Every so often, in any place where people talk about rock music, someone will mention Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and how great it is. And then someone else comes along and says it's an overrated pile of crap, and then Beatles fans have an aneurysm. Sometimes a flame war ensues; other times the dissenter's opinion is dismissed as the attention-seeking raving of a philistine. But it's interesting to me that it comes up so often. Could they be right? Is Sgt. Pepper overrated?
I think it is.
It's also my favorite album.
Now, this isn't the glaring contradiction it may initially seem like. Let's think for a minute about that word, "overrated". It's tossed around frequently in regards to any form of entertainment (and in reference to music, is often bundled with terms like "sellout" or "pretentious"), and while the basic meaning is self-explanatory, many people don't stop to think about how it's really being used. Often, people use it as a trolling remark, as shorthand for "other people seem to like this, and I don't, and I think those other people are imbeciles". In that sense, it's the mating call of the mini-critic; it expresses the attitude parodied by cartoon slogans like Jay Sherman's "It stinks!" and Comic Book Guy's "Worst. Episode. Ever." The word, in this sense, cannot objectively apply to anything, any more than a food can objectively taste bad. If it did, it wouldn't be considered edible. If an album were objectively bad, you would never have heard of it. After all, somebody bought a copy.
But the true meaning of "overrated" is a different monster. All it means is, "given more praise than it rightfully deserves". That may sound as subjective as the meaning above, but think about it. Works of art are often elevated far beyond what a work of art can ever truly be. They are treated as holy, the artists revered as gods. In this sense, Shakespeare, Monet, Beethoven, and the Beatles themselves are overrated: All are held to such a high standard that they can do nothing but fall short. They are treated as immortal, invincible, infallible figures, when each was merely a human being and could be no more than that. John Lennon's infamous remark that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus was so shocking not because it wasn't true, but because it was.
Calling a work or an artist "overrated" in this second sense need not be a disparaging remark. It can be useful to remind fans that no matter how much they may love an artist or their art, it cannot objectively be the best, because there is no objective measure. The comparative greatness of albums can't be determined by racing them, measuring their length, or throwing them off a building to see which is more durable. These tests would be meaningless in regards to entertainment; the only measure that matters is the amount of joy they bring, and you can't measure joy. (You can collect data on the degree of influence on other artists, but calling a work influential is not quite the same as calling it great.)
And herein lies the problem with Sgt. Pepper. It frequently is touted as the objective greatest album of all time, the winner of the music Olympics, as if there could ever be such a thing. The problem with this kind of labeling is that it ignores the vast diversity of music in the world. Typically only rock music is even considered when someone makes this statement; often, only classic rock. But the great music of the world is not contained only within rock. There is great rock, but there is also great blues, great pop, great rap, folk, classical, jazz, and country*, and even that expanded range only covers western music. Even if you narrow the statement down a bit and call it the greatest rock album of all time, you're still ignoring a world of other rock music. Typically, on lists that try to rank albums, only the 100 or so most popular albums are even considered, out of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of albums. For every album that is consistently hailed as a classic, there are many, many more that are loved just as much, but by a smaller audience, because they weren't as radio-friendly or weren't marketed as well, or because the artists just didn't care all that much about playing the fame game. Declaring a hundred albums the greatest, and then ten the greatest of those, and one the greatest of those, is tantamount to dismissing thousands of albums as less great simply because you haven't heard them.
Where, then, does this insistence that there must be a winner come from? Possibly, it's a symptom of rock music being a relatively young art form. Books, paintings and plays have been around for centuries, so there's centuries of work you'd need to know to be an expert. But rock music has been around for a measly couple of generations - a short enough lifespan for people to feel they've seen it all. This perceived ability to swim the whole sea allows people to feel like experts on the subject, and to express their opinions loudly. This is also common in other relatively new art forms, such as video games which have been around roughly a generation. On the other hand, with older forms, people are more hesitant. Books have been around for so long that few people have experienced a wide enough sample to consider themselves authorities on the subject. But in discussing rock music, the odds are better, and so more people play.
So, what about Sgt. Pepper? Does it still deserve to be called a great album? It's certainly historically important: it was incredibly innovative in its time, expanding people's ideas of what rock music could be and paving the way for the many other artists it inspired. And it's great in the sense of bringing joy: many, many people besides myself would list it as a favorite. So, it would certainly be fair to call this one of the most influential albums of all time, and there's no question that it's one of the best-loved. Just don't call it the greatest. It doesn't perform well under that kind of pressure.
