Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

A Day in the Life (9)
Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite (12)
Fixing a Hole (39)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (49)
When I'm 64 (64)
Getting Better (65)
Within You Without You (66)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (86)
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (101)
With a Little Help From My Friends (123)
Good Morning Good Morning (140)
Lovely Rita (178)
She's Leaving Home (179)

The title may be a mouthful, but you can't argue the results. It's tough to choose a "best" Beatles album due to the quality of output, but if you had to put money on what the majority of people would pick, it would be Sgt. Pepper's.

It's so strange to me that no song was officially released as a single from this album; I suppose to further promote the cohesiveness of it being a true "album." Also ironically enough, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever were briefly considered to be released on here, before being held back for Magical Mystery Tour. How much would that have changed things? To me, the ramifications of that is mind-boggling- and I really don't want to get into it now.

Sgt. Pepper ended up ranking number two overall for me, just a bit ahead of Abbey Road, and a pretty healthy distance behind Magical Mystery Tour. (More on that in the next entry.) It has three top 40 entries (fun fact: I'm pretty sure I like Mr. Kite more than anyone, and was ecstatic that McCartney played it live when I saw him) and two bottom 40 songs. There are eight songs (almost nine) solidly in the top 100, and even the two bottom ones, are near the top of the bottom. Confused yet?

Here's some more fun facts:

I don't know why, but I think it's amusing that I like the reprise of Sgt. Pepper's better than the original full song.

When I'm 64 being ranked number 64 was a complete accident/coincidence. It wasn't until I was done with my list that I noticed that particular little morsel. It was too good to be true. It only had a 1 in 213 chance of happening, not impossible odds, but enough to make it pretty crazy nonetheless.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (NEXT)