Module: Texts & Contexts – The 1960s (MUSI2722)
Module Tutor: Mr. Allan Greenwood
Question 1: Sgt. Pepper is often quoted as the definitive album of the Sixties. Give the major reasons for this and assess its contribution to the development of popular music.
There is only one real way to ascertain an album as being definitive of a particular period in history, which is comparative and subjective in nature. Methods claiming to be of analytical and objective nature are broadly based on the academic assumption that popular cultural goods must signify something. This essay will start by providing a complete track listing of the album, an examination of this subjective methodology, briefly touch upon its particular strengths and weaknesses before considering limitations to an analytical disquisition, and then derive some conclusions.
When considering Sgt. Pepper as ‘the definitive Sixties album’, the first general argument to make is that the album is a collection of recordings, which listeners who have attained a certain age will readily identify with. It is an album that will undoubtedly invoke strong associations and connotations with this era. This ability to make what is now a senior generation reflect on their youth is a reflection on the quality of the album, whether this be down to symbolism found in the songs, (and there is plenty) a liking for the Beatles’ song construction techniques, or anything else contained within the material. This is certainly an album which aims to embrace all aspects of life during this decade, in addition to presenting a series of new musical ideas.
Difficulties arise in analysis of the Sgt. Pepper album when one considers even a brief historical background to the Beatles. An extremely abridged version of events is that the Beatles were iconoclastic, in other words, they were representatives of a culture that the likes of which British (and indeed American) society had never seen before: they symbolised rebellion against authority, widespread drug use, (particularly hallucinogens) challenging the traditional views of the establishment by assuming an anti-conformist ideology, and the idea of free love; these are just some of the many prominent themes one associates with the social and political happenings of this time: ‘Just as drugs were used rebelliously and shaped the music the counter-culture produced, so was sex … traditional values on all matters, including sexual ones, were besieged.’
In addition to this, the album’s release coincided with growing protests over the USA’s involvement in Vietnam; music and politics have often found themselves inextricable and related to each other. This is another good reason why Sgt. Pepper is frequently quoted as the definitive 1960s album; with growing dissent on both sides of the Atlantic about war, the Beatles made an attempt to align themselves into a pacifistic position, which in ideological terms was central to the values held by youth of the time. This was, of course, little more than a marketing gimmick to enhance record sales. Before the sixties, the concept of a political song was something relatively unheard of on either side of the Atlantic. It conspired that writing songs with such associations was seen as credible and glamorous.
An explicitly analytical discourse with regard to Sgt. Pepper will almost invariably have a certain limit to its use, therefore, since the Beatles were representative of an era which rallied against structure, reason, and logic, whether this be in terms of real world experience, musical composition, or otherwise. There are very strong elements contained within Sgt. Pepper that validate this particular train of thought: it is ‘a stupefying collage of music, words, background noises, cryptic utterances, orchestral effects, hallucinogenic bells, farmyard sounds, dream sequences, social observations and apocalyptic vision…’. Factor in the use of advanced studio techniques - cutting up tape, playing it backwards, speeding it up, slowing it down, and, of course, the coup de grâce, ‘a few seconds of nonsense Beatle chatter … stuck back together at random … purchasers of the vinyl album … would … find the curious noise going on and on ad infinitum.’
It is a good point with which Moore starts his introduction; that which says historians with an analytical bent have been, and still are, traditionally more concerned with products of the classical era, as opposed to that of rock music. One need only consider such theorists as Ratner, Meyer, and Schenker; just a handful of theorists of whom Meyer has done much work on pseudo-psychological methods which can be applied to music, and the latter of whom has spawned an entirely new branch of analytical musicology with what has become known as Schenkerian analysis. Moore’s introduction presupposes the idea that he will introduce a new paradigm to disseminate popular music, but he adopts a distinctly Schenkerian-type approach, which some critics might well think severely undermine his reasoning, but there is ample evidence of a modern approach to McCartney’s song-writing, which I will return to later. (This forms the basis of my fourth argument) There are many broad reasons why rigorous analytical methods have not yet been applied, or even developed, to rock, but suffice it to say that this is a rather neglected area of musicology. With this assertion in mind, I will try to find out why this is, and then attempt to define the style or styles that Sgt. Pepper encapsulates.
