Keith Richards Says Sgt. Pepper’s Is ‘Rubbish’

The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards says The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, named the best rock & roll album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, is “a mishmash of rubbish.”

Richards commented on the Grammy-winning album in an interview with Esquire, “[T]he 
Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles. But there’s not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away. Why not? If you’re the Beatles in the ’60s, you just get carried away—you forget what it is you wanted to do.” Because apparently no band’s sound should evolve over time.

He compared it to his own band’s album released in the same year: “Some people think [Sgt. Pepper’s is] a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties—’Oh, if you can make a load of sh**, so can we.'” Okay, then.