h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: '1967-1970' aka 'The Blue Album' - A87888839
Author: Sgt. Bluebottle's Lonely Hearts Club Band - U43530

As Bluebottle is on the Isle of Wight today, it falls to me to put this in Peer Review on his behalf.

This Entry is inspired by and dedicated to SashaQ (and MumQ who bought this album in 1973).

It was 50 years ago today
Sgt Pepper taught the band to play
It's been the best album then for a while
And it's still guaranteed to raise a smile
So let me introduce to you
An album compilation for all those years
The Blue Album featuring Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band!

Excellent to see this in Peer Review, even though I do say so myself

I like how you put the albums into the context of the time

There are two photos on the Blue Album - one of the older Beatles and one of the younger Beatles - are they the same on the Red Album but the other way round, so the younger one is on the front?

"Richard Lester's" looks funny with a footnote in the middle! Can you tweak that somehow?

That's interesting about the double A side single having its sales halved to count for each side... Did EMI know that would happen? Seems like a disincentive to produce a double A... So Strawberry Fields was only classed as a single in the UK, is that right?

Sgt Pepper the song was not released as a single, is that right?

Wow - I learned something about LSD... I have heard it referred to as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and thought that's why the Beatles wrote the song, but in fact the nickname came from the Beatles song

Ooo - the frequency illusion synchronicity... I saw the phrase "it said 'Juden Raus', German for 'Jews Out'" in the museum yesterday...

Is footnote 7 a quote?

"Both George and Paul felt that the song was too slow and so John persuaded them to record a much-faster version" - this is an interesting sentence. They thought it was too slow, so why did they need persuasion to speed it up?

"If it is allowed to happen, every Beatles song ever recorded is going to be advertising women's underwear and sausages. We've got to put a stop to it in order to set a precedent… " - that's a quote and a half... I think Queen- have deliberately chosen to allow their songs to be used in adverts for the royalties, but I'm not sure it tallies with Freddie's "you can do anything you like with my songs as long as you don't make them boring"...

Perfect final paragraph

I get by with a little help from my friends.
I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.
Articles enter Peer Review with a little help from my friends.

Thanks for putting this into Peer Review for me while I was away

I've hopefully clarified the photos bit (although part of me worries my clarification has made it more complicated…?)
The Beatles didn't believe their fans should purchase songs twice, so in Britain songs that were released as singles or as B-sides weren't usually included on albums, and vice versa – although they didn't always have full control over wh. Only four songs on 'The Blue Album' had been both singles and album tracks: 'Revolution', which is slow on the White Album and is faster as a B-side, with the 'count me out/in' and 'count me out' difference. 'Get Back' was released as a single in 1969 and, like 'Let it Be', was released on the 'Let it Be' album in 1970. 'Something' was both a single and on 'Abbey Road'.
I don't know if EMI were aware that sales would be halved as 'Strawberry Fields Forever' / 'Penny Lane' was the first deliberate Double A-Side (as opposed to singles in which the B-side becomes more popular than the A-side and so their positions are reversed). The Beatles were experimenting with different record formats – later creating the double-EP for 'Magical Mystery Tour'. 'Strawberry Fields Forever' was a single in the UK, but I don't know about all other countries, just that it wasn't a US single.
I've tweaked the 'Revolution' section to make it clearer it wasn't just the speed but the content that George and Paul were wary of and didn't want to embrace.

As for Queen adverts, I remember Brian May's 'Driven By You' as being a car advert. No idea what car it advertised, but it definitely is associated in my mind as being unavoidably linked with a four-wheeled moving thing of some description.

<BB<

My pleasure

Thanks for the extra information about the cover photos, but I agree it is complicated at the same time... How about something like:

"The album covers for both 'The Red Album' and 'The Blue Album' show The Beatles in identical poses, looking down the stairwell at EMI House. Both photographs were taken by Angus McBean. One photograph had been taken for the cover of their first album, Please Please Me (1963) and the other photograph had been taken in 1969 for the proposed Get Back albumWork on Get Back was abandoned for a year in January 1969 and after work on the last song finished in January 1970 the album was controversially released as Let it Be in May of that year. and showed the Beatles in the same poses at the same place, only with longer hair and moustaches. .