But then, almost nothing ever does.
*Anyone automatically shaking their head "no" at this list could probably stand to read the paragraph preceding it a second time.
**Unless, of course, you actually are.
I think it is.
It's also my favorite album.
Now, this isn't the glaring contradiction it may initially seem like. Let's think for a minute about that word, "overrated". It's tossed around frequently in regards to any form of entertainment (and in reference to music, is often bundled with terms like "sellout" or "pretentious"), and while the basic meaning is self-explanatory, many people don't stop to think about how it's really being used. Often, people use it as a trolling remark, as shorthand for "other people seem to like this, and I don't, and I think those other people are imbeciles". In that sense, it's the mating call of the mini-critic; it expresses the attitude parodied by cartoon slogans like Jay Sherman's "It stinks!" and Comic Book Guy's "Worst. Episode. Ever." The word, in this sense, cannot objectively apply to anything, any more than a food can objectively taste bad. If it did, it wouldn't be considered edible. If an album were objectively bad, you would never have heard of it. After all, somebody bought a copy.
But the true meaning of "overrated" is a different monster. All it means is, "given more praise than it rightfully deserves". That may sound as subjective as the meaning above, but think about it. Works of art are often elevated far beyond what a work of art can ever truly be. They are treated as holy, the artists revered as gods. In this sense, Shakespeare, Monet, Beethoven, and the Beatles themselves are overrated: All are held to such a high standard that they can do nothing but fall short. They are treated as immortal, invincible, infallible figures, when each was merely a human being and could be no more than that. John Lennon's infamous remark that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus was so shocking not because it wasn't true, but because it was.
Calling a work or an artist "overrated" in this second sense need not be a disparaging remark. It can be useful to remind fans that no matter how much they may love an artist or their art, it cannot objectively be the best, because there is no objective measure. The comparative greatness of albums can't be determined by racing them, measuring their length, or throwing them off a building to see which is more durable. These tests would be meaningless in regards to entertainment; the only measure that matters is the amount of joy they bring, and you can't measure joy. (You can collect data on the degree of influence on other artists, but calling a work influential is not quite the same as calling it great.)
And herein lies the problem with Sgt. Pepper. It frequently is touted as the objective greatest album of all time, the winner of the music Olympics, as if there could ever be such a thing. The problem with this kind of labeling is that it ignores the vast diversity of music in the world. Typically only rock music is even considered when someone makes this statement; often, only classic rock. But the great music of the world is not contained only within rock. There is great rock, but there is also great blues, great pop, great rap, folk, classical, jazz, and country*, and even that expanded range only covers western music. Even if you narrow the statement down a bit and call it the greatest rock album of all time, you're still ignoring a world of other rock music. Typically, on lists that try to rank albums, only the 100 or so most popular albums are even considered, out of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of albums. For every album that is consistently hailed as a classic, there are many, many more that are loved just as much, but by a smaller audience, because they weren't as radio-friendly or weren't marketed as well, or because the artists just didn't care all that much about playing the fame game. Declaring a hundred albums the greatest, and then ten the greatest of those, and one the greatest of those, is tantamount to dismissing thousands of albums as less great simply because you haven't heard them.
Where, then, does this insistence that there must be a winner come from? Possibly, it's a symptom of rock music being a relatively young art form. Books, paintings and plays have been around for centuries, so there's centuries of work you'd need to know to be an expert. But rock music has been around for a measly couple of generations - a short enough lifespan for people to feel they've seen it all. This perceived ability to swim the whole sea allows people to feel like experts on the subject, and to express their opinions loudly. This is also common in other relatively new art forms, such as video games which have been around roughly a generation. On the other hand, with older forms, people are more hesitant. Books have been around for so long that few people have experienced a wide enough sample to consider themselves authorities on the subject. But in discussing rock music, the odds are better, and so more people play.
So, what about Sgt. Pepper? Does it still deserve to be called a great album? It's certainly historically important: it was incredibly innovative in its time, expanding people's ideas of what rock music could be and paving the way for the many other artists it inspired. And it's great in the sense of bringing joy: many, many people besides myself would list it as a favorite. So, it would certainly be fair to call this one of the most influential albums of all time, and there's no question that it's one of the best-loved. Just don't call it the greatest. It doesn't perform well under that kind of pressure.
But then, almost nothing ever does.
*Anyone automatically shaking their head "no" at this list could probably stand to read the paragraph preceding it a second time.
**Unless, of course, you actually are.
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