Links began appearing on Amazon on April 4, 2017, and by April 6, The Beatles‘ forthcoming 6-Disc Super Deluxe Edition of their landmark 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, immediately shot straight to the top of the online giant’s music best-sellers list. And now that it’s been released to rave reviews, it’s like Beatlemania all over again, with all four new versions among the Top 10 sellers.
Related: Our review of the Sgt. Pepper 50th anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
After months of speculation, The Beatles, via Apple Corps Ltd., Capitol Records and UMe (Universal Music Enterprises), formally announced on April 5 the release on May 26, of “a suite of lavishly presented Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th anniversary packages.”
The album returned to the top of the U.K. OfficialCharts.
As of midday on Friday, June 9, two weeks after its release, the Super Deluxe Edition remained at #1 in the U.S. at Amazon. That the 6-disc set bears a $149.98 list price makes the sales feat even more remarkable.
Also impressive is the 2-LP (vinyl) version of Sgt. Pepper, at #12 on the chart. The 2-CD Deluxe Edition is at #8. The single CD is at #18. Order links are below. (Note: the Amazon sales chart updates constantly so these numbers will likely change even within the same day.)
When Sgt. Pepper was released on June 1, 1967, it spent 15 weeks at #1 in the U.S. and 27 weeks at the top of the U.K. album sales chart. It won the Grammy Award in 1968 for Album of the Year (as well as the award for Best Album Cover).
Prior to its 50th Anniversary reissue, worldwide sales are said to total more than 32 million copies. With these kinds of sales, that number will increase sharply.
Watch The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper 50th Anniversary trailer…
So, what are fans getting for their investment? Plenty…
CD 1: New stereo album mix
CDs 2 & 3:
– 33 additional recordings from the studio sessions, most previously unreleased and mixed for the first time from the four-track session tapes, sequenced in chronological order of their recording dates
– A new stereo mix of “Penny Lane” and the 2015 stereo mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
CD 4:
– Direct transfers of the album’s original mono mix and the “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” singles
– Capitol Records’ U.S. promotional mono single mix of “Penny Lane”
– Previously unreleased early mono mixes of “She’s Leaving Home,” “A Day In The Life,” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (a mix thought to have been erased from a tape in 1967, but discovered during archive research for the anniversary edition)
Discs 5 & 6 (Blu-ray and DVD):
– New 5.1 surround audio mixes of the album and “Penny Lane” by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, plus their 2015 5.1 surround mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
– High resolution audio versions of the new stereo mixes of the album and “Penny Lane” and of the 2015 stereo mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
– Video features: 4K restored original promotional films for “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane,” and “A Day In The Life;” plus The Making of Sgt. Pepper, a restored, previously unreleased documentary film (broadcast in 1992), featuring insightful interviews with McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, and in-studio footage introduced by George Martin.
Listen to outtakes of the title cut and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” here.
The album’s vibrant artwork, including its extravagant Pop Art cover which finds The Beatles surrounded by a crowd of heroes in a 3D collage, was created by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth in collaboration with the band. The original artwork is showcased across the suite of Anniversary Edition releases, including the album’s pull-out sheet of Sgt. Pepper cutouts. Housed in a 12-inch by 12-inch box with lenticular artwork and two bonus posters, the six-disc Super Deluxe set is presented with a 144-page hardcover book. The book includes new introductions by Paul McCartney and Giles Martin, and chapters covering comprehensive song-by-song details and recording information, the design of the cover, the album’s musical innovations and its historical context by Beatles historian, author and radio producer Kevin Howlett; composer and musicologist Howard Goodall; music producer and writer Joe Boyd; and journalists Ed Vulliamy and Jeff Slate, illustrated with rare photographs, reproductions of handwritten lyrics, Abbey Road Studios documentation, and original Sgt. Pepper print ads.
The Deluxe 2-CD digipak is slipcased with a 50-page booklet abridged from the box set’s book, and the 2-LP Deluxe Vinyl is presented in a faithful reproduction of the album’s original gatefold jacket.
[easy_sign_up title=”Sign up for the Best Classic Bands Newsletter”]
