Recent years have witnessed a turn in Popular Music Studies (PMS) which has seen a growth in academic books on particular artists and albums. More often than not this involves big names within popular music and can be seen as something of a return to the earlier days of the field where stars were studied. This stands in marked contrast to those strands of PMS which over the past twenty years or so have sought to develop an understanding of the working lives of vast majority of popular musicians who never make it further than local success.
To an extent this can be seen as something of an intellectual development in PMS which has seen a developing interest in notions of stardom, although it is doubtless also driven by the marketing decisions of publishers. In this context, then, the present volume can be seen as a contribution to a burgeoning field. The book's cover assures the reader that ‘Sgt. Pepper’ is ‘the album of all times’. Its Preface begins by explaining that it was voted the best album of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners in August 2006 and that the book consists of work by ‘scholars who are world-renowned for their work on the Beatles’ (p. xvii). Having thus sought to establish a certain gravitas, it is perhaps unfortunate that the first authoritative voice quoted is UK BBC Radio 2 DJ Simon Mayo.
It is reasonable to assume that the aim of such volumes is to give new insights or to reappraise the artists or works under consideration. Thus the reader should finish the book having gained new understandings or greater insight into the object at hand. Presented with ‘the album of all times’ and ‘world-renowned’ scholars, this reader began the book with high hopes. However, these were seldom fulfilled and the overall feeling left by this collection is that it adds comparatively little new to the understanding of either the Beatles or ‘Sgt Pepper’.
The book consists of eleven chapters and an introduction by the editor. The latter begins by referring to The Fab Four (without inverted commas) and this phrase is repeated in the editor's final chapter. As it is also used by other authors (David Reck, Russell Reising and Jim LeBlanc), it appears that it has now entered academic discourse as an unproblematic term. However, to this reviewer it indicates a certain laxity in thinking which recurs throughout the book. This is furthered evidenced by the fact that few of the chapters have introductions or conclusions. The result is that the arguments within them are often opaque and the ultimate purpose of the chapters frequently unclear. Too often the reader is confronted with an array of information rather than an argued case.
The book includes chapters on whether the album is best seen as escapism or setting an agenda for cultural change (Sheila Whiteley), the relationship between Lennon and McCartney (Terence O'Grady), the album's search for an extended popular music form (Thomas MacFarlane), its sound design (Michael Hannan) and links to the phonographic tradition in the twentieth century (Oliver Julien), links to Indian music (Reck) and to classicism (Naphtali Wagner), its cover (Ian Inglis) and its place within rock ideology (John Kimsey). One contributor, Allan Moore, revisits his book on the album.
In keeping with the nature of PMS, the approaches range from the musicological to the sociological. However, certain themes recur. Most obviously this includes the move of The Beatles from being a live band to being studio-based musicians producing music which could not be performed live. Developments in studio technology and the insights of producer George Martin which facilitated this are usefully explored. Of course, as Julien points out in the Preface, it should be recalled that it was the band's commercial success which convinced EMI that they should be given unprecedented access to studio time.
Another theme usefully explored is the importance of psychedelia (and LSD) to the album. This is re-emphasised and explored in new ways in chapters by Whiteley, Wagner, and Reising and LeBlanc. Indeed, one of the strengths of the book is that the majority of the chapters are historically located and usefully contextualised. In particular, the importance of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘All You Need Is Love’ as precursors to ‘Pepper’ is nicely highlighted in the Preface.
Perhaps the strongest chapters are those by O'Grady and Julien. The first dismisses the notion of ‘Sgt. Pepper’ as a concept album, but lays out clearly the ways in which the band were trying to extend the popular form in ways which were more fully expressed on the second side of ‘Abbey Road’. Julien's chapter (which, at twenty-two pages, is by far the longest in the book) locates the album in the development of recording techniques in the twentieth century. This is one of the few chapters where the argument is clear, as Julien notes, how the medium of popular music has been shaped by the ways it has been recorded and its format made to fit in with whatever sound carrier was then dominant. He thus locates the album in a bigger story of popular music becoming a form of acoustic publication, rather than the written form which can be seen as paradigmatic in art music (p. 153). In effect, Julien reclaims the album for popular music.
Meanwhile, many of the chapters are perhaps guilty of over-contextualisation and veer too far into areas other than the album at hand. For example, nearly half of O'Grady's chapter on Lennon and McCartney deals with the previous two albums, ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Revolver’. Similarly Reck's chapter on the links to Indian music, while informative, adds little to knowledge of ‘Pepper’ per se. The book also suffers from a certain lack of critical distance from its object. Thus we are told that the band were ‘the socio-political zeitgeist for the generation’ (Whiteley, p. 12), that the opening song is ‘marvellously successful on several levels’ (O'Grady, p. 28) and that ‘the entire album may be seen as embodying the psycheclassical synthesis’ (Wagner, p. 89).
As it is, the book would have benefited from a dissident voice as the tone is too celebratory. Surely ‘world-renowned’ scholars might have included some with critiques of the album? Instead it is not until page 121 that a dissident voice is heard. When it is, it arrives in the form of a quote from Ian Shoales. Alas, this is someone who, as the chapter's writer, John Kinsey, quickly makes clear, is ‘granted … not a real rock critic’. But at least Kinsey's chapter goes on to examine some critiques of the album, making a welcome change from the assumption of brilliance which characterises other chapters.
Perhaps I should end by coming clean and admitting that ‘Sgt Pepper’ is an album which, despite being a fan of the band, I rarely, if ever, play. I recognise its importance, while not loving its music. Hopefully what books on artists and albums should do is make the reader go back to the music to listen again with new insight. Thus I had hoped that this volume would have reawakened a desire to hear the music under consideration, but unfortunately it did not. This is perhaps its greatest (not so fab) flaw.
