WITHIN YOU, WITHOUT YOU... WHAT'S WITH YOU?

There are reasons to question the hype over the 50th anniversary of Sgt.

And best of all -- resold for $117!

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Isn't it a little dated? Is it really the Beatles' best album? (I vote for Revolver). And when are you goddamn baby-boomers getting off the stage already?

You could probably throw in a few more of your own (like How many more times are they going to repackage this damn thing?) But I guarantee you, nothing you could come up with would be as egregiously, indubitably, spectacularly stupid as the one made by Salon's clichéd I-see-anti-female-conspiracies-everywhere feminist columnist Amanda Marcotte.

The Beatles congratulate each other for pulling a
fast one on girls everywhere.

The problem with Pepper, according to Marcotte, is that it's too good for girls to enjoy. Starting with the tired trope that the 1964-era Beatles appealed almost only to teenage girls' unbridled lust (with the group's talent and wit apparently nowhere to be found), her thesis continues:

It's no surprise, then, that the Beatles' shift toward a more respectable and artistic branding meant shedding their sex appeal. The Sgt. Pepper album cover features the Fab Four dressed in goofy-looking uniforms that couldn't be better suited to repel the female gaze.

See, it wasn't like the Beatles were growing as composers, musicians, and humans. Nah,

Marcotte's vision of
Lennon & McCartney.

they just thought girls were icky. But then she takes it one step further:

Sgt. Pepper is a good pop record, don't get me wrong. But it's a record I resent, because it helped to cement this notion that music for girls is silly and music for men is artistically significant. 

So according to Marcotte, girls aren't capable of enjoying pop music more sophisticated than, say, "Be My Baby", "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter", and "Do the Freddie". This is a feminist?

Amanda Marcotte reminds me of those idiot teenagers on American Bandstand in 1967 who didn't like the videos for "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" because the Beatles had moustaches and the songs themselves were more advanced than "She Loves You". Even at the age of 11, I couldn't figure out why those kids were so square. Weren't these the people I was supposed to look up to? 

If only they could have stayed like this.

Amanda Marcotte seems not to have gotten the memo that the feminist movement came out of a desire for women to be, among other things, taken seriously, treated with respect, and be encouraged to grow intellectually. Kind of like the Beatles, in a way.

Now, it could be that she, like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Kathy Griffin, is merely trying to be "outrageous" in order to gin up controversy and, more importantly, get more "clicks" and advertisers. If so, it worked. Google "salon sgt. pepper marcotte" and you'll find over 10,000 links. Congratulations, Amanda, for proving that you can be cynical with the best (make that "worst") of them!

However, if Marcotte is indeed serious (which is the more likely case), then her homestead Salon might as well change its name to Saloon, because she sounds like a drunk at the end of the bar who thinks she's making an important point after her ninth Jägermeister. Hey. buddy, did you know that Sgt. Fucking Pepper is a secret plot to destroy little girls' sexuality by making them think? No, really. Buy me another drink, and I'll explain it to you. 

Or, as Marcotte herself says, "Sgt. Pepper was the point when rock stopped being the music of girls and started being the music of men."

Did I say Saloon? Make that Saloony.

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