411 Music Ten Deep 2.3.12: Top 10 Grammy Album of the Year Winners

Posted by C.A. Bell on 02.10.2012

From Michael Jackson's Thriller and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to John Lennon's Double Fantasy, U2's The Joshua Tree and more, 411's Christopher Bell ranks the top 10 Grammy Winners for Album of the Year!

The List

The Grammys give us plenty to be unhappy about. They regularly award pop trends and album sales in front of artistic integrity. As a result, history is quite literally littered with Grammy winners who the average music fan today has never heard of. On top of that, the academy has an almost hilarious history of being behind the times; nominating records that were released years before, giving genre awards to artists that no one else would consider close to the category (anyone remember Jethro Tull winning the first Metal award?), and let's not even talk about the Best New Artist award. For my part, I'm going to start things off positive. We'll have plenty of time to discuss where Grammy has gotten it wrong, so this week I'll be look at ten of the times Grammy has been absolutely right with their highest award, Album of the Year.

The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys and has been awarded since 1959 and though it was originally presented to the artist alone, the award is now presented to the artist, the producer, the engineer and/or mixer and the mastering engineer. In 1962, the award name was extended to Album of the Year (other than classical) but, in 1965, the shorter name returned. It was not until 1968, 1969, 1999, and 2011 that the award was won by a rock, country, hip hop, or indie album respectively. For my purposes, the list of winners is fairly small (in comparison to my typical pool of selections), so I didn't really need to create any extra rules to cut the topic down. I will say that I have never agreed with the Academy's policy of allowing compilations and live recordings into the category. If you can put together any group of musicians and select any performances over time and get nominated for Album of the Year, why not just nominate Greatest Hits albums every year? It seems ridiculous to me, so there won't be any of that on the list. Make sure and check out the Spotify list of selections from my favorite Grammy records and a few others that didn't make the list. Alright, let's get to the good stuff.

The Ten

10. Stan Getz and João Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto, 1965.

Getz/Gilberto is a jazz bossa nova album released in 1964 by the American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, and featuring composer and pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim. Its release created a bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally. It brought together Stan Getz, who had already performed the genre on his LP Jazz Samba, João Gilberto (one of the creators of the style), and Jobim, a celebrated Brazilian composer (and also one of the main creators of the genre), who wrote most of the songs in the album. It became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on the tracks "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", into an internationally celebrated musician.

It won the 1965 Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year, Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" also won the award for Record of the Year in 1965. This was the first time a jazz album received Album of the Year. It was the last jazz album to win the award until Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters 43 years later, in 2008. I think the true contribution of Getz/Gilberto, however was the introduction of Astrud Gilberto. She became THE voice of bossa nova after this record, and rightfully so.

9. John Lennon - Double Fantasy, 1982.

Following the birth of his son Sean in 1975, Lennon had put his career on hold to raise him. After five years of little musical activity aside from recording the occasional demo in his apartment in New York, Lennon felt ready to resume work. He was quoted as saying that when making the album, his ambition was to "do something as good as "Heroes", the 1977 album by David Bowie. In the summer of 1980, Lennon made a sailing trip through treacherous waters from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda. Almost losing his life in that journey, he began to write new songs, occasionally reworking the earlier demos. Ono also wrote many songs, inspired with new confidence after Lennon had stated that he believed that contemporary popular music such as the B-52's "Rock Lobster" bore similarities to Ono's earlier work.

The couple decided to release their work on the same album, the first time they had done so since 1972's politically-charged Some Time in New York City. In stark contrast to that album, Double Fantasy (subtitled A Heart Play) was a collection of songs wherein husband and wife would conduct a musical dialogue. The album took its title from a species of freesia, seen in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, whose name Lennon regarded as a perfect description of his marriage to Ono. Unimpressed with its cozy domesticity, critical reaction to the album was largely scathing—"a self-obsessed disaster" according to one reviewer. However, three weeks after the album's release, Lennon was murdered and many of the poor reviews were withdrawn from publication. In the UK album charts, the album had peaked at #14 then slipped to #46 whilst in the US, the album had slowly risen to #11. Upon Lennon's murder, the album jumped to #1 in the US chart, where it stayed for eight weeks and in the UK, it jumped to #2, where it remained for seven weeks before finally spending two weeks at #1. In 1982, Douglas, Lennon and Ono won the 1981 Album of the Year for Double Fantasy at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards. In 1989 the album was ranked #29 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. I think that Double Fantasy has only gotten better over the years. At the end of the day, it is really comforting to know that immediately before his death a song like "Watching the Wheels" was where his mind was. The rest of us can only hope to be so lucky.

