison is singing (!), a brilliant piece of comedy (When
I'm Sixty-Four)
in the face of aging and death, one of the greatest songs ever about
lust (Lovely
Rita),
one of the best Rock romps of all time (Good
Morning Good Morning)
with its surrealism & all and the then, unexpected final track (A
Day In The Life)
that is more than just about one man's death and became one of the
most powerful songs ever made.
The
Beatles are being initially coy with their fans and audience, offer
the fantasy of the alternate band for a while, then take the listener
on one of the greatest journeys in all of music history that has been
is and ever will be. By the time it is all over, it is not just a
collection of great songs, but an experience like no other before or
since, that an album, any album, could exceed its confines, limits,
predictability, limited expectations and remain as powerful as it is
smart 50 years later and counting is one of the all-time achievements
in the arts. Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
is an all-time watershed, landmark and though a time capsule in some
respects, is a journey in time otherwise that is as relevant as ever,
still influential and an undeniable achievement that is evergreen,
endures and always holds up.
Though
the video sets are mostly comprised of music, The
Making Of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(1992) documentary featurette runs about an hour and has been fully
restored for this set, plus the classic promo music films for A
Day In The Life,
Strawberry
Fields Forever
and Penny
Lane.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the documentary looks
just fine, down to the older footage, but the 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital
High Definition image transfers
on the three music film clips (all at 4K apparently) look great here
as they did in the #1s
set. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the DVD
(including putting the 1.33 X 1 films in a 1.78 X 1 frame as the
Blu-ray does) looks just much softer by comparison and is passable at
best.
Other
extras in this great slipcase packaging include a lenticular version
of the classic cover on the front of the box, reproduction of the
cutouts from the original vinyl release on the inside, two posters
and a nicely illustrated 144-page hardcover book on the album
including informative text making this a sizable release worthy of an
album of its importance, which can never be overstated.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