If most theorists have ignored rock music’s output for too long, those that have deigned to analyse it have clashed over the sociological and theoretical aspects. These aspects are traditionally perceived to be independent of one another, with the sociologists claiming that social circumstances within any given country make the music happen, whilst the theorists conversely claiming that music happens, (presumably as a fulfillance to a niche in the music business, for some highlighted ‘need’) which is then disseminated and analysed by the general public. As Moore says, “it is necessary … to regard musical styles as partially autonomous, whereby internal and external factors inform each other.” This is seemingly a continuation of the radical academic train of thought that has been propagated since the 1920s/1930s, typically embodying Marxist principles, from intellectual organisations all over the Western world, such as the Birmingham School in Britain, and the Frankfurt School, of which Adorno and Horkheimer were scholars. This is perfectly illustrated by Adorno’s comments: ‘In creating markets for their goods, cultural entrepreneurs developed manipulative sales methods that ensnared customers in self-delusion.’ In short this means that people did not always feel the urge to own a particular band’s music, and if this was the case, the music industry perceived its job as creating that need.
However, there are some valid reasons for choosing a technical analysis of Sgt. Pepper. This album is extremely well suited to this type of musicological analysis because Tagg asserts that ‘it seems wise to select an AO [analysis object] which is conceived for and received by large, socioculturally heterogenous groups of listeners … with relatively clear extramusical fields of association’. Certainly one is hard pressed to think of any other band that was so utterly dominant across a pluralism of cultures in the early to mid 1960s. Tagg’s method is to do away with applying descriptive metalinguistic prose to music, which he considers a ‘non-verbal, non-denotative art’. Instead, he advocates the application of what he calls the ‘hermeneutic/semiological method’, which involves substituting similar analysis objects to make what he calls an inter-objective comparison by means of utilising four things: the initial analysis object, the meta-analysis object (in other words, the ‘surrogate song’) items of musical code, and the aforementioned extramusical fields of association. By linking objectively similar material contained in ‘items of musical code’ and ‘extramusical fields of association’, one can determine the objective states of correspondence between the analysis object and the inter-objective comparison material. I will present one such analysis later.
It is interesting to note that even the theorists disagree about the best approach to analysing this form of popular music, particularly as it seems to transcend the boundaries of ‘popular’ and explore progressive rock territory, the latter of which Moore perceives as embracing the use of fantastic and obscure imagery. Explicitly contrasting Tagg against Moore, for example, yields two completely different standpoints. As mentioned previously, Tagg favours creating an entirely new paradigm for the analysis of rock music which, he asserts, has relied on classical methodologies for far too long. Yet Moore takes to analysing the bass lines of four songs on Sgt. Pepper with such a methodology. This is of interest because of the album’s nature – some melodic elements can be analysed in this way but the effects such as speeded-up tape obviously cannot be. This leads onto my third argument for quoting Sgt. Pepper as ‘the definitive sixties album’, as it is very difficult (if not impossible) to analyse, because it defies categorisation and the ease of being pigeon-holed into a particular category, since it clearly exhibits characteristics of progressive rock favoured by the counter-culture movement, and attempts to place itself within a popular idiom. Subsequently, this makes the views of those who see this as a ‘concept album’ more credible.
There are other viewpoints from which to analyse Sgt. Pepper, of course. Being an album with strong links to the psychedelic period, a certain thematic unity was called for right from the beginning. This is primarily because merging tracks into a dreamy whole (as opposed to a cohesive, structured one) helped to distinguish it from other pop works of the time. It is also generally acknowledged to be the first album with lyrics printed on the reverse of the album cover. A visual clue as to the nature of the album’s musical styles are provided by merely glancing at the cover, designed by Peter Blake, which is a collage of several famous people, including gurus, sportsmen, politicians, and more, chosen by the Beatles themselves. This sets the listener up for the tone of the album, which deliberately blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. As far as the concept of codifying goes, one might even consider the album cover a visual ‘code’ in itself. Famously, some of the figures Lennon chose for the collage were excluded, among them Hitler, God, and Gandhi.