8. Paul Simon - Graceland, 1987.

Coming at a time when Simon's musical career was at something of a low ebb following the disappointing public response to Hearts and Bones, Graceland was originally inspired by Simon's listening to a cassette of the Boyoyo Boys instrumental "Gumboots", lent to him by Heidi Berg, a singer-songwriter with whom Simon was working (and who would later become an award-winning jingle singer and writer). Simon later wrote lyrics to sing over a re-recording of the song, which became the fourth track on the album.

Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5x Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album. Critics welcomed its eclectic mix of sounds and broad, quirky subject matter and it regularly shows up in critic polls and "recommended" lists. The album also helped to draw worldwide attention to the music of South Africa.

The album drew accolades from the beginning. Rolling Stone called it "lovely, daring and accomplished" and Robert Christgau enthused it was "so strange, so sweet, so willful, so radically incongruous and plainly beautiful." It was so acclaimed by other critics that he later anticipated that it would top The Village Voice Jazz &; Pop critics poll for that year (1986). In 1998, Q magazine readers voted it the 56th greatest album of all time. It was also ranked #84 in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. In 1989, Graceland was rated #5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Best Albums of the Eighties.

7. U2 - The Joshua Tree, 1988.

The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, U2 aimed for a harder-hitting sound on The Joshua Tree within the limitation of strict song structures. The album is influenced by American and Irish roots music and depicts the band's love-hate relationship with the United States, with socially and politically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery.

Inspired by American tour experiences, literature, and politics, U2 chose America as a theme for the record. Recording began in January 1986 in Ireland, and to foster a relaxed, creative atmosphere, the group recorded in two houses, in addition to two professional studios. Several events during the sessions helped shape the conscious tone of the album, including the band's participation in A Conspiracy of Hope tour, the death of roadie Greg Carroll, and lead vocalist Bono's travels to Central America. Recording was completed in November and additional production continued into January 1987. Throughout the sessions, U2 sought a "cinematic" quality for the record that would evoke a sense of location, in particular, the open spaces of America. They represented this in the sleeve photography depicting them in American desert landscapes.

The album received critical acclaim, topped the charts in over 20 countries, and sold in record-breaking numbers. According to Rolling Stone, the album increased the band's stature "from heroes to superstars". It produced the hit singles "With or Without You", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and "Where the Streets Have No Name". The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988. The group supported the record with the successful Joshua Tree Tour. Frequently cited as one of the greatest albums in rock history, The Joshua Tree is one of the world's all-time best-selling albums, with over 25;million copies sold.

The Joshua Tree is acclaimed as one of the greatest albums in rock history, and many publications have placed it among their rankings of the best records, including Hot Press, Time, Q, and Entertainment Weekly. In 1997, The Guardian collated worldwide data in 1997 from a range of renowned critics, artists, and radio DJs, who placed the record at number 57 in the list of the "100 Best Albums Ever".  Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album at number 26 on their 2003 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", writing that U2 "immersed itself in the mythology of the United States" and that "while many of these songs are about spiritual quests... U2 fortify the solemnity with the outright joys of rock & roll". It was U2's best position on the list. In 2010, the album appeared at number 62 on Spin's list of the 125 most influential albums in the 25 years since the magazine launched. The publication said, "The band's fifth album spit out hits like crazy, and they were unusually searching hits, each with a pointed political edge."

6. Michael Jackson - Thriller, 1984.

Thriller was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall. Thriller explores similar genres to those of Off the Wall, including pop, R&B, rock, post-disco and adult contemporary music. Thriller enabled Jackson to break down racial barriers via his appearances on MTV and meeting with President Reagan at the White House. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools—the videos for "Thriller", "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" all received regular rotation on MTV. In 2001, a special edition issue of the album was released, which contains additional audio interviews, a demo recording and the song "Someone In the Dark", which was a Grammy-winning track from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook. In 2008, the album was reissued again as Thriller 25, containing re-mixes that feature contemporary artists, a previously unreleased song and a DVD.

Thriller ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003, and was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three in its Definitive 200 Albums of All Time. The Thriller album was included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of culturally significant recordings, and the Thriller video was included in the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films."

The album won Jackson a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. The eighth Grammy went to Bruce Swedien. That same year, Jackson won eight American Music Awards, the Special Award of Merit and three MTV Video Music Awards. Thriller was recognized as the world's best-selling album on February 7, 1984, when it was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records. It is one of only three albums to remain in the top ten of the Billboard 200 for a full year, and spent 37 weeks at number one out of the 80 consecutive weeks it was in the top ten. The album was also the first of three to have seven Billboard Hot100 top ten singles, and was the only album to be the best-seller of two years (1983–1984) in the US.

On August 21, 2009 Thriller was certified 29x Multi-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least 29 million copies in the US. The album topped the charts in many countries, sold 3.7 million copies in the UK, 2.5 million in Japan and went 15x Platinum in Australia. Still popular today, Thriller sells an estimated 130,000 copies in the US per year; it reached number two in the US Catalog charts in February 2003 and number 39 in the UK in March 2007. As of 2010, the album is estimated as having sold approximately 65–110 million copies worldwide.

5. Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 1999.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is the debut solo album by American musician Lauryn Hill, released August 25, 1998, on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from late 1997 to June 1998, and were held primarily at Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica. The album's lyrics deal with Hill's pregnancy at the time, the turmoil in her former group the Fugees, and also love and God, while it incorporates musical elements of R&B, hip hop, soul, reggae, and gospel. The album's title was inspired by the film and autobiographical novel The Education of Sonny Carson, and Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Upon release, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 422,624 copies in its first week, which broke a record for first week sales by a female artist. The album spent 81 weeks on the Billboard 200 and topped the Billboard Year-End Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The album was certified Gold on September 29, 1998 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of over 500,000 copies, and on December 17, 2001, it was certified 8x Platinum in the United States. According to Soundscan, the album surpassed 7 million sales in the U.S. in September 2010.

Initially, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill received a great amount of critical praise for its lyric themes and genre variance. Since its release, the album has perpetuated its acclaim from most music critics and publications, and has been widely recognized as a crucial and influential component of the neo soul sub-genre. The album has appeared on numerous accolades, with many regarding it as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2003, it was ranked number 312 on Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

At the 41st Grammy Awards, Hill was nominated ten times, making her the first female to ever be nominated ten times in one year. She won five Grammys, including Best New Artist, Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Album and Album of the Year, making The Miseducation the first hip hop oriented album to ever receive that award. Lauryn Hill set a new record in the industry, as she also became the first woman to win five Grammys in one night. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill also earned her several other awards, including several nominations at the thirteenth NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Female Artist, Outstanding Album, Outstanding Music Video (for "A Rose Is Still A Rose"), and finally, competing against her own self, for Outstanding Song, nominated for both "Doo Wop" and "A Rose Is Still A Rose." At the Annual Billboard Music Awards, The Miseducation won for R&B Album of the Year, while at the 20th Billboard Music Awards, "Doo Wop" won Best R&B/Urban New Artist Clip. On January 11, 1999, at the 26th Annual American Music Awards, Hill won the award for Best New Soul/R&B artist. She also won a Soul Train award, and a nomination for Best International Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards (British Grammy's). Due to the large success of the album, Lauryn Hill became a national media icon, as magazines ranging from Time to Esquire to Teen People vied to place her on their front covers. In a February 8, 1999 Time cover-story, Hill was credited for helping fully assimilate hip-hop into mainstream music, making her the first hip hop artist to ever appear on the magazine's front cover. I'm willing to bet that I'm going to take some heat for this pick being ahead of the Jackson album (most probably from the type of person that doesn't bother to read anything in paragraph form). Luckily, it's my list and I don't care how awesome Michael's jackets were, this Lauryn Hill record was a game changer for me and I think we are still seeing the results of what she did here. Thriller was the end of creative road. Miseducation was the beginning of too many to count.

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4. Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water, 1971.

Bridge Over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by Simon & Garfunkel. Released on January 26, 1970 on both Quadraphonic and Stereo formats, it reached No. 1 on Billboard Music Charts pop albums list. All four singles released from the record ("Cecilia", "The Boxer", "Bridge over Troubled Water", and "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)") peaked in the top ten on the US Billboard Singles Charts. The album won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, as well as for Best Engineered Recording, while its title track won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in the Grammy Awards of 1971. It has since sold over 25 million copies worldwide.

