Released at the height of punk, this sleek, urbane, synthesised, intellectual work shared little ground with its contemporaries. It defined the Sixties and - for good and ill - gave white rock all its airs and graces. At a time when all pop music was stringently manufactured, these Paul McCartney-driven melodies and George Martin-produced whorls of sound proved that untried ground was not only the most fertile stuff, but also the most viable commercially. But Sgt Pepper's made the watertight case for pop music as an art form in itself until then, it was thought the silly, transient stuff of teenagers. There are those who rate Revolver (1966) or 'the White Album' (1968) higher. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) Bowie, Roxy Music, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others. ![]() Shocking then, and still utterly transfixing. ![]() Lou Reed's lyrics depicted a Warholian New York demi-monde where hard drugs and sexual experimentation held sway. The first art-rock album, it merges dreamy, druggy balladry ('Sunday Morning') with raw and uncompromising sonic experimentation ('Venus in Furs'), and is famously clothed in that Andy Warhol-designed 'banana' sleeve. ![]() Though it sold poorly on its initial release, this has since become arguably the most influential rock album of all time.
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