On 'The Red Album' the 1963 picture is on the front and the 1969 picture is on the back cover, while 'The Blue Album' has the 1969 picture on the front and the 1963 picture on the back cover. Later audio cassette and CD releases of these albums have the track listing on the back covers, but nevertheless both pictures can be seen on the front and back of the accompanying booklet matching the original LPs." ?

Driven By You was clever, that it was a newish song that got more airplay by being associated with an established brand (Ford, as it happens) but using well known songs to advertise newish brands is a waste of a good song in my opinion... A Kind of Magic advertises sofas, and I've heard Break Free but it wasn't advertising hoovers so I don't know what it was for Flash's Theme advertised a new Flash brand cleaning product and I heard Tear It Up recently too, but I'm not sure what with...

That's good - I like that.

Songs and adverts have a funny relationship. It can propel a song back into the charts years or decades after it was originally released, such as 'My Baby Just Cares for Me'. Often, though, if you saw the advert before hearing the song alone it makes it impossible to think of a song without thinking of the advert. So for me, 'Day-O (Daylight Comes and Me Wanna Go Home)' aka 'The Banana Boat Song' will always be about Trio , and 'The Israelites' lyrics are obviously 'High in polyunsaturates and low in saturates with a butterlike taste that will make you shine, ooo-oooh Vitalite'. Sometimes the advert takes precedence, so choirboy Peter Auty sang 'Walking in the Air' on 'The Snowman', but when his voice broke Aled Jones was asked to sing it for an advert, which became popular leading to the Aled Jones version entering the chart and Aled Jones has enjoyed a successful career while poor Peter Auty is all-but forgotten.

<BB<

Tear It Up is advertising the Tour de France

I know what you mean about the song becoming linked to the product - Trio and Vitalite are earwormy adverts indeed M&S use a pop song of some description in their adverts, but I thought it was just music composed for the advert, too, until I heard it on the radio one day

That's interesting about Aled Jones - I didn't realise he became involved for an advert and then the chart success took off from there... Strange how it goes...

Now with added NASA.

<BB<

Had an admittedly-quick skim of this when looking for my Scout picks, I spotted this:

>>Greek Myths - The Trojan War Edited 24% A947333 Lagrange Points Edited 15% <<

in the "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" section.

GB

Stray linkage deleted.

<BB<

Thanks

I was wondering why you don't put "by The Beatles" in the title? Some kids today have never heard of them, and won't know who this is by, just by the title.

I've no objection for The Beatles to be mentioned in the article title. I didn't because most (though not all) approved entries about albums and songs are titled "'Title' - the Album" and so I was trying to be consistent. In many ways changing the format to "'Title' - the Artist Album' would make a lot of sense. Ideally I'd like to see all entries about albums to have the same title format for consistency.

<BB<

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Congratulations!

We'll have to add albums to the list of Entries to update, I think, as descriptive titles do help people to find and read Entries...

The phrase "entering Europe" in this grates. Britain has always been and always will be in Europe.

I think you're reading a political subtext into the sentence that isn't intended to be there, if it is.

The Isle of Wight is part of England and the nationality of those from the Island is English, however the phrase 'going over to England' to mean travel to the mainland is in daily use. Going to Europe is being used in the same context – it just means going to the main bit of it and doesn't necessarily mean the traveller was outside to begin with. You would go to Europe from Iceland, Ireland, Sicily, Crete and many other islands that are part of Europe but geographically separated by water.

<BB<

Would changing it to 'mainland Europe' avoid the confusion?

It's the same if you live in the outskirts of a city, let's say Winchester. Even though you are already in Winchester it would not be unusual to say 'I'm going to Winchester today' to mean the city centre.

But yes, you can change it to 'mainland Europe'.

<BB<