The album attained a great success in the United Kingdom, enjoying several runs at number one, spending some years in the charts and eventually becoming the country's biggest-selling album of 1970 and 1971. In August 2006, the continued popularity of the album was proven when it charted 7th place in The BBC Radio 2 Music Club Top 100 Albums. In 2003, it was ranked at #51 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. The album won Best International Album at the first Brit Awards in 1977.

3. Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind, 1998.

In 1997 Bob Dylan rejuvenated his career with the standout Time Out of Mind. By this point, Dylan had spent the better part of a decade not releasing original material. His previous album of originals, 1990's Under the Red Sky, had been largely panned by critics and listeners alike. The two albums he released in the meantime were collections of traditionals that, while easy listens, hardly set the world on fire. After experiencing the nasty divorce that fueled his 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks and spending the resulting two decades battling alcoholism, writer's block, and even an evangelical Christian conversion, it seemed by 1997 as if the legendary bard would fade into obscurity. Enter one Daniel Lanois.

Lanois, now a legendary producer, had spent most of the 1980s building his coffeehouse reputation by working with Brian Eno on several of his ambient albums. Lanois began making a larger name for himself as producer for Peter Gabriel's So and U2's Unforgettable Fire. In 1987 Lanois first hit Dylan's radar as producer on a Robbie Robertson solo album. Robertson set up a meeting between the two, which led to what some consider Dylan's greatest work of the 80's Oh Mercy. Though that album certainly showed that Dylan still had the ability to write a song, even Lanois noted the difficulty of the recordings as Dylan's lack of trust in the young producer and Lanois' unwillingness to question a legend led to him having little impact on the overall recording. When the two came back together for Time Out of Mind times had indeed changed.

Conflict has long been a key to many of Dylan's greatest works. Conflict with the press, his fans, his family, his manager and even his expectations for himself. It's not the nature of good or evil that seems to interest Dylan as much as that place where they rub against each other. This particular album would be no different, as the genius of the album would come from conflict between the artist and his producer. Mark Howard, engineer for both Dylan/Lanois albums, revealed in a 2011 interview that most of the studio time on Time Out of Mind was spent with the two arguing for their opposing views for the soundscape of the album, with Dylan arguing for a more stripped down simple clean sound and Lanois wanting to fill the songs with interesting ambient tricks and plenty of rough corners. Only this time, Lanois was willing to fight harder for his vision and Dylan was willing to give. To see the difference between the two, look at the song "Mississippi." Officially released on Dylan's 2001 Time Out of Mind follow-up, this track was originally recorded with Lanois. The Lanois version was eventually released on 2008's Tell Tale Signs from the Bootleg Series. Putting the two next to each other, you can hardly tell they are the same song, with Dylan's version being a clear cut ballad with an easy hook and Lanois' being a murky dirge that makes the protagonist less than sympathetic. It's Lanois' rough and dirty production that gives the song an almost mystic quality. As in the cliché, the devil is in the details.

Time Out of Mind was by all accounts a huge success. The album was Dylan's best selling in over a decade, it cemented Lanois' place as a legend and brought Dylan's mystic back into full force. The album won a Grammy for Album Of The Year and peaked at 10 on the Billboard Top 200. Along with Tom Waits' Mule Variations, Time Out of Mind became the archetype for the old songsmith tossing aside the bravado of their youth to accept the reality of old age and death (which is now second hat for artists like Robert Plant, Bruce Springsteen, and Peter Gabriel). Along with Rick Rubin's work with Johnny Cash on the first American Recordings, this album also set the standard for the collaboration between a modern day artist producing the seemingly forgotten legend (think Jack White/Loretta Lynn, Jeff Tweedy/Mavis Staples, Ben Folds/William Shatner, Ethan Johns/Tom Jones, or Okkervil River/Roky Erickson). Given that, Dylan didn't just revive his own career with Time Out of Mind, he provided a roadmap for others and created a small industry in the wake.

2. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life, 1977.

