It has a few decent tracks, but they stand in stark contrast with the surrounding acres of self-indulgent, Goon-like nonsense. You simply do not find the likes of When I'm Sixty-Four, Lovely Rita, or the twice-performed title track, on a masterpiece.
Joe Cocker's subsequent 1969 cover of With a Little Help from My Friends gave ample illustration of just how insipid the Beatles' version of their own song had been.
I suppose if forced to choose a Beatles album I would plump for Abbey Road simply because it reminds me of a late friend who liked it.
Truth is I was never much of a fan. I have always thought they were overrated and grossly overhyped. They still are, and the further we get from the reality of the Beatles the more outrageous has become the rhapsodising of their work and the exaggeration of its significance.
I read a claim somewhere recently that Sgt Pepper marked the first time an English rock band had sang in their native accents, as opposed to the more usual faux-American enunciation. This will come as news to the surviving members of other highly successful bands of that era, such as the Kinks, the Who and the Small Faces, who never sang in anything but defiantly English accents.
The Beatles were never the rock and roll rebels that many contemporary commentators like to pretend they were. In fact, they were more akin to a modern-day boy band: the Boyzone of their era, beloved of establishment and parents alike. True, with their collar-length hair they did manage to frighten a few old ladies when they first appeared on the scene; but not for long.
When the moral guardians of that time looked at what was emerging alongside them, they quite rightly decided that the Beatles were about as threatening as choirboys.
Where rock and roll rebellion was concerned, the likes of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Pretty Things and the Animals, with their snarling lyrics and overtly sexual gyrations, sounded and acted much more like the real thing. While the neatly besuited Lennon and McCartney were warbling in 1964 about money not being able to buy them love, the dishevelled Stones were scowling and growling their way through the Buddy Holly classic, Not Fade Away. And this before Jagger and Richards even got into their stride.
When they, too, started writing their own material, they produced a string of dark classics such as (I Can't get No) Satisfaction, Get Off My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Paint it Black, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow and Let's Spend the Night Together.
The Beatles, meanwhile, were still ploughing on with their saccharine brand of bland pop music: idolised still, but mostly by the media and hordes of screaming, pre-pubescent schoolgirls. That they were affectionately known as the Fab Four or, alternatively, the Mop Tops and were awarded MBEs just about sums up how much of a threat to the establishment they were considered to be.
Contrary to the carefully crafted Beatles legend, Sgt Pepper was not a particularly innovative album. The previous year, in 1966, the Beach Boys had released Pet Sounds, which, with its multi-layered vocal harmonies and orchestral-style instrumentation, was truly a thing of beauty. Inspired by Phil Spector and his wall of sound production techniques, Brian Wilson had written, arranged and produced Pet Sounds almost entirely on his own. As with any genuinely classic album, it still sounds as fresh today as when it was first released.
Lennon and McCartney were so taken with the Beach Boys' album that they, with the help of producer George Martin, immediately set about trying to produce something similar. They failed miserably. Regardless of whatever wizardry is employed in making a record, ultimately it is how it sounds that really matters. It is telling that, as complex a work as Pet Sounds was, the Beach Boys were always able to reproduce the sound in a live format.
Whereas as soon The Beatles moved beyond recording anything other than their earlier basic sounds, they never attempted a live concert again. The Beatles were not a bad band but neither were they the best. They were merely a decent one among many others. They certainly were not the rock pioneers or musical geniuses that many claim them to have been. In some respects, they were actually the antithesis of rock and roll.
Like Elvis Presley, they were careful never to stray much beyond the boundaries. And just as for Elvis - who is still hailed as the "King of rock and roll" despite never having written a lyric or a note of music in his life - exaggerated accreditation was the establishment's reward.