Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The Beatles are perhaps just as beloved for their experimentation as they for their accessibility. Nowhere was their joining of challenging, self-reflexive commentary and easy-to-love commodity more pronounced than in their 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – both in the music and on its timeless cover. This video essay chronicles the history of album covers, and deconstructs how, with Sgt Pepper’s, the Beatles transformed the album cover from a product package to a potential work of art in its own right.
Video by The Nerdwriter
video
Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
video
Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
video
Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
video
Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
video
Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
video
Gender
A filmmaker responds to Lars von Trier’s call for a new muse with a unique application
16 minutes
video
Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes