Is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a concept album?

This editorial asks the question "Is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band Hearts Club Band a concept album?"

Is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a Concept Album?

so I thought I'd pose that same question here on the forum as a poll.

I vote "Yes" even though the concept is a very broad and also very weak one (the concept being "There is a concert being performed by SPLHCB and you're in the audience") so this would not be the first example I would pick if I was trying to demonstrate a concept album to someone else.

 

Not really - we tend to think of it as a concept album, but seems to me a tenuous connection between the songs at best.

 

Nope. Even the band admit that the concept was abandoned after the first couple of songs.

 

I'm kind of shocked to see "No" votes. I can make a case that Pepper is a concept album, as opposed to (for example) Please Please Me.

 

George Martin himself nixed that "concept" idea here at 0:30...

 

Okay, but that doesn't mean it isn't one.

 

I voted no. There's an intro (of sorts) leading into another song (With A Little Help From My Friends) and a reprise, but that's it. No storyline or theme running throughout tying any of the songs together. And its barely there with Help From My Friends other than "Hey Everyone, this dude's gonna sng this otherwise unrelated ditty for you now."

The initial traces of a concept are there, but that's about it.

 

No. The concept was only ever for the band to think of themselves as something other than the Beatles, to free themselves musically/creatively. It was never a coherent thread running through the finished album itself.

 

Yes. The first two songs and the reprise.

 

"No, it wasn't a concept album but the concept was...". So there was a concept.

 

So a very short concept EP, then?

 

If the concept is about LSD, so yes

 

I guess it may have started out like that, and those are the only songs keeping the theme.

 

No, no the concept is about a little girl's drawing of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.

 

It was intended to be but it fails as such.

 

I think there is a concept, but not in the sense that the songs are related one to another to create some sort of musical or rock opera. The concept is that it's an imaginary band, that plays a small variety show, and (almost) every song presents a different genre, style and have a different distinct sound signature (presumably, by the imaginary audience request). I believe the Beatles needed this concept in order to feel more free to experiment.

 

Lol yes I Agee on the LSD concept before an album concept

 

I know that the band has said it isn't a concept album, but to me it is. It doesn't have to have a coherent story line to be a concept album.

 

In fact, Pepper is all about the The Beatles being embarrassed about being The Beatles.
Bluesbreakers with Clapton had happened. Cream had happened. Hendrix had happened. The Beatles looked like an old scholl pop band in comparison. Macca was aware of this and tried to hide the band behind this spacey, LSD concept of an imaginary far out band. It worked!

 

As Bob Dylan was quoted to have said to McCartney on hearing Sgt. Pepper’s for the first time, "Oh I get it, you don’t want to be cute anymore.”

 

They should have named the album "Not Cute Anymore".

 

Mind you, the cover of Revolver was already pretty freaky, pretty "ugly".

 

Correct, if they didn't made this step (stop touring, complete image change, and doing Pepper), perhaps they could do well for another year or so as a big act, and gradually fade, until become a Las Vegas attraction at best (wait...actually they became Las Vegas attraction..

 

Nope.

 

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a concept album of the mind.

Make that a concert concept, too.