SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
Parlophone PMCO 7027 (MONO) / PCSO 7027 (STEREO)
Parlophone PMCO 7027 (MONO) / PCSO 7027 (STEREO)
LAST UPDATED: 20 AUGUST 2026
YELLOW/BLACK mono
AU7027M1
10 Aug 1967
AU7027M1
10 Aug 1967
'BANNER' STEREO
AU7027S1
10 Aug 1967
AU7027S1
10 Aug 1967
YELLOW/BLACK stereo
AU7027S3
Feb 1969
AU7027S3
Feb 1969
ORANGE 1-BOX A
AU7027S5A
Q3 1969
AU7027S5A
Q3 1969
ORANGE 1-BOX B
AU7027S5B
Oct 1978
AU7027S5B
Oct 1978
ORANGE 1-BOX C
AU7027S5C
1979
AU7027S5C
1979
NZ DK GREY 1-BOX A
AU7027S4C
1981
AU7027S4C
1981
BLACK 1-BOX A
AU7027S6A
Apr 1982
AU7027S6A
Apr 1982
AUDIOPHILE AUDIO-5
AUAUDIO5a
Jul 1983
AUAUDIO5a
Jul 1983
BLACK 1-BOX B
AU7027S6B
Jul 1987
AU7027S6B
Jul 1987
MATRIX INFORMATION
Machine Stamped - Hand Written
Machine Stamped - Hand Written
| FORMAT | RELEASE DATE | SIDE 1 MATRIX | SIDE 2 MATRIX | PARTS |
| MONO | 10 Aug 1967 | XEX 637-1 | XEX 638-1 | UK |
| STEREO | 10 Aug 1967 | YEX 637-1 | YEX 638-1 | UK |
| STEREO | 25 Oct 1982 | YEX 637-1 | YEX 638-2 OR | UK/AU |
| STEREO | 25 Oct 1982 | YEX 637-2 OR | YEX 638-2 OR | AU |
| STEREO | 1 Jul 1983 | AUDIO 5-A -3 DB | AUDIO-5-B DB | AU* |
| STEREO | 1 Jun 1987 | PCSO-7027-A AMX-67841-YEX-638 W2B |
PCSO-7027 AMX-67842 W2C |
AU** |
| STEREO | 1 Jun 1987 | PCSO-7027-A AMX-67841-YEX-638 W2B2 |
PCSO-7027 AMX-67842 W2C |
AU** |
| STEREO | 1 Jun 1987 | PCSO-7027-A AMX-67841-YEX-638 W2B2 |
PCSO-7027 AMX-67842 W2C2 |
AU** |
| STEREO | Aug 1987 | PCSO-7027-A AMX-67841-YEX-638 W2B |
PCSO-7027 AMX-67842 W2 |
AU** |
| STEREO | Aug 1987 | PSCO 7027-A AMX-67841 YEX-638 W2B |
PCSO 7027-B1 AMX-67842 YEX-639 W2C |
AU** |
| STEREO | Aug 1987 | PCSO-7027-A AMX-67841-YEX-63 |
PCSO-7027B AMX-67842 W2C YEX 638 |
AU** |
| STEREO | Aug 1987 | YEX 637-2 OR | PCSO-7027B AMX-67842 W2C YEX 638 |
AU |
| STEREO | 14 Nov 1988 | PCSO 7027 D-A | PCSO 7027 D-B | AU |
| * Masters created for extremely limited 1983 AUDIOPHILE reissue. ** Masters/mothers created for 1987 red vinyl reissue; cut at Festival Records by Warren Barnett as EMI did not have the wherewithal to press coloured vinyl. Some audiophiles insist that this pressing is every bit the sonic/aural equal of the 1983 AUDIOPHILE pressing. The mothers continued to be used by EMI (Australia) after the coloured vinyl run was completed, until being replaced by the digital remasters in late 1988. |
||||
SLEEVE INFORMATION
| ORIGIN | CODE | CIRCULATED | SLEEVE DETAILS |
| UK | UK1 | Jul 1967 | Imported UK mono g/fold sleeve; wide spine; "Patents Pending"; cutout sheet and "Fool" inner sleeve |
| UK | UK2 | Jul 1967 | Imported UK stereo sleeve; wide spine; cutout sheet and "Fool" inner sleeve |
| UK | UK3 | 1968 | Imported UK mono sleeve; normal spine; cutout sheet and "Fool" inner sleeve |
| UK | UK4 | 1968 | Imported UK stereo sleeve; normal spine; cutout sheet and "Fool" inner sleeve |
| UK | UK5 | Mar 1969 | Same as UK4, but with black/white STEREO sticker affixed top left |
| AUST | AU1 | Dec 1969 | Single-pocket; no cutout sheet or "Fool" inner sleeve; early sleeves laminated, then unlaminated |
| AUST | AU2 | 1979 | Similar to AU1 but with different footer text on rear sleeve |
| AUST | AU3 | Jul 1987 | G/fold with cutout sheet. Rear-cover footer manufacture credits at right |
| AUST | AU4 | Nov 1988 | G/fold with cutout sheet; "DIGITALLY REMASTERED" footer on rear cover; rear-cover footer manufacture credits at left, with larger 'EMI' logo than AU3 |
GENERAL ALBUM INFORMATION