The fourth argument to make about Sgt. Pepper is that some people will invariably assume quantifiable factors such as the amount of production time and studio hours spent working on the record are indicative of a definitive record. Contrasting the production time taken over Sgt. Pepper (four months, £25,000) with their first LP, Please Please Me (one day, £400) reveals the extent to which the Beatles dabbled more in studio production than in writing the raw acoustic material so often associated with their earlier days. In addition to this, a considerable amount of time was spent on setting up each session as the Abbey Rd studios were only equipped with four-track mixers, in comparison to some of their American counterparts, which were exploiting eight-tracks as much as eight years prior to this.
Influential in shaping the styles heard on Sgt. Pepper were John Cage and Luciano Berio, an American and Italian modern composer respectively, both heavily into experimental music., It was almost as if applied technical effects were more important than chordal structures, melody, or other traditional aspects of song. The work of these composers was important, McCartney felt, and in this spirit he travelled to the Italian Institute in Belgravia to hear Berio deliver a lecture, although his evening was ruined by intrusive photographers. His attendance there may well go some way to explaining why Moore decides to adopt a Schenkerian approach (i.e. one that makes comparison between background and foreground material, removing unnecessary filler material in the process) in analysing Sgt. Pepper. There are other clues, however, for instance the opening ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ contains the eternal conflict between classical period instrumentation and stylistic touches from heavy rock that present musicologists with the age-old dilemma of austere classicism against popular music.
The complete track listing of the Sgt. Pepper album is as follows: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, With a Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, Fixing a Hole, She’s Leaving Home, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Within You Without You, When I’m Sixty-Four, Lovely Rita, Good Morning Good Morning, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), A Day In the Life.
With the case having been stated for a subjective opinion of Sgt. Pepper, in the next paragraph I will try to ‘pull apart’ an individual song from the album, starting with the textual neutral level, which is more objective in nature. This practice of starting with the textual level before aesthetics, poetics, and so forth has been well-documented amongst musicologists and theorists for a very long time. In particular, one learns from a study of Morino that there are three complimentary levels of knowledge; the poietic, (placing music in context and understanding the compositional process) the neutral, (with the text of prime importance) and the esthesic. (critical reception and reaction to the composition) The biggest and most significant achievement of Sgt. Pepper is that it blurs lines between these three levels; for instance, what should we define as a ‘work’ of music? The score, the listening experience, or a combination of these things? The elements of indeterminacy contained within the album only serve to heighten such questions.
The song I will analyse is ‘Within You Without You’. I have picked this song as it is quite unlike anything else on Sgt. Pepper. It is the only song George Harrison wrote that features on the album. Whereas other songs such as ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ race through the lyrics, ‘Within You Without You’ spins its lyrics out in a pseudo-meditative manner. The sitar doubles the vocal line throughout this song, except for an extended instrumental section from 2:23 to 3:47. What is interesting about this song is that it is modal throughout, in the Mixolydian mode beginning on C sharp. The Mixolydian mode is frequently used in jazz as it contains a flattened seventh, and I think that this could represent an attempt by Harrison to embrace types of writing from other genres. It certainly seems an odd choice of mode to use for a philosophically-intentioned song.