By 1976, Stevie Wonder had become one of the most popular figures in R&B and pop music, not only in the United States but worldwide. Within a short space of time, the albums Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale were all back-to-back top five successes, with the latter two winning Grammy Award for Album of the Year, in 1974 and 1975 respectively. By the end of 1975, Stevie Wonder became serious about quitting the music industry and to emigrate to Ghana working with handicapped children. Wonder had expressed his anger with the way that the United States Government was running the country. A farewell concert was being considered as the best way to bring down the curtain on his career. Wonder changed his decision, when he signed a new contract with Motown on August 5, 1975, thinking he was better off making the most of his career. At the time, rivals such as Arista and Epic were also interested in him. The contract was laid out as a seven-year, seven LP, $37 million deal and gave him full artistic control, making this the largest deal ever made with a recording star up to that point. Almost at the beginning Stevie took a year off from the music market, with a project for a double album to be released in 1976. There was huge anticipation for the new album which was initially scheduled for release around October 1975. It was delayed on short notice when Wonder felt that further remixing was essential. According to Stevie Wonder, the marketing campaign at Motown decided to take advantage of the delay by producing "We're almost finished" t-shirts.

Work on the new album continued into early 1976. A name was finally chosen for the album: Songs in the Key of Life. The title would represent the formula of a complex "key of life" and the proposals for indefinite success. The album was finally released on September 28, 1976 after a two year wait as a double LP album with a four track seven-inch EP entitled A Something's Extra ("Saturn", "Ebony Eyes", "All Day Sucker" and "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)") and a 24-page lyric and credit booklet.

Highly anticipated, the album surpassed all commercial expectations. Surprisingly, it debuted straight at number one on the Billboard Pop Albums Chart on October 8, 1976, becoming only the third album in history to achieve that feat and the first by an American artist (after Elton John's Captain Fantastic and Rock of the Westies in 1975). In Canada, the album achieved the same feat, entering at #1 on the RPM national albums chart on October 16. Songs in the Key of Life spent thirteen consecutive weeks at number one in the U.S., eleven during 1976. It was the album with the most weeks at number one during the year. In those eleven weeks, Songs in the Key of Life managed to block four other albums from reaching the top – in order, Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, Earth, Wind & Fire's Spirit, Led Zeppelin's soundtrack for The Song Remains the Same and Rod Stewart's A Night on the Town. On January 15, 1977, the album finally dropped to number two behind Eagles' Hotel California and the following week it fell to number four. On January 29 it returned to the top for a fourteenth and final week. The album then began its final fall. It spent a total of thirty-five weeks inside the Top Ten and eighty weeks on the Billboard albums chart. Songs In the Key of Life also saw longevity at number-one on the Billboard R&B/Black Albums chart, spending twenty nonconsecutive weeks there.

In all, Songs in the Key of Life became the second best-selling album of 1977 in the U.S., only behind Fleetwood Mac's blockbuster Rumours, and it was certified as a Diamond album by the RIAA, for sales of ten million copies in the U.S. alone. It was the highest selling R&B/Soul album on the Billboard Year-End chart that same year. With time, the album became a standard, and it is considered Stevie Wonder's signature album. Songs in the Key of Life is often cited as one of the greatest albums in popular music history. It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Jazz & Pop critic's poll; in 2001 the TV network VH1 named it the seventh greatest album of all time; in 2003, the album was ranked number 56 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Many musicians have also remarked on the quality of the album and its influence on their own work. For example, Elton John said, in his notes for Stevie Wonder on the 2003 Rolling Stone's list of "The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time" (in which Wonder was ranked number 15): "Let me put it this way: wherever I go in the world, I always take a copy of Songs in the Key of Life. For me, it's the best album ever made, and I'm always left in awe after I listen to it." In an interview with Ebony magazine, Michael Jackson stated Songs in the Key of Life was his favorite Stevie Wonder album. George Michael cited the album as his favorite of all time and with Mary J. Blige covered the track "As" for a 1999 hit single. R&B singers in particular have praised the album – Mariah Carey generally names the album as one of her favorites, and Whitney Houston also remarked on the influence of Songs in the Key of Life on her singing. (During the photoshoot for her Whitney: The Greatest Hits, as its seen on its respective home video, the album was played throughout the photo sessions at Houston's request.) The album's tracks have provided numerous samples for rap and hip-hop artists; for example, "Pastime Paradise," which itself drew on the first eight notes and four chords of J.S. Bach's Prelude No. 2 in C minor (BWV 847), was reworked by Coolio as "Gangsta's Paradise". In 1995. In September 2008, the album was voted the "Top Album of All Time" by the Yahoo! Music Playlist Blog, using a formula that combined 4 parameters - "Album Staying Power Value + Sales Value + Critical Rating Value + Grammy Award Value".

1. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1968.

How could number one be anything else? Sgt. Pepper's is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, and has since been recognized as one of the most important albums in the history of popular music, including songs such as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "A Day in the Life". Recorded over a 129-day period beginning in December 1966, Sgt. Pepper saw the band developing the production techniques of their previous album, Revolver. Martin's innovative and lavish production included the orchestra usage and hired musicians ordered by the band. Genres such as music hall, jazz, rock and roll, western classical, and traditional Indian music are covered. The album cover art, by English pop artist Peter Blake, depicts the band posing in front of a collage of their favorite celebrities, and has been widely acclaimed and imitated.

Sgt. Pepper was a worldwide critical and commercial success, spending a total of 27 weeks at the top of the UK Album Chart and 15 weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200. A defining album in the emerging psychedelic rock style, the album was critically acclaimed upon release and won four Grammy Awards in 1968. It frequently ranks at or near the top of published lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 1994 it was ranked number one in the book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, the album was placed at number one on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Sgt. Pepper is one of the world's best selling albums, having shipped 32 million copies.

The Beatles had grown tired of performing live and stopped touring in August 1966. After the stress of their final American tour, in particular the postponed Cincinnati concert, the four of them — especially Paul McCartney, who was perhaps the most in favor of continuing to tour — decided that it was time to stop. They took a two-month break, and individually got involved in their own interests. George Harrison traveled to India to continue developing his sitar playing at the invitation of Ravi Shankar, returning with enhanced Indian cultural and musical influences. McCartney, along with Martin, wrote the music for the film The Family Way, getting an Ivor Novello award the following year for best film song for the track "Love in the Open Air". John Lennon acted in How I Won the War, and attended art galleries, where he met his future wife Yoko Ono. Ringo Starr spent more time with his wife and children. In November, during a flight back from a holiday in Kenya with his girlfriend Jane Asher and tour manager Mal Evans, McCartney had the first idea for the concept of an alternative Beatles band that would become the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.

With Sgt. Pepper's, The Beatles wanted to create a record that could, in effect, tour for them, an idea they had already explored with the promotional film clips made over the previous years, intended to promote them in the US when they were not touring there.& McCartney decided that he should create fictitious characters for each band member and record an album that would be a performance by that fictitious band. This "alter-ego group" gave the band the freedom to experiment with songs. The album starts with the title song, which introduces Sgt. Pepper's band itself; this song segues into a sung introduction for bandleader "Billy Shears" (Starr), who performs "With a Little Help from My Friends". A reprise version of the title song was also recorded, and appears on side two of the original album (just prior to the climactic "A Day in the Life"), creating a "book-ending" effect. However, the band effectively abandoned the concept other than the first two songs and the reprise. Lennon was unequivocal in stating that the songs he wrote for the album had nothing to do with the Sgt. Pepper's concept, and further noted that none of the other songs did either, saying "Every other song could have been on any other album". In spite of Lennon's statements to the contrary, the album has been widely heralded as an early and ground-breaking example of the concept album.

Upon release, Sgt. Pepper's received both popular and critical acclaim. The album was a global hit, with huge sales in Europe, North and South America, Africa, Japan, Australia, and even in the black market in the Soviet Union, where the Beatles were very popular and widely available. Various reviews appearing in the mainstream press and trade publications throughout June 1967, immediately after the album's release, were generally positive. In The Times, prominent critic Kenneth Tynan described Sgt. Pepper's as "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization". Richard Poirier wrote "listening to the Sgt. Pepper album one thinks not simply of the history of popular music but the history of this century." The album also made Grammy history as the first rock album to win the Album of the Year award. If saying than an album changed the coarse of music history is cliche, Sgt. Pepper's is that album that created the cliche. That's plenty good enough to make it number one here.

A Festering Final Thought

Have you ever wondered why Charlie Chaplin was considered a genius? He was just a guy in a bowler that fell down right? Well, you need to watch this. Watch it and think about it.

Let me know what's on your personal list in the comments section. Also, make sure to catch the latest columns from my colleagues at Earbuddy here on 411, like Nick Krenn's 3 R's and John Downey's Love/Hate News Report. Oh, and don't forget that other guy that writes a list column for the music section. Wyatt is his name and his list goes to Eight

No synthesizers whatsoever were used during the writing of this column.

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