In early May 1967, EMI UK despatched 50,000 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeves to EMI (Australia), together with an indeterminate number intended for HMV (New Zealand)—anecdotally, somewhere around another 5,000. EMI (Australia) had decided to import the British sleeves because the cost of reproducing the elaborate gatefold package locally was simply too prohibitive.
Unfortunately, the shipment coincided with heightening tensions in the Middle East. The ship carrying the sleeves was redirected around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly another eighteen days to the voyage and effectively ending any chance of the album appearing in Australia during June.
The original intention had been for Sgt. Pepper's to become the first Beatles album released around the world on the same date. Even that ambitious plan unravelled before the Australian shipping problem arose, with EMI UK jumping its own gun and rush-releasing the album ahead of the intended 1 June 1967 date. For Australia, however, the delay was considerably more substantial.
For whatever reason, HMV (New Zealand) subsequently decided to forfeit its allocation of British sleeves and manufacture its own locally. New Zealand's notoriously tight import restrictions most likely played a part. Whatever the reason, the unused New Zealand allocation ended up in Australia, supplementing EMI (Australia)'s original shipment.
The delay meant that Australian review copies did not begin reaching the press until the end of July, although some reviewers had already managed to obtain British copies independently. Meanwhile, Northern Songs—the local publisher for all of the album's tracks—instructed the Australian Performing Rights Association to restrict performance of all twelve tracks until 27 July.
The restrictions were followed by a major national promotional campaign. Beginning on 31 July, EMI (Australia) staged "Beatles Week", supporting the album with dealer displays and nationwide television, radio and press competitions.
Contemporary press announcements pointed to a 28 July 1967 release, but surviving official EMI documentation lists 10 August 1967 as the Australian release date.
Whatever uncertainty surrounds the exact day copies first reached individual shops, sales were substantial. Within a few months EMI (Australia) was already close to exhausting its initial supply of imported covers and requested a further shipment from Britain. By February 1968, Sgt. Pepper's had sold around 80,000 copies in Australia, all of them housed in imported UK sleeves.
It appears to have been this second shipment that included a number of the distinctive German-made candy-striped inner sleeves occasionally found in Australian copies, although that conclusion is based on surviving examples, research and observation rather than definitive EMI documentation. The imported British outer sleeves continued to be used into 1969, and there may have been a further shipment after the second batch—the surviving EMI records are somewhat ambiguous on the point.
When stocks of stereo sleeves finally ran out in February 1969, EMI (Australia) began using up its remaining mono sleeves for stereo copies rather than waste them. It was not until December 1969 that the company introduced its first locally manufactured Sgt. Pepper's sleeve, replacing the elaborate British gatefold with a much simpler single-pocket design. As was so often the case with EMI (Australia)'s warehousing practices, the change was not instantaneous: imported and locally manufactured sleeves continued to appear alongside one another into early 1970.
