It's a little late for a damning review but nearly half a century after the release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Keith Richard has denounced The Beatles' celebrated album as "rubbish".

The guitarist for the Rolling Stones told Esquire magazine that the Fab Four "sounded great" when they stayed true to their original sound but "got carried away."

"Why not? If you're The Beatles in the '60s, you just get carried away - you forget what it is you wanted to do," he said."Some people think Sgt. Pepper is a genius album, but I think it's a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties."

Keith Richards performing with the Rolling Stones in 2015 Credit: AP

He was referring to "Their Satanic Majesties Request," the Stones' psychedelic album that came out in 1967 shortly after Sgt. Pepper and which Richards has previously described as the Stones' work of which he is least proud.

The Beatles took almost six months to make Sgt. Pepper and John Lennon said at the time: "It had to be just right. We tried and I think succeeded in achieving what we set out to do."

Richards's verdict is provocative, to say the least. The album has touching ballads (She's Leaving Home) dreamy psychedelia (A Day in the Life) music-hall humour (When I'm 64) and it showed the songwriting prowess of Lennon and McCartney's songwriting. George Martin's production utilised classical instruments and eight-track technology and it featured Peter Blake's memorable album artwork.



The Beatles Credit: Rex Features/Rex Features

Telegraph Rock Critic Neil McCormick gave it five stars and said: "It is impossible to overstate its impact: from a contemporary Sixties perspective it was utterly mind-blowing and original. Looking back from a point when its sonic innovations have been integrated into the mainstream, it remains a wonky, colourful and wildly improbable pop classic, although a little slighter and less cohesive than it may have seemed at the time.

"Some songs, such as Lovely Rita, When I’m 64, Good Morning, Good Morning, Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite and Harrison’s dour, droning Within You Without You, seem undernourished excuses on which to hang florid ideas. But the title track is an improbable scorcher, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds a glittering gem, Fixing a Hole and She’s Leaving Home lovely chamber pieces, and the concluding A Day in the Life one of the strangest and most beautiful recordings ever, an inner-space odyssey juxtaposing Lennon’s ethereal surrealism with McCartney’s prosaic energy and wrapping it all up in an apocalyptic orchestral climax."

Next month, Richards releases Crosseyed Heart, his first solo album in 23 years.