Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and "A Day in the Life". Producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick helped realise the group's ideas by approaching the studio as an instrument, applying orchestral overdubs, sound effects and other methods of tape manipulation. Recording was completed on 21 April 1967. The cover, depicting the Beatles posing in front of a tableau of celebrities and historical figures, was designed by the British pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. "Sgt. Pepper" is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the use of extended form in popular music while
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band publications from the cultural mainstream increasingly voiced their "ecstatic approbation toward the Beatles". The vast majority of contemporary reviews of "Sgt. Pepper" were positive, with the album receiving widespread critical acclaim. Schaffner said that the consensus was aptly summed up by Tom Phillips in "The Village Voice", when he called the LP "the most ambitious and most successful record album ever issued". Among Britain's pop press, Peter Jones of "Record Mirror" said the album was "truly fine ... clever and brilliant, from raucous to poignant and back again", while "Disc and Music Echo"s reviewer called it "a beautiful and potent