Visual Culture Level 5 - Targeting the Youth Market / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an album by The Beatles and the cover art was designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth from a drawing by Paul McCartney. It was photographed by Michael Cooper and it included a collage of The Beatles in costumes as the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and they were stood with cardboard cut outs of various famous people. There are also 4 wax modles of the "old" beatles stood next to them, to create a contrast of the old style and their new style. Their mustaches represent the influence of the hippie trend and they are stood behind a drum skin bearing the name of the album created by Joe Ephgrave. The concept for the album cover was "people we like" and that explains the mass of famous people in the background. There was a big question about why Elvis didn't appear on the cover and when Paul McCartney was asked this he replied "Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention ... so we didn't put him on the list because he was more than merely a ... pop singer, he was Elvis the King".

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/04/05/the-cover-art-of-sgt-peppers-llonely-hearts-club-band/