Album defined a day in our life

Like the Iron Age or the Cold War, the album era is easier to define than to date in exact terms. Some say it began with the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" in 1965, or the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" in 1966. Maybe 1984 marked the end with the twin towers of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." and Prince's "Purple Rain," or 1991 with Guns N' Roses' "Use Your Illusion" and Nirvana's "Nevermind."

But two facts are beyond dispute. One: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" defined the era as a time when an album was more than two good songs and eight filler tracks. And two: It's over.

"Sgt. Pepper," released 40 years ago this week, was as much an event as a piece of music. In making art out of rock, the Beatles' magnum opus became the major signpost of the 1967 "Summer of Love." Writing in Rolling Stone magazine in 1968, critic Langdon Winner called the week of its release "the closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815."

It also created a couple of idealistic notions about the music business: that albums matter more than singles and that bands should grow artistically (and commercially) from one album to the next. This seemed like the natural order of things, so it became conventional wisdom that the industry still believes.

But compact disc sales are in free fall, down to half of what they were at the turn of the century, and few acts last longer than a hit or two -- because record companies are still making albums for a world that no longer exists.

"Sgt. Pepper" arrived at the height of the Beatles' artistic powers. No band had put out as much remarkable music in such a short window as the Beatles did from 1965 to 1968. "Sgt. Pepper" was the pinnacle, an overwhelming critical as well as popular favorite.

"One day, it just seemed like 'Sgt. Pepper' was there kind of instantaneously, everywhere," Anthony DeCurtis, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, said in a recent phone conversation. "It remained everywhere through that entire summer. You'd walk into a clothing store, a club, your friend's house, and that's what was playing."

But "Sgt. Pepper" proved to be just as important from a business standpoint, because it decisively moved the record industry's focus from singles to albums. In the mid-1960s, even Bob Dylan was still pulling singles from his albums.

No singles were released from "Sgt. Pepper," which was consciously designed to be heard as a whole, organic listening experience. And at less than 40 minutes (surprisingly short for such an iconic artifact), it was easy to consume in one sitting.

The Beatles' early success sparked one revolution, creating the expectation that artists had to write their own songs. "Sgt. Pepper" sparked another. In its aftermath, artists who wanted to be taken seriously had to make album-length statements.

While albums were more expensive than singles to produce, they were also far more profitable for record companies. So the album era was a perfect marriage of convenience between artistic and financial ambition. Singles didn't disappear, but they came to be regarded as necessary evils to promote album sales.

The album model worked for 2 1/2 decades, moving the U2s and R.E.M.s of the world from clubs to arenas to stadiums to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It also produced obscene profit margins for the industry, which the early '80s arrival of MTV and the compact disc format compounded. Artists and styles came and went, but the album remained the unit of consumption. Record labels grew to huge sizes, then sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.