"It was 20 years ago today..."
When The Beatles' first children's album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, turned twenty years old in 1987, it wasn't just the rock media that awaited that fateful day with slobbering anticipation, but the mainstream media as well.
Of course, they were helped along by good ol' commerce as Capitol Records timed the inaugural release of Sgt. Pepper's on compact disc to coincide with the album's 20th anniversary.
Sadly, only three Beatles lived long enough to see that day, but, as usual, it was Paul McCartney who was the recipient of most of the attention, showing up at Abbey Road recording studio for a private celebration of the album's release on CD that was crashed by camera crews from around the globe.
Coming off of the poorly-received Press To Play album the year before, McCartney seemed only too happy to devote 1987 to taking that first victory lap of sorts; a sweeping look back at a legendary career - first with the staggered release of the Beatles UK catalog on CD and then with his own career retrospective, All The Best arriving just in time for holiday shoppers.
PBS even got in on the action, producing a predictably stuffy documentary featuring the likes of Alan Ginsberg and others failing miserably at convincing us that a) they were ever kids, and b) were ever cool enough to crank a rock album. Even so, the documentary was manna from heaven for Beatle-maniacs such as myself and can be viewed in its entirety HERE.
Predictably, the public's response to this mass media onslaught was to flood record stores as if someone had just announced the last Record Store Day ever, purchasing copies of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club on CD by the millions even before many had a CD player to play the album on.
If only we'd known that if we waited another thirty years, we could purchase the official definitive box set of the album, featuring twelve versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever", or that its main selling point would be a new stereo mix from none other than George Martin's son Giles (who, funnily enough, was still in boarding school at the time and would have been just as surprised as any of us to hear this, I suspect).
In taking a look back at the global celebration that greeted Sgt. Pepper's 20th anniversary, it is easy to see why the music industry and media continue to roll out the red carpet for historic rock albums as they approach drinking age and beyond:
We consumers have proven on numerous occasions in the thirty-one years since the 20th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band that we will stop at nothing to buy albums we already own and, as a result, the music industry now gives us little else.
Oops, we did again.
In taking a look back at the global celebration that greeted Sgt. Pepper's 20th anniversary, it is easy to see why the music industry and media continue to roll out the red carpet for historic rock albums as they approach drinking age and beyond:
We consumers have proven on numerous occasions in the thirty-one years since the 20th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band that we will stop at nothing to buy albums we already own and, as a result, the music industry now gives us little else.
Oops, we did again.