View Full Version : Keith Richards Calls Sgt. Pepper's "Rubbish"


JamesG
08-05-2015, 03:54 PM
Keith Richards Calls Sgt. Pepper's "Rubbish"
by Eric Renner Brown
8/5/15


From Jimi Hendrix to the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, the Beatles’ positively influenced their contemporaries—but the high praise might not extend to the band’s greatest British peers.

In an interview from Esquire’s September 2015 issue, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards punctured the hype surrounding the album some call the best ever.



"The Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles. But there's not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away. Why not? If you're the Beatles in the '60s, you just get carried away — you forget what it is you wanted to do.

You're starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it's a genius album, but I think it's a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties — 'Oh, if you can make a load of ****, so can we'."






The guitarist was contrasting the Beatles’ relative dearth of blues and folk music with the themes that have defined his body of work both with the Stones and as a solo musician. In fact, Richards also discussed the cover of Leadbelly’s 'Goodnight Irene' that’ll be on his upcoming solo album 'Crosseyed Heart', his first in over two decades.

Richards recently wrapped a North American tour with the Stones and released the music video for 'Crosseyed Heart’s' first single, 'Trouble', streaming below.



Read the Q&A — which features a lot more than Beatles bashing — over at Esquire: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/interviews/a36899/keith-richards-interview-0915/

'Crosseyed Heart' drops Sept. 18.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/05/keith-richards-calls-sgt-peppers-rubbish

ABlairican Pie
08-05-2015, 06:43 PM
In my rock & roll history thread a while back, while discussing the 'Sgt. Pepper' album, there a number of comments by rock musicians who were really disappointed with the rootlessness of that record. I guess it was the official start of prog-rock, but sometimes when I think about that album, there was something very rock-less about it. The only way for The Beatles to gain critical respectability was to be all "artsy". I guess they did it because they could.