It's Certainly A Thrill: 'Sgt. Pepper' Is Best Album (Better than the White Album?!)

usa today ^ | 11-17-03

[eddie willers]

LOL....You RULE, Hawk.

(Lift your lighter high)

[AmishDude]

Better lyrics than the Steve Miller band. I may not be the walrus, but I know bad poetry when I read it.

[Skooz]

So do I. And that ain't it.

[Aeronaut]

I had "Dark Side" on eight track tape.

So did I. It sold me on cassettes, because three of the four switch points where it shifted tracks interrupted songs.

[Mr. Mojo]

I think Bob Dylan's three mid-60's masterpieces (Bring it all Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde) were more influencial than anything the Beatles released, and Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison have admitted as much. Bob was the first to combine poetry with rock and roll (in 1965).....a truly revolutionary msucial accomplishment. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, etc. created the bare bones of rock and roll, but Dylan (and to a lesser extent the Beatles) brought it to maturity.

(As a side note, it's quite false to classify Dylan as an "anti-war protest singer," especially since only 2 of his 30+ albums could be accurately classified in that genre, and both were released before out involvement in Vietnam. He's simply a rock and roller with a poetic genius).

[eddie willers]

If you like lyrics so much, you must be the world's biggest Bob Dylan fan.

[AmishDude]

Yes. Very slowly now. Boston, a band not known for its lyrics, created the best album ever. There are many bands with better lyricists that did not compile a single album that rises to that level.

The Beatles' work has not aged well in part because their innovations are not innovative anymore and in part because their lyrics do not appeal to a generation that is not currently high on LSD.

[zeugma]

The Floyd fans out there might be interested in something I picked up a few months ago. It's called "Us And Them - Symphonic Pink Floyd". It's performed by the London Philharmonic and is pretty excellent stuff. You haven't heard "The Great Gig In The Sky" until you've heard it with a violin as the 'vocalist'.

Judging from the other comments on this thread, we have quite a diversity of opinions about what makes great rock and roll, if not what makes great music in general. Personally, I like a bit of just about everything but disco and its variants. When I set my mp3's playing randomly, I can hear Count Basie, The Rolling Stones, Anonymous 4, Pink Floyd, Beethoven, Ella Fitzgerald, The Cars, and the The Sons of the Pioneers in succession. Having ripped every disk I have (vinyl and CD), I just love having all this stuff right here in one place where I can just have my player run for days on end without repeating a turn. Isn't technology wonderful?

[theelephantway]

"I am the Walrus"

When this song was written it was supposed to be a bunch of nothing put together. The Beatles even made this song work. The mere fact that millions of people were asking, "what in the hell is this song about?", "what is he saying?", etc, is exactly what Lennon wanted.

30 years later and people still want to know who the WALRUS is.

[IowaHawk]

Raise your goblet to the gods of RAWWWWWK

[Jhensy]

Will somebody finally kill off that damn "Astral Weeks"? I've been reading these facking lists for 25 years and that stupid overrated obscurity is ALWAYS on it. (disclaimer: I've owned it for years, I know it front to back; it's OK, but come ON.)

No one I knew growing up ever owned this album, much less ever heard it, much less ever loved it. Just because it reminds Dave Marsh or Greil Marcus or whoever about some long-lost girlfriend in 1968 doesn't compete against the immense impact and fascination of, say, "Dark Side of the Moon", "The Doors", "Led Zeppelin IV", etc.

[Fresh Wind]

You have to include Blood on the Tracks as well. Another masterpiece.

[Petronski]

Yep....I'm saying without them, Rock and Roll would have never have matured into "ROCK", there would have been no Who, Stones, Traffic, or Steely Dan etc.

Oooh, I'd love to hear Jagger or Townshend say they wouldn't have made the music they did without the Beatles.

The good stuff follows a straight line from Memphis TN and Muscle Shoals AL to Sun Records and The Rolling Stones; and from blues artists like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to Led Zeppelin and heavy metal. Do you think the Yardbirds got more influence from the Beatles? Or did they get it from guitar greats Albert King, Howlin Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, etc.?

And I'd love to see musical lines of influence drawn from the Beatles to Traffic. The idea of it baffles me...it sounds almost silly.

[Skooz]

LOL!

Great post!

[AmishDude]

Dylan could be singing in Russian for all I know.

[Petronski]

Didn't Elvis release Blue Moon of Kentucky first, or was that just a demo?

[Mr. Mojo]

I concur, Blood on the Tracks is absolutely amazing. But I was talking about the period in which Dylan created the style of music in question ('65-'66), and Blood was released in '74. A list of great Dylan albums would be a long list.

[AmishDude]

When this song was written it was supposed to be a bunch of nothing put together.

Seinfeld for the 1970's, eh?

[eddie willers]

LOL...we bring up Dylan at the same time.

Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison have admitted as much.

And they convinced him to "Go Electric".

No doubt about it, the two put the blood in the water and much greater music flowed from the well. (I LOVE mixing metaphors).

BTW...speaking of Dylan, I consider The Band (based on their first two albums) to be second only to The Beatles.

[Skooz]

My favorite Dylan album was "Desire." To this day, it gives me the chills.