The End Of The World At Coney Island

Folksinger and blogger Tom Russell won $60 at Del Mar (he bet on a horse named Modern Song) and went CD shopping. He bought Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs," Jimmy Webb's duets album, and the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." He writes:

My God. Have not listened to this in 20 years. I assumed it would sound like a dated psychedelic artifact. Naw. This is a record about loneliness, depression, age, death, suicide…masked in a circus-musico format. The end of the world at Coney Island, with raunch guitars, superb vocal arrangements, and gut wrenching singing. It’s the Beatles, of course. Unfair to compare them with anyone else. This was like finding a forgotten Van Gogh in the closet. The record was recorded on a four track tape machine 33 years ago. Where has our technology taken us? I would borrow from William S. Burroughs in inferring that modern digital technology may be leading us toward boredom and oblivion....