(Content adapted from Lauri Ulster’s “’Sgt. Pepper’ 50th Anniversary: The Making of a Rock Classic”)

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band spun the music industry on its heels. When the album came out, the public devoured it, the critics raved, and other musicians stopped in their tracks, recognizing that the game had changed forever.

When you break it down into its individual songs, there is the usual mix of masterpieces, gems, and lesser songs—within the context of still being the Beatles, which means even the lesser songs impress—but there’s something that happened when the Beatles, the time period, the studio, and the people who worked on the album came together. Much like the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, and the Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starr combination, there was alchemy at play, and the result woke up the music industry to the fact that new creative frontiers were possible, and could still be commercial as hell.

Love it or not, the album was groundbreaking. Let’s take a closer look at the elements that brought it all together, starting with:

The Studio
By the mid-sixties, The Beatles—who’d initially been turned down by every record label in town—ruled over Abbey Road studios. They couldn’t control things like the drab décor or the painfully rough toilet paper—okay, they did eventually get that changed, after much protest—but they could put the studio and its staff on hold, and wander in and out as they pleased. They’d set session times for 7:00 p.m. but show up hours later. They’d have nothing scheduled, but suddenly call everybody up and tell them to come in. They’d use whatever instruments were around, fight for the padlock to be taken off the fridge so they’d still have access to it in the wee hours of the morning, and record whenever the inspiration struck, working on individual songs, tracks, or even simple riffs for as long as it took to get the sound just right. Anyone who signed on to work with them knew that their hours would be long and completely unpredictable, but incredibly rewarding.

They filled the studio up with other musicians, friends, and artists. When George Martin brought in half an orchestra for “A Day in the Life,” the Beatles asked for them to come in “evening dress,” and they did the same, although their version of it involved, as Martin described them, “outrageously flamboyant floral costumes.” McCartney showed up in a full-length red cook’s apron.

That was the atmosphere, but the studio’s technology was the other important piece of Abbey Road’s creative puzzle. At that time, producers only had four tracks available to work with, and every time they transferred the recording to another tape, they sacrificed some of the quality. The constant improvisation needed to move beyond the restraints of the era spurred the Beatles, along with producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick, to new creative heights as they found innovative and strange ways to get to what they were after. That spirit of experimentation is as much a part of the album as the tracks themselves.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Once, long ago, in a land far away, there lived four little characters who ran through a maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy. Two were mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry” and two were little people; beings who were as small as mice but who looked and acted a lot like people today. Their names were “Hem” and “Haw”. Due to their small size, it would be easy not to notice what the four of them were doing but if you looked closely enough, you could discover the most amazing things. Every day the mice and the little people spent time in the maze looking for their own special cheese. The mice, “Sniff” and “Scurry”, possessing simple brains and good instincts, searched for the hard nibbling cheese they liked, as mice often do. The little people, “Hem” and “Haw” used their complex brains filled with many beliefs and emotions to search for a very different kind of cheese, with a capital C, which they believed which they believed would make them feel happy and successful.

In an all-out effort to clean up the city’s streets, San Francisco’s public works department inaugurated operation scrub-down. Three times a day, city workers move through a 30-block area, cleaning the pavement with high-pressure hoses, rousting squatters and taking away shopping carts filled with refuse and personal belongings.

Operation scrub down is the brainchild of Mohammed Nuru, a Nigerian who worked for years as an advocate for San Francisco’s homeless and who says he believes you don’t help people by encouraging them to live on the streets. Nuru says his crews remove between 200 and 500 carts from the streets every day.

John Viola, a civil right attorney for the “coalition of the homeless,” says the numbers are nothing to cheer about. But Nuru objects when Viola talks about the carts and possessions as confiscated property, and claims that only abandoned carts are removed from the streets and sidewalks where they present a safety hazard.

In an all-out effort to clean up the city’s streets, San Francisco’s public works department inaugurated operation scrub-down. Three times a day, city workers move through a 30-block area, cleaning the pavement with high-pressure hoses, rousting squatters and taking away shopping carts filled with refuse and personal belongings.

Operation scrub down is the brainchild of Mohammed Nuru, a Nigerian who worked for years as an advocate for San Francisco’s homeless and who says he believes you don’t help people by encouraging them to live on the streets. Nuru says his crews remove between 200 and 500 carts from the streets every day.

John Viola, a civil rights attorney for the “coalition of the homeless,” says the numbers are nothing to cheer about. But Nuru objects when Viola talks about the carts and possessions as confiscated property, and claims that only abandoned carts are removed from the streets and sidewalks where they present a safety hazard.

The denizens of London’s East End; Jack London called them the people of the abyss, “poor miserable human beings clinging to the garbage heap of life.” Against this backdrop would be played one the most provocative unsolved crimes of the 19th century. Investigations continue to this day with growing evidence that while Jack the Ripper’s victims were from England’s lowest class, his deeds directly affected many of the most powerful people in the world.

Many women feel uncomfortable with blatant displays of power. Traditionally, women have been the “power behind the throne” so wielding it publicly can be frightening. To address and overcome that fear, learn to recognize the difference between “good” and “bad” power. The former allows you to stick up for yourself and fulfill your needs; the latter is used to manipulate and control others.

There was a time when Pink thought Madonna was her mother. Right before her first album came out, Pink said she didn’t talk to her real, non-Madonna mom for almost a year when she was younger because she was convinced she was adopted. And while she has since accepted that she was not born of a pop star royal, she just might become one on her own, without the benefit of special blood. She made some noise on the scene in 2000 with her debut, “Can’t Take Me Home,” which introduced the world to a fiery, neon-haired “white girl who sings like a black girl.” It was when she put on garters and a top hat for the smash remake of “Lady Marmalade,” though, that people started to say her name at the dinner table. And now that she’s got everyone’s attention, she’s ready to show them what she’s got — and that doesn’t include a large collection of booty shorts.

Alecia Beth Moore, otherwise known as Pink or P!nk, grew up convinced she was adopted. She believed Madonna was her mother and didn’t speak to her real mom for almost a year. Although she now accepts she was not the royal daughter of a pop star, she does think it’s possible to become one on her own, even without a lineage. In 2000 she caught some attention with “Can’t Take Me Home,” her debut album. She burst on the scene as a neon-haired fiery “white girl who sings like a black girl.” For the remake of “Lady Marmalade,” she performed in garters and a top hat, and her unique style made her a household name. Now she has the world’s attention, and we’re ready to see what she does next, without psychedelic booty shorts.

“Snow Falling on Cedars” transcends the viewers to a magical world with its heartbreaking love story. Critics review it as haunting and beautifully crafter visual masterpiece. Snow Falling on Cedars. Rated PG-13. Starts Friday everywhere.