The Beatles (album) stereo only. In the UK, the following album, "Yellow Submarine", was the last to be shipped in mono. The mono version of "The Beatles" was made available worldwide on 9 September 2009, as part of "The Beatles in Mono" CD boxed set. A reissue of the original mono LP was released worldwide in September 2014. The album's sleeve was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton, in collaboration with McCartney. Hamilton's design was in stark contrast to Peter Blake's vivid cover art for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and consisted of a plain white sleeve. The band's name, in Helvetica,
The Beatles Among music critics, acclaim for the album was virtually universal. Gould writes: "Sgt. Pepper" was the first major pop/rock LP to include its complete lyrics, which appeared on the back cover. Those lyrics were the subject of critical analysis; for instance, in late 1967 the album was the subject of a scholarly inquiry by American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier, who observed that his students were "listening to the group's music with a degree of engagement that he, as a teacher of literature, could only envy". Poirier identified what he termed its "mixed allusiveness": "It's unwise ever