The BBC reports that someone paid $290,000 for a copy of the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover signed by every Beatle shortly after the album was released in 1967. The sale price broke a record and brought almost 10 times the $30,000 that was expected when the item was put up for auction.
Sgt. Pepper’s is generally viewed as one of the most influential albums ever recorded, and its lavish, beautiful cover fit perfectly with the music inside and the beginning of the Summer of Love. From the iconic front cover, with the Beatles surrounded by photos of famous people at a gravesite, to the lush and sparkling interior photo of the Beatles in the satin band uniforms (which is where the auctioned album is autographed), to the back cover of the song lyrics and a picture of the Beatles featuring Paul McCartney’s back, the Sgt. Pepper’s cover is a tantalizing treat for the senses. But $290,000?
I’ve never understood the point of autographs. It’s one thing if you collect the autographs yourself and had a personal story to tell about every famous person you encountered through that hobby. Paying huge sums for autographed items collected by others, however, makes no sense to me. The scribbled signature means nothing, in and of itself; I could no more distinguish a genuine John Lennon signature from a reasonable forgery. The real value of the autographed item, apparently, is confirmation that, at one moment in time 45 years ago, this cardboard object briefly passed through the hands of the four Beatles. But, so what? Does the new owner experience a vicarious thrill at holding something once touched by his heroes, two of whom are now dead? If so, isn’t that somewhat . . . odd? Or is the buyer just a cold, calculated investor willing to gamble that, in 10 or 20 years, someone will pay even more for this piece of cardboard, which will be carefully stored in some climate-controlled safe?
Either way, $290,000 seems like an awful lot of money to pay for an album I once got for $7.99 at the neighborhood record store.
I don’t quite get how there can still be a hereditary monarchy, of sorts, in Great Britain, but the British people seem to like it and therefore it’s really none of my business. I’m not one of those Americans who finds the British royalty endlessly fascinating, either. I paid no attention to the Princess Diana controversies and don’t care about royal weddings or the other events that command media attention. Still, I commend Queen Elizabeth. She’s reigned since before I was born — which seems hard to believe — and during that time she has done her job, presided over the openings of Parliament, awarded medals, and performed the other tasks required of a modern-day monarch. She’s done it all without scandal and, apparently, with an appreciation for her role and the need to comport herself with dignity and discretion. And, of course, she’s been the subject of 
You bought every album and played them until the grooves were worn thin, and then you went and bought every CD. You’ve been a sucker for each new “Beatles’ rarities” collection, laid out good money for Let It Be Naked, and listened to bootlegs and live recordings with crappy sound quality. You’ve eagerly read Shout! and every other book and biography and thumbed through The Beatles Day by Day. You thought you’ve heard everything the Fab Four ever recorded on every bit of tape and wax — but now it turns our you’re wrong.
The tape includes the Beatles covering seven songs — including Money (That’s What I Want), a song that the Beatles later memorably released, with stunning John Lennon vocals, on With the Beatles — and three Beatles original compositions. (It’s not clear whether the original songs are all Lennon-McCartney compositions, but I imagine Sir Paul McCartney could clear that up.) The Decca executives famously decided not to sign the group to a contract, thinking they had no future. (Remember that the next time some know-it-all confidently predicts your future.)
McCartney has packed a lot of achievement into his 70 years. His output is astonishing. Most musicians would be happy to write one song like Yesterday (which is generally regarded as the most “covered” song in history, having been recorded more than 3,000 times) but McCartney wrote dozens of classics, from I Saw Her Standing There, Hey Jude, and Let It Be with the Beatles, to Maybe I’m Amazed and Too Many People in his solo career, to Band on the Run and My Love with Wings — and this list barely begins to scratch the surface.
In Vermont, prisoners are responsible for producing the decals that are attached to the sides of the patrol cars. The decals 
What can I say? I’m a child of the ’60s. I remember watching The Monkees TV show when I was a kid, thinking it was funny, and liking the music. My sister, along with most girls, liked Davy Jones. My favorite Monkee was Mickey Dolenz. Some of my friends liked Peter Tork because he was funny; others liked Mike Nesmith because he always wore a stocking cap with a yarn ball on top. I didn’t care that people said the Monkees didn’t play the instruments on their records, and I didn’t care that the TV show was silly gags combined with a shameless rip-off of The Beatles in Help! and A Hard Day’s Night.
Initially called the Rhondells, 
What is the value of this kind of memorabilia? In this case, the value is precisely the $46,000 the anonymous bidder was willing to pony up. More broadly, of course, the value of such items is that they evoke a time, a place, and a person. Anyone who sees the suit and hears what it is will think of the iconic cover photo, where Lennon led Ringo Starr, a barefoot, smoking Paul McCartney, and George Harrison across the street on a striped crosswalk, with the white Volkswagen in the background. And knowing that the suit has been worn by an important historical or cultural figure allows the viewer to establish a more intimate connection with that figure. “Hey, John Lennon wore this very suit. Gee, I thought he was taller.”
Getting the Beatles on iTunes apparently was a big deal for Apple’s Steve Jobs, who is a Beatles fan. Others, however, have questioned whether having the Beatles on iTunes will make much of a difference. They reason that people who like the Beatles (like me) already have their songs on their iPods and won’t need iTunes to get them, and that younger people want new music, not music that was first recorded in their grandparents’ day.
I’m looking forward to the show because I like listening to live music and because some of the songs on The Wall are among my favorite songs, ever. The album came out when I was in college, when Pink Floyd was a staple on every stereo system. Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here were generally recognized, then and now, as two of the very best rock albums ever recorded, and Animals wasn’t chump change, either. Then years passed without a new Pink Floyd album. When the word got out that The Wall was in the offing it became one of the most eagerly anticipated album releases ever. When it finally hit the record stores I immediately bought a copy and listened to it from beginning to end and most of my friends did, too.
