SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

The nature of a term like "progressive rock" is that it is, as music, malleable and perpetually in change. The term "progressive rock" began to be used by writers in 1968, to denote the progressive impulse of the music of the Byrds, The Band, Procol Harum, The Beatles, The Nice, and Bob Dylan whose fusion of folk and country on Nashville Skyline was deemed progressive. Progressive rock did not have the narrow distinction now attributed to it until much later.

The roots of progressive rock actually go back to the earlier 1960s with Kim Fowley's, Nutrocker and the production wizardry of Phil Spector. Spector showed that the new artistic voice in rock and roll was the producer. Beatle producer George Martin has often been called the fifth Beatle. It was his decision to add strings to Eleanor Rigby to grant it an alienated, classical aire. Allen Ginsberg said about the song, "it was the Beatles looking out at their adoring fans." In Rubber Soul, the idea of the album as a collection of songs in themselves was starting to be more accepted. The Beatles were at the forefront of the new acceptance.

When Sergeant Pepper's was released in June of 1967, it was both loved and hated. It is said to have initiated the hippy "Summer of Love" in San Francisco. But there were many fans who wanted to dance saw the intellectualization of rock and roll as alienating.

What was most engaging about Sgt Pepper was that it spoke about ordinary people: Billy Shears, Mr. Kite or Rita Meter Maid. Often they were doing things that were viewed asquite extraordinary: starting a band, leaving home or committing suicide, a theme that would become prevalent in heavy metal.

Through their narrative the Beatles began to question the materialistic framework of western society and the assumptions through which we lived out lives. They did this through laying to rest any notions about the ability of power, money and fame to truly liberate people. In the height of the Warhol sixties, they also questioned the consumerist aspect of pop art, laying themselves to rest and creating art out of a vision of common man going about a day in the life.

There would have been no Supper's Ready or "show that never ends" without Sergeant Pepper's. It all began here, in the uncompromising vision of The Beatles to re-create themselves through the lens of their own vision.