The double A-side single was issued by Capitol Records in the US on 13 February 1967 (as Capitol 5810), and by EMI's Parlophone label in the United Kingdom on 17 February (as Parlophone R 5570). Aside from the compilation album "A Collection of Beatles Oldies", issued in the UK but not the US, it was the first release by the Beatles since "Revolver" and their August 1966 single. It was also the first Beatles single in the UK to be presented in a picture sleeve. The front of the sleeve contained a studio photo that again demonstrated the band's adoption of facial hair; on the back cover were individual pictures of the four Beatles as infants, which heightened the connection to a Liverpool childhood. Recalling the reaction to the new single and the expectations it created for "Sgt. Pepper", music critic Greil Marcus later wrote: "If this extraordinary music was merely a taste of what The Beatles were up to, what would the album be like?" Comparing the two sides in his book "Electric Shock", Peter Doggett likens "Penny Lane" to pop art in its evoking "multifaceted substance out of the everyday", and describes "Strawberry Fields Forever" as art pop, "self-consciously excluding the mass audience".