- Sgt. Paper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Lennon - Mccartney)
- With A Little Help From My Friends (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Getting Better (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Fixing A Hole (Lennon - Mccartney)
- She's Living Home (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Within You, Without You (Harrison)
- When I'm Sixty Four (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Lovely Rita (Lennon - Mccartney)
- Good Morning, Good Morning (Lennon - Mccartney)
- A Day In Life (Lennon - Mccartney)
download here!
This album sold a quarter of a million copies in Britain in it's first week of release, and by the end of June had topped 500,000 sales. But it didn't sell it's One Millionth copy until April 1973, some 6 years later.
It is still in the Top 10 albums of all time worldwide (See Top 10 Worldwide Albums)
And is THE top selling album in the U.K. of ALL time (See Top 10 U.K. Albums)
It went straight to number 1 and dominated the top slot for the next 23 weeks.
Sgt. Peppers was the first "concept" album, although any link between tracks was tenuous.
The record is the first not to be banded into individual tracks, with hardly any gaps between songs. It was also the first to use the run-out groove, therefore leave the stylus on the record and it would chatter away endlessly.
The Beatles insisted that the album be issued identically worldwide, so for the first time Capitol in America fell into line and didn't split tracks over different L.P.'s (then again, how could they ??)
The cover has a picture montage (but not the Beatles first - check out "Beatles For Sale") by Peter Blake which contains,
57 photographs,
9 waxwork models loaned from Madam Tussaud's,
A Sgt. Pepper drumskin,
A stone bust,
Four Statuettes,
An Idol,
A doll wearing a jumper emblazoned with "Welcome The Rolling Stones" and "Good Guys",
A portable T.V.
A Gold award,
A variety of flower arrangements, one spelling "Beatles", and another of a guitar, plus a row of Marijuana plants,
And ... The Beatles.
Other than the waxworks, the other items all came from the personal collections of The Beatles.
The drumskin was painted by a genuine fairground artist, Joe Ephgrave, who actually did two versions. The chosen design is now part of Beatles iconography and is probably the second most famous drumskin of all time.
Here is the alternate Sgt, Pepper drumskin ...
The cover too, is the subject of a few "firsts",
It was the first to have the lyrics printed on the reverse.
The inner sleeve was also the first to be decorated in a design by Seemon and Marijke.
Plus the L.P. came with a set of Sgt. Pepper cardboard cut-outs, which include, a moustache, a picture card, some sergeant stripes, 2 badges, and a stand-up.
Not surprisingly this legendary cover has also sparked a few satirists,
 |  |
| Frank Zappa - We're Only In It For The Money (1967) | The Rutles (1978) |
 |  |
| The Moonlight Tapes (1980) | Burning Ambitions (1982) |
Copyright and retouching fees came to £1,367.13s.3d .... plus ...
Michael Cooper's (the photographer) fees came to £1,500.12s (which included Peter Blake's share of ... £200 !)
The total recording time spent on Sgt. Pepper's was over 700 hours at a cost of about £25,000
Also recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions,
"Strawberry Fields Forever" - 24th November 1966 - 22nd December 1966
"Penny Lane" - 29th December 1966 - 17th January 1967
"Carnival Of Light" - 5th January 1967
"Only A Northern Song" - 13th February 1967 - 14th February 1967
"Drum Track" - 22nd February 1967 ... 22:10 long, unreleased, never remixed.
The album was also part of "The Beatles Collection" 13 album box set (see Beatles Collection).
In January 1979 E.M.I. released a picture disc with a retail price of £6:99.
It had much better sound quality than the American issue, but the English version had the same cover picture front and back, whereas the U.S. edition has the Sgt. Pepper drum filling the b-side. The disc was manufactured by Metronome records in Germany, who incidentally produced one of England's first picture disc L.P.'s almost ten years earlier, which was the excellent "Air Conditioning" by Curved Air.
With a now typical lack of effort, E.M.I. failed to advertise the fact that they had released this most desirable object, and so they were rewarded with chart failure.
 |
| Sgt. Peppers - Picture Disc |
And on the same day, the record shop H.M.V. produced a special 12" numbered CD Box Set Comprising:
The C.D. of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band"
+ "It was 20 years ago today" badge
+ A booklet of b/w photos
+ The usual cardboard cut-outs
This set had a catalogue number of BEA CD 25/3, and was in a limited edition of 10,000 copies.
The C.D. was also part of "The Beatles Box" 15 C.D. box set (see Beatles C.D. Box).
In June 2007 there was much media interest in the album again due to it's 40th anniversary.
10th June it re-entered the album charts again at number 48.
17th June it moved one place up the chart to number 47.
24th June 2007 - Sgt. Pepper's 200th week in the chart as it dropped a few places to number 52.
1st July 2007 - Maybe it's last week in the chart for a while as it dropped twenty places to number 72.
09/09/09 (Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine) - the album was re-released as part of the Beatles In Stereo Remasters collection.
13th September 2009 it re-entered the chart again at number 5 as the highest of SEVENTEEN chart positions The Beatles captured in one amazing week.
(see the box set detail for the chart position of all 17 titles together)
20th September 2009 - dropped eight places down to number 13.
27th September 2009 - dropped eighteen places down to number 31.
4th October 2009 - dropped twenty-one places down to number 52.
11th October 2009 - dropped twenty-three places down to number 75 - the last Beatles Remaster album to be listed in the chart. Albeit at the foot of the table !
18th October 2009 - * * * No longer listed in the Top 100.
15th November 2009 - Reappeared at number 99 (from 112)
Tape Media
The album was also available on 4" reel-to-reel tape,
1967 - Catalogue number TA-PMC 7027 (3¾ ips twin-track mono tape) - first edition (mono only) in a cardboard box.
1968 - Catalogue number TA-PMC 7027 (3¾ ips twin-track mono tape)
TD-PCS 7027 (3¾ ips 4-track stereo) these editions in a "jewel" box.
Prior to 1973:
The album was released on stereo cassette tape (1⅞ ips) - Catalogue number - TC-PCS 7027
The album was also released on 8-track stereo continuous play cartridge (3¾ ips) - catalogue no. 8X-PCS 7027
In November 1987 the album was re-released on cassette tape (stereo only) - Catalogue number - TC-PCS 7027 (Originally released June 1967).
EmoticonEmoticon