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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
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Subcultures
Living off-grid on a remote Scottish island is a mix of rejection and acceptance
13 minutes
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Film and visual culture
At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start
19 minutes
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Biology
Journey deep into the Philippine forest in search of the world’s largest, rarest eagle
95 minutes
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Art
What does an AI make of what it sees in a contemporary art museum?
15 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
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Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes
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Love and friendship
Skiing blind is a challenge – but it helps to have a loved one to guide you
20 minutes