There is no shortage of critics who regard Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as overrated and the smart money is generally placed on Revolver as the definitive Beatles album. However, it's hard to deny that Pepper was the game changer and it is undoubtedly the Fab Four's most culturally significant release.
In Revolution In The Head, Ian MacDonald wrote: "it may not have created the psychic atmosphere of the time but it was a near perfect reflection of it". It featured a series of notable innovations: a concept album with an iconic cover photo, lyrics printed on the gatefold sleeve, experiments with orchestral arrangements and stereophonic effects. None of these elements seem particularly radical these days but in 1967 the cumulative effect was ground-breaking.
Love it or hate it, its impact was huge and it remains one of the most influential albums of all time.
So how can you hope to replicate this "near perfect" cultural artefact in any meaningful way? The short answer, of course, is that you can't. Something so of its time cannot simply be transported to the modern age without losing the ingredients that made it so unique.
Undeterred, The Flaming Lips have undertaken to pay eccentric homage to the Fab Four's magnum opus with a little helps from their "fwends". These include Moby, J.Mascis, MGMT, Julianna Barwick and, wait for it, Miley Cyrus! What on paper looks to be a misguided, self indulgent project doomed to failure, in practice proves to just that and more.
This is not a record for purists, nor should it be, but it takes so many liberties with the original recordings that the artists seem intent on spoofing the classics rather providing fresh or illuminating reinterpretations.
The psychedelic freakout complete with squeaky vocal effects on the opening track give fair warning of what is in store. The album sequencing is the same but little else remains intact.
On one level I can see that these reappraisals make perfect sense. After all, what would be the point of merely doing copycat versions of the originals? However, the end result of this series of druggy Karaoke-style treatments will surely be deeply irritating even to non-Beatle fans.
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When Miley Cyrus' vocals on Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and A Day In The Life count among the best moments, you know that something is amiss.
With Or Without You, featuring Birdflower and Morgan Delt is particularly hideous. Falsetto vocals and amateurish electronics strip George Harrison's song of any spiritual content, the aural equivalent of drunken revellers trashing a meditation room.
On top of this, the mop-tops' light-hearted tracks are re-rendered in a fashion that is devoid of any humour or sensitively. With A Little Help From My Friends is turned into a hideous call and (yelled) response arrangement; Tegan & Sara succeed in making Lovely Rita a joyless affair and vocoder effects help scupper When I'm Sixty Four.
If The Flaming Lips intention was to destroy phony Beatlemania then 'With A Little Help From My Fwends' should be counted as a resounding success. However, I imagine their aim was to celebrate The Beatles' inventiveness in a quirky yet respectful manner and in these terms it must rank as a total failure.
The only positive side to this wankery is that it is in a good cause. All proceeds from the album will be donated to The Bella Foundation, an Oklahoma based non-profit organization that assists low-income, elderly and terminally ill pet owners with the cost of veterinary care.
As such, this album will bring more comfort to sick animals than to healthy humans.
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