Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Album, The Beatles And The World in 1967

Sgt. Pepper’s was a game-changer sonically, and it’s hard to think of many musicians that have used the studio as creatively while making music that’s become part of our pop culture. Author Brian Southall has written previous books on the band, plus Floyd and Dylan; here he breaks the album down with a relatively brief track-by-track that is too light on actual musical details for such a landmark. Next to that, despite colourful presentation, the more extensive coverage devoted to the general events of 1967 feels oddly unbalanced. A missed opportunity. David Hands