Dear reader, It was almost fifty years ago today, that the Beatles released their acclaimed ‘Sergeant Peppers’. Arguably not as good as ‘Revolver’, not as quirky as ‘Rubber Soul’, and not as disconnected as ‘White Album’. it was nonetheless the very first concept album, (if you discount the Rolf Harris Christmas Songbook Album) pre-dating the Small Faces’ “ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” by some several months and the Who’s ‘Tommy’ opus by almost a year.

And it was listenable. So listenable, it became a soundtrack for a generation. And though the Beatles have been played to death and everything even remotely associated with “Pepper’, memorabilia, (and all the most annoying obscure facts about what the fab four had for breakfast), it is significant because it represents the zenith of their creative powers, (according to our experts) and was firmly “BY”.

That means Before Yoko.

‘Ogdens Nut Gone Flake’, Small Faces. Even more interactive album cover. And it was round. Origin of the term; “In the round”.

Yoko’s influence had not yet impacted upon the band, and like their namesake “the Rutles”, the Beatles were still actively being creative. Why is this so? It had something to do with Brian Epstein, and something else to do with the pre download era, in which people actually had to buy a record in the first place. And they couldnt see the band live even if they tried, because by this stage the Beatles had given up touring.

Revolver. Set the Pace, and Klaus Voorman did the cover art. Enter the psychedelic age.

The album sold a billion trillion copies, and was still in the top fifty annual sales well into the mid 70’s. And it courted controversy, The brooding “Day in the Life’ was banned because it suggested that Blackburn Lancashire was a hole, and that travelling on busses led to dementia. Sensationally the band made references to LSD, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, which was also banned, though its author John Lennon insisted it was really an anagram for ‘Lesser Serious Dag’. Which was a fitting sobriquet to their previous album ‘Revolver’. Typically the only song not banned by the BBC was a Paul Macartney number, which was sacharrine, syrupy and sauteed in sentimentalism.

The album was imitated by a generation of musicians, who were either inspired by the cover art, or like many learnt the art of augmented grooves-manship, to allow the needle to skip the Paul Macartney tracks and make the album really worthwhile.

The influence remains to this day. Malcolm Turnbull cites ‘Within you without you’ as the most enduring tribute to Tony Abbott, and Bill Shorten stands by his conviction that “  Getting better” inspired him to reduce his pubic speaking engagements,

Paul Macartney and Michael Jackson. They deserved each other.

Since ‘Pepper’ few have emulated the success of the Beatles, and this is because records are harder to come by, hideously expensive, and no one can be bothered printing the gate sleeve, the stickers and the quirky cut-outs that accompanied the album concept. Though The Small Faces “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” did all that and more with the first ever circular album cover, which also sold well, but not quite as well. All the rights to Beatles songs were bought by Michael Jackson, and ever since the black vinyl records in collections have progressively gone white, (not to the confused with the ‘White Album’) then black again. Something to do with the pigment of the vinyl the experts say.