Should strawberry fields and penny lane been on Sgt Pepper?

I'm with kds on this one.  There are some things about MMT that I prefer over Pepper (even if the former is technically a comp.), but overall you've got two fine albums, and I like that balance.

Not a terribly unpopular one, I suspect. I think a lot of fans acknowledge that SFF and PL could have improved Sgt Pepper and, similarly, shortening The Beatles from two LPs to one could have improved The Beatles. The fact that George Martin has weighed in on both has certainly spurred fan discussion. Personally, I'm split on these topics. I fully acknowledge that Sgt Pepper would have been improved by substituting SFF and PL for 2 lesser songs, but I actually think that The Beatles is better as a double LP. 

Now, do I think that SFF and PL should have been included on Sgt Pepper? No. I'm a huge proponent of non-album singles. I love the way The Beatles discography was managed in the UK and I think it would be a really fun exercise to apply a similar standard to The Beach Boys discography of the early-mid 60s. 2 LPs and 2-3 non-album singles per year - an EP of new material where applicable. Nice and neat and the fans get the most value. Imagine those early Beach Boys albums without some of the hits? I bet Brian puts a little more effort in the "filler" tracks to flesh them out and raise the quality of the album. Though, remember, Capitol released 3 BBs studio albums per year (even more Beatles albums in the mid 60s). Anyway, I feel like I'm getting off track. Ultimately, I agree with kds and sockit, that MMT benefits more from the inclusion of SFF and PL than Sgt Pepper and even if MMT remained an EP (as jk suggested), I'd be fine with that outcome as well. Still, it's very interesting for us to reimagine these albums and try to make them the best albums possible, because that's how we think of albums now. As complete works of art, as opposed to collections of songs. Which, of course, Sgt Pepper had ambitions of being.



I haven't listened to this sequence, so it could work perfectly, but I'm a little concerned about Side 1 closing with four consecutive Paul leads and Side 2 opening with three consecutive John leads. There's also no George songs, obviously. With that said, I'm glad you didn't reach for "Only A Northern Song" or "It's All Too Much". I've never felt that they were good enough for Pepper, and even if you think they are, I don't think they'd fit. The approach taken for those songs was a much messier, sloppier approach. As such, a bit of an oddity in all of the Beatles canon and thus relegated to the YS soundtrack. Even on MMT the approach is much cleaner, much more exact.

This kind of reminds me of what Emerick said about "Good Morning Good Morning":

John said to me during one of the breaks that he wanted to have the sound of animals escaping and that each successive animal should be capable of frightening or devouring its predecessor! So those are not just random effects, there was actually a lot of thought put into all that.

Is that so?? That man has just rocketed in my opinion.

Wow--thanks a lot, Sheriff. 

There are three "rock stars" that have persistently got up my nose over the years: Jagger, Waters and Macca.

I remember when Paul was on TV with the fantastic rock'n'roll band who backed him at The Cavern a while back, he couldn't be arsed to introduce them and just talked about himself. This does a lot to exonerate him.