Piece Comment

Review of The Two Sides of Sgt. Pepper: An Honest Appraisal (New 2-hour Special - Available to All Stations)


Another great Paul Ingles production drawing on many sources for a look at a classic LP. Sgt. Pepper is undeniably a milestone album but many of the voices heard here feel it's been overrated. That's refreshing to hear. They're not saying it's an awful album, just that it's neither the best album to come out of the Beatles nor the best album to come out of its time.

In addition to a track-by-track look at Sgt. Pepper, with generous helpings of all the songs, we also hear about Penny Lane in the first hour and flipside Strawberry Fields Forever in hour 2. A bonus for radio fans is the newcast filler in hour 2, which includes airchecks from the golden days of WABC and WABC-FM while talking about the emergence of FM radio as an outlet for rock album tracks.

If you're doing any programming around the 40th anniversary of the "summer of love" don't forget about this program. I heard no mention of "It was 40 years ago today..." in it so even though this is targeted to air in June 2007 the program should be good anytime.