Music Appreciation Class

I have been meaning to do music appreciation in our home for the past two years - it just makes sense.  Last week, we started with THE biggest/greatest album of all time (that’s kind of the direction we are going….best albums of all time, best songs of all time – according to the ‘professionals’).  So, just what is the “best album of all time”?   The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band of course.  I can understand and concur with that title.  It was so random and experimental and interesting and eclectic...... and incredible!  I mean, who the heck is Billy Shears??  And “Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite” – what was that all about?  While listening to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” (such a nice little children’s song!), Elisha said, “Wow, sounds like somebody had a sleep over and at around 1:00 am when they were really tired after drinking WAY too much Mountain Dew they wrote that song and laughed themselves silly”.  Josiah piped up and said, “I am pretty sure it wasn’t Mt Dew that they were drinking”.  Um, yeah, probably not.  

I had forgotten how crazy that album is and how much I loved it.  
There are lots of interesting things that helped earn the album its prestigious title.  Did you know that Sgt. Peppers was the first rock album to include complete lyrics to the songs in its design?  Also, The Beatles transformed studio recording on "A Day in the Life"; it was the first eight-track recording produced in Britain.  Rolling Stone claims that the album “is simply the best of everything the Beatles ever did as musicians, pioneers and pop stars, all in one place”.

Anyone remember the Peter Frampton/ Bee Gees/ Steve Martin movie of the same name with remakes of the songs?  I saw it three times in the theatres AND had the soundtrack.  Loved it….well, I was a Peter Frampton groupie at the time, so I loved him – in 7^th grade.  Dork.

I had forgotten how much I listened to the Beatles in my younger days and that they really were one of my favorites.  All the kids liked the album and that’s good because the Beatles have 5 out of the top ten albums so we will be hearing a lot from them in the coming months.  And you’ll never believe what the #2 album is!  Really!  More about that later this week.