The lyrics of ‘Within You Without You’, once analysed at this textual level, appear to proffer a glimpse into the metaphysical Indian perspective that Harrison had embraced at this time. Moreover, in its lyrics it explicitly covers the gap between humans as the single basic unit of society, contrasted against the collective whole. It is a brilliant study on the aridity (spiritually, emotionally or otherwise) of modern living, the reverberations of which can still be felt today. Because of this, a dual function of the song is also assumed; it is ‘the conscience of Sgt. Pepper … the necessary sermon that comes with the community singing … [and is] central to the outlook that shaped Sgt. Pepper.’ This track can thus be seen as indispensable to the album. The key thing to note about ‘Within You Without You’ is that it assumes the role of a protagonist caught up in the rebellious times; it is a rallying call for all of youth to fight off the superficial materialistic excesses of the period. In an analysis of this type of music, one must also consider whether the lyrics play a diversionary tactic, or a heightening tactic; in effect, could the music still convey what was meant on its own without the lyrics? The answer is that the lyrics heighten the exotic instrumental backdrop presented. Even the placing of this song in the album is important; (the cassette release featured ‘Within You Without You’ as the first song on the B side) it ensures sufficient time to re-capture the fresh mood that the album opened with. Whilst on the subject of the track list, it is important to note the last track, ‘A Day In the Life’, placed directly after the reprise. I think that this points to a new future musical direction for the Beatles.
The concept behind Sgt. Pepper was that it should be an ‘imaginary’ show with separate performers for each number, much like vaudeville. The whole point of the album was that it was an exploration of what actually constitutes ‘music’, much like Tracey Emin pushes the boundaries of what ‘art’ is. It then seems like something of a role reversal for McCartney and Lennon; where McCartney traditionally wrote more melodic, exacting songs that sounded consonant to the ear, Lennon typically wrote harmonic, dissonant pieces. Yet a glance at the writing credits for the album shows that McCartney invested considerably more time and effort in this production than Lennon did.
The essay has so far concentrated on reasons why Sgt. Pepper is often quoted as the definitive sixties album, but I will concede that there are also several reasons why it isn’t. Firstly, the lyrical content of the songs is still firmly rooted in everyday activities, scenes, and interactions. This is a recurring theme with the Beatles. Secondly, following on from this, Sgt. Pepper represents the next iteration in their song-writing, and does not appear to present anything particularly new in terms of musical structures, chord sequences, riffs, or the like. Thirdly, songs like ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ appear to be little more than a pastiche of the 1920s and 30s musical style, like Fred Astaire for example. Fourthly, topics such as drugs, free love, politics, and so forth might have seemed high on the agenda for the generation buying this Beatles record, but little of the material on the album actually discusses or even acknowledges this. Furthermore, the use of ‘Sergeant’ in the title is very likely to be ironic, given the USA’s military presence in Vietnam. I consider this to be one of the extramusical fields of association that Tagg discusses, as mentioned above. Fifthly, perhaps Sgt. Pepper pointed a future direction for the development of non-musical sounds, and new ideas of what could be included in music, but this does not mean to say that the album is definitive of the entire sixties era. Finally, any other band using a sitar in their songs in 1967 wouldn’t be widely acclaimed. This then raises some interesting questions concerning the extent to which the Beatles traded off their name, rather than being continual innovators in the field of music.
However, some elements presented in the Sgt. Pepper album were seized on by other bands, such as the advanced studio techniques. This concurs with Hebdige’s views: ‘As soon as original innovations which signify subculture are translated to commodities and made generally available, they are frozen.’ One of the significant things about Sgt. Pepper was that it floated two important concepts: firstly, the concept that an album did not have to be a collection of discrete, homogenous tracks, but rather a continuous (psychedelic) whole album representative of an idea, and secondly, that of over-dubbing. These concepts are continued in the work of Pink Floyd, whose album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ contains such ideas. (For example, consider the clock montage at the start of track 3, titled ‘Time’) Another important thing about this album is that a studio engineer called Alan Parsons worked on it. He was a prodigious man, just twenty-two in 1972, but was instrumental in editing earlier material recorded by the Beatles, including that of Sgt. Pepper. Other important albums to consider from around this time are David Bowie’s Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars and The Who’s Tommy. Both are quasi-rock operatic in nature and use techniques derived from Sgt. Pepper. As is the case with all popular music, these acts can be said to be involved in the emasculation and collusion of consumer capitalism, with such attempts to recreate a need for their products in the minds of impressionable youth.
