Hard on the heels of ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Revolver’ comes ‘Sgt, Pepper’s…’,  The Beatles’ 8th album and many consider their best.  In fact Sgt. Pepper was still at Number 1 in the album charts when ‘The Magical Mystery Tour’ came out!  Just think how Sgt. Pepper would have gone down if ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ had got on the final cut!

This album gives us the most famous album cover surely and it sets the tone for all that follows.   The album is, of course, a tour de force of production, theatre and story telling.  What I think we have here for the first time is wonderful, simple story telling, like ‘She’s Leaving Home’ which really does demand a concentrated listen.  Bob Dylan was doing something like this at the time but not as simply or gloriously as Lennon & McCartney. 
 
I particularly love ‘With A Little Help from my Friends’, it is surely Ringo’s finest moment and is one of the many highlights of this album.  In the round, this was the first album where an artist or group took on the persona of another and it blazed the way for the likes of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane and Ziggy
Stardust and more recently Bono’s ‘The Fly’

I love this link , an interactive copy of the album cover…..  http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/sgtpepper/
…copy it into your browser address.
Released – June 1967
Favourite Track – With A  Little Help from my Friends
Rating – 9