One particularly interesting consequence of Australia's reliance on imported British packaging is the prevalence of the so-called 'widespine' sleeve, identifiable in part by the "Patents Pending" wording on the rear. In Britain the widespine is an uncommon and highly prized variation, with collectors prepared to pay hundreds of pounds for a good example. In Australia, however, it is actually the most commonly encountered original sleeve variation and examples can sometimes be found for as little as AU$40—less than £20.
Sgt. Pepper's also achieved the unusual distinction of appearing on Australian singles charts. It reached #12 in Perth, remaining on that chart for nine weeks, and #40 on the nationally compiled Go-Set chart, where it appeared for two weeks.
The album received another significant burst of attention in 1978 with the release of Michael Schultz's film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. EMI (Australia) mounted a national promotion around the film, releasing a related single—see "A-12000" under the "Singles" menu option—and importing the Sgt. Pepper's picture-disc album from EMI UK. The renewed publicity carried the Beatles album back into the Australian charts in September, where it reached #30 and remained for 15 weeks.
1983 AUDIOPHILE PRESSING
This release demands its own page! For more information please visit the "Audiophile Pressing" page and the "30ips Production Master Tape" page.
1987 RED VINYL EDITION
By 1987, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was approaching its twentieth anniversary at precisely the same time that the record industry was undergoing one of its greatest technological changes since the introduction of the LP. The compact disc (CD) was rapidly moving from expensive audiophile novelty to mainstream format, yet the Beatles catalogue—arguably the most anticipated catalogue of all—had remained conspicuously absent.
That changed during 1987, when EMI began releasing the Beatles albums on CD in stages. Sgt. Pepper's was deliberately scheduled for 1 June, the date traditionally regarded as the album's twentieth anniversary, and was given particular prominence in the campaign. Internationally, EMI went so far as to promote it as "the most important record ever released on compact disc".
There was, however, a certain irony in celebrating twenty years "to the day". The original 1967 plan had indeed been for Sgt. Pepper's to appear internationally on 1 June, but Australia had missed that date by more than two months. So when EMI (Australia) released the CD and a special red-vinyl edition on 1 June 1987, it was effectively commemorating the date on which Australians should have received the album twenty years earlier.
This time, Australia was ready.
By the end of release day, all 15,000 imported CDs had reportedly been sold—an Australian record at the time—forcing EMI (Australia) to hurriedly arrange further supplies from Britain. The extraordinary response demonstrated both the enduring appeal of Sgt. Pepper's and just how quickly the CD had established itself. The Beatles' arrival on CD had been heavily anticipated throughout the first half of 1987, and Sgt. Pepper's, with its irresistible "It was twenty years ago today" marketing hook, became the natural centrepiece of the campaign.
EMI (Australia) also wanted to give vinyl buyers something special. Alongside the CD, it decided to release a limited-edition LP pressed on red vinyl—a colourful anniversary gesture at the very moment when the traditional black-vinyl LP was beginning to surrender its dominance to digital technology.
There was one problem: EMI (Australia) was not inclined to manufacture the coloured pressing itself. The company had traditionally regarded coloured vinyl as inferior to conventional black vinyl and was reluctant to compromise its manufacturing standards for such a prestigious release. Instead, it contracted the job to one of its major domestic rivals, Festival Records, which had considerably greater experience with coloured vinyl and picture discs.
Festival had been established in Sydney on 21 October 1952, following the acquisition and combination of Microgroove Australia—one of the country's early vinyl microgroove pressing operations—and Casper Precision Engineering. Acquired by News Limited in 1961, Festival developed into one of Australia's most important independent record companies and competed directly with EMI (Australia) in both record manufacture and distribution. By 1987 it had more than three decades of pressing experience behind it and had been experimenting with 12-inch coloured vinyl and picture discs since the late 1970s. EMI (Australia) handing one of the year's most prestigious Beatles releases to a major competitor was therefore unusual, but Festival was particularly well equipped for the task.
The mastering assignment went to Festival engineer Warren Barnett, conveniently a huge Beatles fan. Barnett's association with EMI (Australia) and the Beatles was not new: between 1972 and 1974 he had worked at EMI (Australia), where some of the first records he mastered included Beatles solo releases. Fifteen years later, he found himself preparing one of the Beatles' most celebrated albums for its twentieth-anniversary edition.