There are six conclusions that I can draw from answering this question. The first of these is that one commensurate way of observing an album as ‘definitive’ of a period is its ability to make a now senior generation reflect on their youth. This method is rather more qualitative than quantitative in nature. The astounding thing about this album is that it is so much more than the radical Marxist train of thought would have us believe; in short, that commodities are little more than ‘social hieroglyphs’. Sgt. Pepper appears to transcend perceptions of the banal, popular commodity and ultimately delivers an experience that this senior generation can identify with. The adoption of a pacifistic position, tenable by the Beatles, was designed to concur with the ideological values held by the teenagers who would buy Sgt. Pepper. Again, this had a dual function. As well as keeping in line with what their audience wanted, in all senses of the phrase, they also distanced themselves from any other attitudes.
The second of these conclusions is that there are finite limits to the relevance of an analytical disquisition. The major problem surrounding an overtly technical examination of Sgt. Pepper (or any other popular music, for that matter) is the nature of the genre: its music is, by and large, disseminated and transmitted on a global level by the use of recorded sound, as opposed to a defined set or sets of notation which would be used in art music. In addition to this, theory and aesthetical analyses are common in art music (for instance, that of Berio, as mentioned above) but are uncommon in popular music.
The third of these conclusions is that Sgt. Pepper defies easy categorisation because it contains examples of stylistic touches from other music genres, including but by no means limited to jazz, world music, and modernist art music. The inherent nature of popular music means it is frequently difficult, if not impossible, to lay down a precise definition of the term as it is in a constant state of evolution, and furthermore it comprises multiple threads which are capable of developing (or indeed regressing) on their own at any given time.
The fourth conclusion to draw is that some of the public may consider an album to be definitive of a particular period by considering the quantifiable factors only, such as the number of production hours spent on an album, number of session musicians used, number of engineers, and so on. I think that it is important to remember that a more technically challenging album may not be a better one.
The fifth conclusion to draw is that critics who have previously analysed Sgt. Pepper (such as Moore) may have adopted analytical methods more often used in art music (more often than not a Schenkerian methodology) to do this, as the album contains examples of modern writing, for example in the use of speeded-up and dissected tapes.
The sixth conclusion to draw is that perhaps Sgt. Pepper is not the definitive sixties record, and there are a number of reasons why, some of these being the lyrical content of the songs has not changed sufficiently to warrant a ‘revolutionary’ label, and secondly, McCartney seems to favour writing pastiche songs (When I’m Sixty Four) over anything refreshingly new. Songs on Sgt. Pepper appear to be little more than mere continuations or equivalents of songs on Revolver. For instance, contrast ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ with ‘Good Day Sunshine’. In this instance, I would suggest that Revolver, not Sgt. Pepper, is the definitive sixties record. There are three major reasons for this. The first reason is that I view it as the stylistic pre-cursor to Sgt. Pepper; the real experimentation with what defines and constitutes music really starts here. Considering the fractured drum loop on ‘For No One’, for example, one can see how forward-thinking the Beatles were; so forward-thinking, in fact, that even modern acts such as The Chemical Brothers play this song in their set. The second reason is that many musical genres are embraced within a single album. This is a typical practice of the Beatles. The Indian sound that we well acquaint with the Beatles (‘Love You To’) and songs inspired by Motown (‘Got To Get You Into My Life’) are just a couple of examples. The third and final reason is that the sharp contrast between Lennon and McCartney’s song-writing techniques was developed here and the pinnacle achieved in Sgt. Pepper. (Lennon has been quoted as the ‘rocker’ with McCartney the ‘romantic’)
The seventh and final conclusion to draw is that although some may not regard Sgt. Pepper as the definitive sixties record, clearly a number of other bands thought sufficiently well of it to explore its techniques and concepts used; David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and The Who, to name but a few.
Word Count: 4,088
Bibliography
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Web Links
Author unknown, accessed 5th May 2004.
Discography
The Beatles. Revolver (Parlophone, 1966)
The Beatles. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone, 1967)
David Bowie. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (EMI, 1972)
Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon (EMI, 1973)
The Who. Tommy: A Rock Opera (Polydor, 1969)
