For one thing, it captured a place/era almost perfectly (as agreed by tons of people in that place/era - including fellow musicians).
Second, it has the height of maturity of what was considered the most important band of all time (and close to such as seen by both the critics and commercial success).
Third, it unarguably has considerable skill in several areas (melody, harmony, orchestration, playing, etc).
Fourth, it was largely influencial.
Fifth, most experts (critics, rock musicians, etc) agreed so for half a century.
Those things are enough to call it beautiful in mind book.
Just because we can't measure something (e.g. beauty here) with some technical instrument doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or people can't agree on it.
i was going for an explanation of how art and aesthetics are not purely subjective. and how one could arrive at the statement "semi-objective ranking". so im not arguing "Sgt. Pepper is beautiful" im arguing "there is objectivity in art therefore some art is better than other art" thus implying some form of objective "ranking". nonetheless, ill try to answer what makes something (in this case music) beautiful. there are many different explanations that converge on similar concepts/ideas.
in many traditions, ranging from Chinese philosophy to the ancient Greeks, beauty is associated with goodness, virtue, and truth. particularly of the Greeks, there was an emphasis on its relation to mathematics, namely proportion and symmetry. aesthetic considerations like symmetry/asymmetry, simplicity/complexity are utilized in mathematics, physics and cosmology to define truth (or lack thereof).
the Thomistic view is that:
A) beauty is a transcendental (a Platonic view)
and B)that there are 3 conditions:
1. integritas (wholeness, integrity, perfection)
2. consonatia (harmony and proportion)
3. claritas (radiance/clarity that makes apparent the form to the mind, analogous to processing fluency)
The definition of beauty thus converges on the idea that: something is beautiful when it is harmonious, complete, and clear. something beautiful is virtuous, good and true. you could also argue this as "in accordance with natural order" as the natural order is complete, clear, and harmonious (and thus beautiful). you could go further with this idea and argue that beauty is "of God" or "in accordance with God" or "in accordance with the Logos". but that is a different argument for a different time.
art is the field of human interest whose ideal is beauty. therefore, it follows that beautiful art is complete (has integrity, wholeness), is harmonious (perhaps in accordance with natural world i.e. proportions such as golden ratio, etc. this is not limiting), and is clear (the form is readily made apparent to the mind, i.e. high processing fluency, the information is easily processed)
Does Sgt. Pepper fit this criteria? Is it beautiful?
For one thing, it captured a place/era almost perfectly (as agreed by tons of people in that place/era - including fellow musicians).
Second, it has the height of maturity of what was considered the most important band of all time (and close to such as seen by both the critics and commercial success).
Third, it unarguably has considerable skill in several areas (melody, harmony, orchestration, playing, etc).
Fourth, it was largely influencial.
Fifth, most experts (critics, rock musicians, etc) agreed so for half a century.
Those things are enough to call it beautiful in mind book.
Just because we can't measure something (e.g. beauty here) with some technical instrument doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or people can't agree on it.