Alice Fiverston | Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is not a concept album

As a long-time reader of this glorious blog I can say with certainty there has been a lot of somewhat considered opinion and discussion. But if we, as a community, are to rise in the eyes of the world and become an unpassable place of pointed philosophising we need to get more petty (partial alliteration, nice – Ed).

So, welcome to me winning an argument that I drunkenly had with a guy who’s name I can’t remember at a house party approximately 10 years ago. 

The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Is NOT a concept album. Hear that, you paisley-shirted yuppie?! It’s not a concept album.  

Now, in deciding to write this ‘contribution to humanity’ I did quickly google the album and it’s status as a concept and it does seem this has been argued and justified in many other forums, probably by much more informed people, and significantly better authors. But I haven’t read any of that so you can now fully enjoy my ill-considered thoughts. I should probably also admit I don’t remember any of the arguments he made in favour of his position so the following will have all the logical precision of a primal scream. 

Definitions are a good place to start. So, what is a concept album? I don’t know, but probably one that has some kind of central theme on which everything is based.  

Now that we’ve got some Ph.D level of definitional detail, what’s the concept of this album? The title track kicks off with The Beatles loudly declaring they are actually Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and that they’re hear to play for us. There’s then a reprise at the end where the band says goodbye. From that, I guess we could go with we’re listening to the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band rather than The Beatles. But how does that happen through the rest of the album?  It doesn’t. It’s like Season 8 Game of Thrones level of forgotten and it’s the usual Beatles shenanigans with no discernible relationship to the theme. 

We get ditty’s about friendship, psychedelic weirdness, some rockishness on self-improvement, home repairs, narrative about teenage runaways, old-timey circus chicanery, more psychedelic weirdness, love and ageing whimsy, creeping on the meter maid, endless routine, and then the band says goodbye. Not exactly consistent heartbreak and loneliness ala Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours.  

It can’t even be argued there’s a concept to the musical genre given that is also all over the place. 

So no lyrical concept, no musical concept, just 4 people in costumes on a cover with a strange album title. 

“But it’s a concept album for I wear bookish glasses and go to uni and sleep with a night light’ I hear you say in my mind. To which I say, well compare it to the albums either side of it, Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour. Both are thematically and musically all over the place, just like Sgt Pepper’s. Though, though at least Magical Mystery Tour sound-tracked a movie so that gives it one greater argument for having some form of concept then Sgt. Pepper’s. Maybe Magical Mystery Tour is the secret Beatles concept album??? 

The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed there’s a track on the album which I have not yet mentioned, A Day in the Life, and that is because I am extremely clever and it fully proves my point. Because, you see, how can it be The Beatles as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band still singing to us after they’ve already said goodbye? AHA! QED! OMG! ETC.! 

So basically, I’m right because I think so. Fun album, not a concept album, I hope you were really hungover the day after the party and lost your keys.

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The first iteration of Week to Critique did not survive this post from the 12th of August 2020. It remains here published as a warning to others.