Rather than simply reuse EMI's existing Australian metal parts, Barnett created an entirely new set of half-speed masters. More importantly, he was supplied with the same 30ips production master tapes that Don Bartley had used four years earlier to create EMI (Australia)'s now legendary 1983 AUDIOPHILE edition. Multiple mothers and stampers were subsequently produced and numbered at Festival; the known variations are listed in the "Matrix Information" table above. For more information about the source tapes themselves, please visit the "30ips Production Master Tape" page.
Demand for the red LP appears to have caught EMI (Australia) by surprise. EMI (Australia) A&R Manager Rob Walker reported strong sales almost immediately, prompting an additional pressing run within the first week or so. In total, Festival pressed just over 9,000 copies of Sgt. Pepper's on coloured vinyl. The actual colour varied noticeably from batch to batch, with some of the earliest copies appearing distinctly pink rather than the deeper red normally associated with the release.
The discs themselves carried standard EMI (Australia) labels, while the earliest copies were housed in the familiar locally manufactured single-pocket sleeve that had been used since the end of the 1960s. Each carried a sticker on the front announcing "SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION IN COLOURED VINYL", with at least three different sticker variations now known. Please visit the "Coloured Vinyl" page for more information.
At the same time, however, EMI (Australia) was preparing something Australian collectors had waited almost twenty years to see: a locally manufactured gatefold sleeve. The twentieth-anniversary campaign finally gave EMI (Australia) the opportunity to put that right.
There is evidence that the new Australian gatefolds may already have been available by the 1 June 1987 launch, but EMI (Australia) appears to have followed its longstanding practice of using up existing packaging before introducing the replacement. The transition can actually be glimpsed on television. During the 'Humdrum' segment of 'Countdown', broadcast on 31 May 1987, Molly Meldrum displayed the forthcoming red-vinyl album in a single-pocket sleeve but, intriguingly, with the familiar Sgt. Pepper's cut-out insert inside. The full segment can be viewed below.
Whether Meldrum had been given a specially assembled promotional copy is unknown, although commercial single-sleeve copies containing the insert are also known to exist.
As the first batches sold through and the remaining supply of single sleeves was consumed, the new Australian gatefold gradually entered circulation. By July 1987, midway through the coloured-vinyl run, it had become the standard packaging. Two distinct versions of the anniversary LP therefore exist: earlier copies in the older single-pocket sleeve and later examples in the newly manufactured gatefold, the latter also including the cut-out sheet.
Far from being merely an anniversary novelty, the new gatefold remained the standard Australian Sgt. Pepper's sleeve until EMI (Australia) ceased pressing vinyl records in late 1990.
The enormous publicity surrounding both the twentieth anniversary and the Beatles' long-awaited arrival on CD propelled Sgt. Pepper's back up the Australian charts. The reissue reached #4 and remained on the chart for 21 weeks, although the majority of those sales were almost certainly generated by the CD rather than the comparatively limited coloured-vinyl pressing.
The Festival mastering, however, did not disappear when the red vinyl did.
After the coloured-vinyl run was completed, EMI (Australia) continued to use Festival's masters for subsequent black-vinyl pressings, creating one of the more interesting—and frequently overlooked—Australian Sgt. Pepper's variations. At some later point EMI (Australia) reverted side 1 to Otto Ruiter's 1982 -2 cut, while continuing to use Festival-derived metal parts on side 2, resulting in a hybrid matrix combination.
Those Festival-era parts remained in circulation until the end of 1988, when EMI (Australia) introduced new digitally sourced masters cut by Allan Parsons over the 12/13 November 1988 weekend.
Sonically, Warren Barnett's Festival mastering has acquired a reputation far beyond what might normally have been expected from what was, on the surface, a novelty coloured-vinyl anniversary release. Because Barnett worked from the same 30ips production masters used by Don Bartley for the 1983 AUDIOPHILE pressing, comparisons between the two are inevitable.
To these ears, the Festival cut sounds every bit as accomplished as the AUDIOPHILE edition. The latter has somewhat fuller bass, perhaps reflecting the freedom Don Bartley was given to EQ the recording to taste. Whether Warren Barnett was afforded the same latitude is unknown. If he was instructed to stay closer to the tape, however, it could reasonably be argued that the Festival mastering offers a slightly more literal representation of the production masters.
Whichever version one prefers, the comparison has given the 1987 Festival cut an enviable reputation among collectors. With the extraordinarily scarce 1983 AUDIOPHILE edition now commanding around $2,000, while a good red-vinyl Festival pressing can still be found for roughly $100—and later black-vinyl copies using the same mastering for considerably less—the 1987 cut has deservedly earned its reputation as the "poor man's audiophile version."
Unfortunately, the shipment coincided with heightening tensions in the Middle East. The ship carrying the sleeves was redirected around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly another eighteen days to the voyage and effectively ending any chance of the album appearing in Australia during June.
The original intention had been for Sgt. Pepper's to become the first Beatles album released around the world on the same date. Even that ambitious plan unravelled before the Australian shipping problem arose, with EMI UK jumping its own gun and rush-releasing the album ahead of the intended 1 June 1967 date. For Australia, however, the delay was considerably more substantial.
For whatever reason, HMV (New Zealand) subsequently decided to forfeit its allocation of British sleeves and manufacture its own locally. New Zealand's notoriously tight import restrictions most likely played a part. Whatever the reason, the unused New Zealand allocation ended up in Australia, supplementing EMI (Australia)'s original shipment.
The delay meant that Australian review copies did not begin reaching the press until the end of July, although some reviewers had already managed to obtain British copies independently. Meanwhile, Northern Songs—the local publisher for all of the album's tracks—instructed the Australian Performing Rights Association to restrict performance of all twelve tracks until 27 July.
The restrictions were followed by a major national promotional campaign. Beginning on 31 July, EMI (Australia) staged "Beatles Week", supporting the album with dealer displays and nationwide television, radio and press competitions.
Contemporary press announcements pointed to a 28 July 1967 release, but surviving official EMI documentation lists 10 August 1967 as the Australian release date.
Whatever uncertainty surrounds the exact day copies first reached individual shops, sales were substantial. Within a few months EMI (Australia) was already close to exhausting its initial supply of imported covers and requested a further shipment from Britain. By February 1968, Sgt. Pepper's had sold around 80,000 copies in Australia, all of them housed in imported UK sleeves.
It appears to have been this second shipment that included a number of the distinctive German-made candy-striped inner sleeves occasionally found in Australian copies, although that conclusion is based on surviving examples, research and observation rather than definitive EMI documentation. The imported British outer sleeves continued to be used into 1969, and there may have been a further shipment after the second batch—the surviving EMI records are somewhat ambiguous on the point.
When stocks of stereo sleeves finally ran out in February 1969, EMI (Australia) began using up its remaining mono sleeves for stereo copies rather than waste them. It was not until December 1969 that the company introduced its first locally manufactured Sgt. Pepper's sleeve, replacing the elaborate British gatefold with a much simpler single-pocket design. As was so often the case with EMI (Australia)'s warehousing practices, the change was not instantaneous: imported and locally manufactured sleeves continued to appear alongside one another into early 1970.
One particularly interesting consequence of Australia's reliance on imported British packaging is the prevalence of the so-called 'widespine' sleeve, identifiable in part by the "Patents Pending" wording on the rear. In Britain the widespine is an uncommon and highly prized variation, with collectors prepared to pay hundreds of pounds for a good example. In Australia, however, it is actually the most commonly encountered original sleeve variation and examples can sometimes be found for as little as AU$40—less than £20.
Sgt. Pepper's also achieved the unusual distinction of appearing on Australian singles charts. It reached #12 in Perth, remaining on that chart for nine weeks, and #40 on the nationally compiled Go-Set chart, where it appeared for two weeks.
