Sgt. Pepper’s Album Cover Gets Reworked to Remember Icons Lost in 2016

We’re just days away from the 50th anniver­sary of the release of The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. And, as we men­tioned last week, the BBC has kicked off the cel­e­bra­tions with a series of videos that intro­duce you to the 60+ fig­ures who appeared in the card­board col­lage that graced the album’s icon­ic cov­er. Bob Dylan, Edgar Allan Poe, William S. Bur­roughs, Albert Ein­stein, Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, HG Wells, Shirley Temple–they all get a video intro­duc­tion, among oth­ers.

His­toric as it is, the Pep­per cov­er recent­ly became a good vehi­cle for remem­ber­ing the bewil­der­ing num­ber of musi­cians, artists and celebri­ties who left this mor­tal coil in 2016. Above you can see an illus­tra­tion cre­at­ed by Twit­ter user @christhebarker in the wan­ing days of last year. If you look close­ly, you can see some thought went into the design. Muham­mad Ali, for exam­ple, now stands where box­er Son­ny Lis­ton did in the orig­i­nal. Find them all in a larg­er for­mat here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Con­se­quence of Sound

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet the Icon­ic Fig­ures on the Cov­er of The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band

How The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band Changed Album Cov­er Design For­ev­er

Jimi Hen­drix Plays “Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band” for The Bea­t­les, Just Three Days After the Album’s Release (1967)