Abstract
The critical discussion of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has consistently been framed in terms of its importance as a record album. That is, remarks about its musical innovations and the ways it changed the culture of rock music dominate the conversation. When the album cover is mentioned, it is analyzed in terms of the symbiotic relationship it has with the musical innovation of the album itself. However, the discussion is changing; theorists Kenneth Womack and Todd F. Davis have examined the Beatles’ relationship to critical theory, and music critic Ian Inglis explores the cultural work of the Beatles’ album covers. Yet much of this criticism still focuses primarily on the relationship between music and image. In this paper I expand the discussion beyond its value to popular music and consider the album cover in three visual contexts: Pop Art, photomontage, and the history of album cover design. I argue that Sgt. Pepper marks a shift in how the image of the band performs a self-reflexive critique, both through the visual content of the image as well as the processes by which it was created. This destabilizes the album cover as a mere commodity or extraneous packaging. The confluence of Pop Art and photomontage enhances the critique, for these movements fundamentally engage with problematizing representation and the status quo through the appropriation of mass-mediated images.
Highlights
The very prevalence of this image sketches out a framework for understanding the cultural relevance of the Beatles, but of Sgt
Pepper has become the gold standard for musicians, setting the bar high for musical innovation and distinctive cover art
I say this because critics treating Sgt
Summary
Pepper marks the Beatles’ “definitive break with the pop music industry” (Inglis, 2001: 87) Seen in this light, the album cover as visual text presents a kind of auto-critique, both of itself as commodity form, and as a representation of the band’s identity. Sgt. Pepper depicts how the image of the band became more performative on the album cover, which includes a self-reflexive engagement with visual representation in a kind of playful auto-critique. Through an exploration of these contexts, as well as Sgt. Pepper’s relationship to the design history of album covers, I will attempt to show that album covers must be considered separately from their musical value and as sites of cultural, political, and social critique, which means they must be read apart from the all too common association with popular music. The use of photomontage enabled a critique of representation (as Ades and Berger discuss) as well as a critique of identity politics and the role that commodities play in shaping them
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