The album received another significant burst of attention in 1978 with the release of Michael Schultz's film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. EMI (Australia) mounted a national promotion around the film, releasing a related single—see "A-12000" under the "Singles" menu option—and importing the Sgt. Pepper's picture-disc album from EMI UK. The renewed publicity carried the Beatles album back into the Australian charts in September, where it reached #30 and remained for 15 weeks.
1983 AUDIOPHILE PRESSING
This release demands its own page! For more information please visit the "Audiophile Pressing" page and the "30ips Production Master Tape" page.
1987 RED VINYL EDITION
By 1987, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was approaching its twentieth anniversary at precisely the same time that the record industry was undergoing one of its greatest technological changes since the introduction of the LP. The compact disc (CD) was rapidly moving from expensive audiophile novelty to mainstream format, yet the Beatles catalogue—arguably the most anticipated catalogue of all—had remained conspicuously absent.
That changed during 1987, when EMI began releasing the Beatles albums on CD in stages. Sgt. Pepper's was deliberately scheduled for 1 June, the date traditionally regarded as the album's twentieth anniversary, and was given particular prominence in the campaign. Internationally, EMI went so far as to promote it as "the most important record ever released on compact disc".
There was, however, a certain irony in celebrating twenty years "to the day". The original 1967 plan had indeed been for Sgt. Pepper's to appear internationally on 1 June, but Australia had missed that date by more than two months. So when EMI (Australia) released the CD and a special red-vinyl edition on 1 June 1987, it was effectively commemorating the date on which Australians should have received the album twenty years earlier.
This time, Australia was ready.
By the end of release day, all 15,000 imported CDs had reportedly been sold—an Australian record at the time—forcing EMI (Australia) to hurriedly arrange further supplies from Britain. The extraordinary response demonstrated both the enduring appeal of Sgt. Pepper's and just how quickly the CD had established itself. The Beatles' arrival on CD had been heavily anticipated throughout the first half of 1987, and Sgt. Pepper's, with its irresistible "It was twenty years ago today" marketing hook, became the natural centrepiece of the campaign.
EMI (Australia) also wanted to give vinyl buyers something special. Alongside the CD, it decided to release a limited-edition LP pressed on red vinyl—a colourful anniversary gesture at the very moment when the traditional black-vinyl LP was beginning to surrender its dominance to digital technology.
There was one problem: EMI (Australia) was not inclined to manufacture the coloured pressing itself. The company had traditionally regarded coloured vinyl as inferior to conventional black vinyl and was reluctant to compromise its manufacturing standards for such a prestigious release. Instead, it contracted the job to one of its major domestic rivals, Festival Records, which had considerably greater experience with coloured vinyl and picture discs.
Festival had been established in Sydney on 21 October 1952, following the acquisition and combination of Microgroove Australia—one of the country's early vinyl microgroove pressing operations—and Casper Precision Engineering. Acquired by News Limited in 1961, Festival developed into one of Australia's most important independent record companies and competed directly with EMI (Australia) in both record manufacture and distribution. By 1987 it had more than three decades of pressing experience behind it and had been experimenting with 12-inch coloured vinyl and picture discs since the late 1970s. EMI (Australia) handing one of the year's most prestigious Beatles releases to a major competitor was therefore unusual, but Festival was particularly well equipped for the task.
The mastering assignment went to Festival engineer Warren Barnett, conveniently a huge Beatles fan. Barnett's association with EMI (Australia) and the Beatles was not new: between 1972 and 1974 he had worked at EMI (Australia), where some of the first records he mastered included Beatles solo releases. Fifteen years later, he found himself preparing one of the Beatles' most celebrated albums for its twentieth-anniversary edition.
Rather than simply reuse EMI's existing Australian metal parts, Barnett created an entirely new set of half-speed masters. More importantly, he was supplied with the same 30ips production master tapes that Don Bartley had used four years earlier to create EMI (Australia)'s now legendary 1983 AUDIOPHILE edition. Multiple mothers and stampers were subsequently produced and numbered at Festival; the known variations are listed in the "Matrix Information" table above. For more information about the source tapes themselves, please visit the "30ips Production Master Tape" page.
