Rolling Stone magazine named this the greatest album of all time. But Rolling Stone also left Pink Floyd off their 100 Greatest Artists list. So fuck Rolling Stone.
Admittedly though, they might have been right on this one. This is an album best enjoyed in the chronological context because it draws upon everything that came before while at the same time, destroying it all. It might not be my favorite, but it's an undeniable work of genius.
I'm not sure where to start. The cover is something that can only be fully appreciated on a 12 x 12 inch record sleeve. The iconic faces that adorn it would have me scrambling around Wikipedia for hours, wondering why I hadn't heard of half the people before. The theatrical introduction of this fictional band brings to life an album beyond reality, the pinnacle of pop music as an art. The Beatles found the most expressive way to counter-act their astronomical fame, by creating an alter-ego that could embody their own voice while living in a myth.
The apologetic hopefulness of "Getting Better" is something I unfortunately heard for the first time on a printer commercial. "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" still kind of reminds me of the Sean Penn movie I Am Sam. If there's one complaint I have of The Beatles it's the different ways the world has chosen to completely butcher their music. If you don't believe me, you apparently haven't seen Across the Universe lately.
Fortunately, "She's Leaving Home" is one of those songs I hadn't heard before I listened to this album (I'd like to see them try and make that into a Pepsi commercial). I'm sure the teenage fans at the time identified with the sentimentality of the song's lyrics. And this is the first album ever to include lyrics, hinting at the fact that these songs are meant to be both heard and read.
My favorite songs are ones with multiple parts. The more wildly different each part is, the better. "A Day in the Life" is one of the greatest examples of it. It's a tale of detachment and numbing isolation, an oddly reassuring notion that everything is not alright.
favorite song: "A Day in the Life"
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