Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (soundtrack)

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Original Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	23 July 1978
Recorded	September 1977–May 1978 Cherokee Studios, Los Angeles Northstar Studios, Boulder, Colorado Record Plant, New York City EMI Studios, London Air Studios, London
Genre	Glam rock, pop, disco, hard rock
Length	83:08
Label	RSO, A&M (UK/Canada)
Producer	George Martin

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a multi-platinum double album produced by George Martin,^[1] featuring covers of songs by The Beatles. It was released in July 1978, as the soundtrack to the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which starred the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and Steve Martin.

The project was managed by The Robert Stigwood Organisation (RSO). In 1975, the original plans for the album were suspended due to a dispute between Columbia and RSO.^[2] RSO invested $12 million into this soundtrack and the profit offset set against costs such as $1 million for promotion.^[3] The creation of the soundtrack was marked with tension from the beginning, with Frampton and the Bee Gees both feeling wary of the other artist as well as being unsure as to how their music would work together on the same album.^[4]

Regarded as one of the worst albums ever recorded,^[5] the release made history as being the first record to "return platinum", with over four million copies of it taken off store shelves and shipped back to distributors.^[6] Hundreds of thousands of copies of the album ended up being destroyed by RSO. The company itself experienced a considerable financial loss and the Bee Gees as a group had their musical reputation tarnished, though other involved bands such as Aerosmith were unscathed in terms of their popularity.^[4]

Critical reception

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a "D+" and wrote that, apart from the Earth, Wind & Fire and Aerosmith songs, "most of the arrangements are lifted whole without benefit of vocal presence (maybe Maurice should try hormones) or rhythmic integrity ('Can't we get a little of that disco feel in there, George?')"^[7] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave it one out of five stars and said that the album suffers from a number of clumsy performances by the Bee Gees, Frankie Howerd, and Peter Frampton, as well as performers who were not particularly well-suited for their song, including Steve Martin, George Burns, and Alice Cooper.^[8]

Commercial performance and fallout

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band debuted at #5 on the U.S. Billboard album charts^[9] and stayed there for six weeks, becoming a multi-platinum album.^[10] Although there was reported resistance to the interpretation of The Beatles' songs, such as Martin's comedic take on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", Earth, Wind & Fire's version of "Got To Get You Into My Life" became a million selling single,^[11] while Robin Gibb's "Oh! Darling" and Aerosmith's "Come Together"^[12] both charted in the top 40.

Radio airplay trailed off when the film was released with poor reviews, only five weeks later. The album immediately dropped out of the top 100 and pre-sale shipments to USA failed to sell in the quantities predicted.^[13] Owing to low box office receipts the film failed to make back its production costs, but profits from the soundtrack album and the successful singles it spawned later covered those losses.^[14]

The Bee Gees blamed their declining popularity in part on their involvement with the whole project, coupled with their mutual struggles with drug addiction. The latter was exacerbated by the environment of making the film and its soundtrack, with Maurice Gibb expressing shock at seeing crew members carrying around bags full of cocaine. Robin Gibb in particular spent much of this period having to dose himself with barbiturates to even be able to sleep.^[4] Some of the most vicious criticism of the soundtrack was leveled at them, and the musicians felt a particularly painful sting at being labeled as mere "Beatles imitators" since that sort of pejorative tag had been with them since they began their pop rock work in the 1960s. (Although the Bee Gees would continue to be popular into 1979, that year's backlash against disco, a genre in which the band had made their biggest impact, marred their careers permanently.)

Track listing

^[15]

Disc 1

LP Side 1

1. "Introducing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (4:42)

   "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" — The Bee Gees and Paul Nicholas (1:56)

   "With a Little Help from My Friends" — Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (2:46)

2. "Here Comes the Sun" — Sandy Farina (3:45)
3. "Getting Better" — Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (2:46)
4. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" — Dianne Steinberg and Stargard (3:41)
5. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" — The Bee Gees, Dianne Steinberg, Paul Nicholas, Donald Pleasence, Stargard (6:31)

LP Side 2

1. "Good Morning Good Morning" — Paul Nicholas, Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (1:58)
2. "She's Leaving Home" — The Bee Gees, Jay MacIntosh and John Wheeler (2:41)
3. "You Never Give Me Your Money" — Paul Nicholas and Dianne Steinberg (3:07)
4. "Oh! Darling" — Robin Gibb (3:21) reached #15 in United States Billboard Hot 100 chart
5. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" — Steve Martin (4:31)
6. "Rise to Stardom Suite" (5:11)

   "Polythene Pam" — The Bee Gees (0:38)

   "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" — Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (1:46)

   "Nowhere Man" — The Bee Gees (1:14)

   "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" — Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees (1:33)

Disc 2

LP Side 3

1. "Got to Get You Into My Life" — Earth, Wind & Fire (3:36) reached #9 in United States Billboard Hot 100 chart
2. "Strawberry Fields Forever" — Sandy Farina (3:31)
3. "When I'm Sixty-Four" — Frankie Howerd and Sandy Farina (2:40)
4. "Mean Mr. Mustard" — Frankie Howerd (2:46)
5. "Fixing a Hole" — George Burns (2:25)
6. "Because" — Alice Cooper and The Bee Gees (2:45)
7. The Death of Strawberry (3:24)

   "Golden Slumbers" — Peter Frampton (1:39)

   "Carry That Weight" — The Bee Gees (1:45)

LP Side 4

1. "Come Together" — Aerosmith (3:46) reached #23 in the Billboard Hot 100.
2. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" — Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees, and George Burns (3:12)
3. "The Long and Winding Road" — Peter Frampton (3:40)
4. "A Day in the Life" — Barry Gibb and The Bee Gees (5:11)
5. "Get Back" — Billy Preston (2:56)
6. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Finale)" — The cast (2:13)

Personnel

^[15]

Singles

• "Come Together" — Aerosmith — Reached #23 in Billboard singles chart^[16]
• "Get Back" — Billy Preston — Reached #86 in Billboard singles chart^[17]
• "Got To Get You Into My Life" — Earth, Wind & Fire — (Also released on Earth, Wind & Fire Greatest Hits Vol 1). Reached #9 in the Billboard singles chart and #1 in U.S. R&B charts.^[18]
• "Oh! Darling" — Robin Gibb — Reached #15 in the Billboard singles chart.^[5]

See also

• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)
• The Robert Stigwood Organisation
• Bee Gees discography
• List of music considered the worst

Notes

References

• Ashyia, Gale and Henderson, N. Contemporary Black Biography. Gale / Cengage Learning (2001). Digitized 17 Sep 2008. ISBN 978-0-7876-4620-2
• Denisoff, Serge R. and Romanowski, William D. Risky Business: rock in film. Transaction Publishers (1991). ISBN 978-0-88738-843-9
• Martin, George and Hornsby, Jeremy. All you need is ears. Reprint. St. Martin's Press (1994). ISBN 978-0-312-11482-4
• Muir, Kenneth John. The rock & roll film encyclopedia. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books (2007). ISBN 978-1-55783-693-9.

External links

• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the Internet Movie Database