Demand for the red LP appears to have caught EMI (Australia) by surprise. EMI (Australia) A&R Manager Rob Walker reported strong sales almost immediately, prompting an additional pressing run within the first week or so. In total, Festival pressed just over 9,000 copies of Sgt. Pepper's on coloured vinyl. The actual colour varied noticeably from batch to batch, with some of the earliest copies appearing distinctly pink rather than the deeper red normally associated with the release.
The discs themselves carried standard EMI (Australia) labels, while the earliest copies were housed in the familiar locally manufactured single-pocket sleeve that had been used since the end of the 1960s. Each carried a sticker on the front announcing "SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION IN COLOURED VINYL", with at least three different sticker variations now known. Please visit the "Coloured Vinyl" page for more information.
At the same time, however, EMI (Australia) was preparing something Australian collectors had waited almost twenty years to see: a locally manufactured gatefold sleeve. The twentieth-anniversary campaign finally gave EMI (Australia) the opportunity to put that right.
There is evidence that the new Australian gatefolds may already have been available by the 1 June 1987 launch, but EMI (Australia) appears to have followed its longstanding practice of using up existing packaging before introducing the replacement. The transition can actually be glimpsed on television. During the 'Humdrum' segment of 'Countdown', broadcast on 31 May 1987, Molly Meldrum displayed the forthcoming red-vinyl album in a single-pocket sleeve but, intriguingly, with the familiar Sgt. Pepper's cut-out insert inside. The full segment can be viewed below.
Whether Meldrum had been given a specially assembled promotional copy is unknown, although commercial single-sleeve copies containing the insert are also known to exist.
As the first batches sold through and the remaining supply of single sleeves was consumed, the new Australian gatefold gradually entered circulation. By July 1987, midway through the coloured-vinyl run, it had become the standard packaging. Two distinct versions of the anniversary LP therefore exist: earlier copies in the older single-pocket sleeve and later examples in the newly manufactured gatefold, the latter also including the cut-out sheet.
Far from being merely an anniversary novelty, the new gatefold remained the standard Australian Sgt. Pepper's sleeve until EMI (Australia) ceased pressing vinyl records in late 1990.
The enormous publicity surrounding both the twentieth anniversary and the Beatles' long-awaited arrival on CD propelled Sgt. Pepper's back up the Australian charts. The reissue reached #4 and remained on the chart for 21 weeks, although the majority of those sales were almost certainly generated by the CD rather than the comparatively limited coloured-vinyl pressing.
The Festival mastering, however, did not disappear when the red vinyl did.
After the coloured-vinyl run was completed, EMI (Australia) continued to use Festival's masters for subsequent black-vinyl pressings, creating one of the more interesting—and frequently overlooked—Australian Sgt. Pepper's variations. At some later point EMI (Australia) reverted side 1 to Otto Ruiter's 1982 -2 cut, while continuing to use Festival-derived metal parts on side 2, resulting in a hybrid matrix combination.
Those Festival-era parts remained in circulation until the end of 1988, when EMI (Australia) introduced new digitally sourced masters cut by Allan Parsons over the 12/13 November 1988 weekend.
Sonically, Warren Barnett's Festival mastering has acquired a reputation far beyond what might normally have been expected from what was, on the surface, a novelty coloured-vinyl anniversary release. Because Barnett worked from the same 30ips production masters used by Don Bartley for the 1983 AUDIOPHILE pressing, comparisons between the two are inevitable.
To these ears, the Festival cut sounds every bit as accomplished as the AUDIOPHILE edition. The latter has somewhat fuller bass, perhaps reflecting the freedom Don Bartley was given to EQ the recording to taste. Whether Warren Barnett was afforded the same latitude is unknown. If he was instructed to stay closer to the tape, however, it could reasonably be argued that the Festival mastering offers a slightly more literal representation of the production masters.
Whichever version one prefers, the comparison has given the 1987 Festival cut an enviable reputation among collectors. With the extraordinarily scarce 1983 AUDIOPHILE edition now commanding around $2,000, while a good red-vinyl Festival pressing can still be found for roughly $100—and later black-vinyl copies using the same mastering for considerably less—the 1987 cut has deservedly earned its reputation as the "poor man's audiophile version."