IN: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26 May 1967 in the United Kingdom and 2 June 1967 in the United States, it was an immediate commercial and critical success, spending 27 weeks at the top of the UK albums chart and 15 weeks at number one in the US. On release, the album was lauded by the vast majority of critics for its innovations in music production, songwriting and graphic design, for bridging a cultural divide between popular music and high art, and for providing a musical representation of its generation and the contemporary counterculture.

In November 1966, during a return flight to London from Kenya, where he had been on holiday with Beatles tour manager Mal Evans, McCartney had an idea for a song that eventually formed the impetus of the Sgt. Pepper concept. His idea involved an Edwardian-era military band, for which Evans invented a name in the style of contemporary San Francisco-based groups such as Big Brother and the Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service. In February 1967, McCartney suggested that the Beatles should record an entire album that would represent a performance by the fictional band. This alter ego group would give them the freedom to experiment musically. He explained: "I thought, let's not be ourselves. Let's develop alter egos." Martin remembered: "Sergeant Pepper" itself didn't appear until halfway through making the album. It was Paul's song, just an ordinary rock number ... but when we had finished it, Paul said, "Why don't we make the album as though the Pepper band really existed, as though Sergeant Pepper was making the record? We'll dub in effects and things." I loved the idea, and from that moment on it was as though Pepper had a life of its own. In 1966, the American musician and bandleader Brian Wilson's growing interest in the aesthetics of recording and his admiration for both record producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and the Beatles' album Rubber Soul resulted in the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds LP, which demonstrated his production expertise and his mastery of composition and arrangement. The author Thomas MacFarlane credits the release with influencing many musicians of the time, with McCartney in particular singing its praises and drawing inspiration to "expand the focus of the Beatles' work with sounds and textures not usually associated with popular music". McCartney thought that his constant playing of the album made it difficult for Lennon to "escape the influence", adding: "It's very cleverly done ... so we were inspired by it and nicked a few ideas." Martin stated: "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened ... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds." Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention has also been cited as having influenced Sgt. Pepper. According to the author Philip Norman, during the Sgt. Pepper recording sessions McCartney repeatedly stated: "This is our Freak Out!" The music journalist Chet Flippo states that McCartney was inspired to record a concept album after hearing Freak Out!, considered the first rock concept album.
QUESTION: What inspired the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?
IN: The Outfield were an English rock band based in London, England. The band achieved success in the mid-1980s and are best remembered for their hit single, "Your Love". The band's lineup consisted of guitarist John Spinks, vocalist and bassist Tony Lewis, and drummer Alan Jackman. They had an unusual experience for a British band in that they enjoyed commercial success in the US, but never in their homeland.

1987 saw the release of their second album, Bangin'. This album did not achieve the acclaim of Play Deep, but it did spawn a Top 40 single "Since You've Been Gone" (not to be confused with the 1970s Rainbow and Head East hit of the same name) and the minor radio/MTV hit "No Surrender", and the album was certified Gold in the US A US summer tour opening for Night Ranger followed. For the group's third album, 1989's Voices of Babylon, a new producer (David Kahne) and sound was evident. The title track was a Top 25 single and "My Paradise" was a mid-sized album-rock hit, but overall the group's popularity continued to decline. After the Babylon LP, Alan Jackman parted ways with the band and was replaced for a concert tour by Paul Read. Spinks and Lewis continued as a duo, switched labels and began recording Diamond Days for MCA. Playing drums on the disc was session drummer Simon Dawson. The LP, released in 1990, produced a Top 30 US hit, "For You". Quick to follow was "One Hot Country", included on the soundtrack for the 1991 action film If Looks Could Kill. The Outfield returned with 1992's Rockeye. Its leadoff single, "Closer to Me", was a near Top 40 hit, and a second release, "Winning It All", gained some notice due to extensive play during NBC's NBA Finals coverage, NBA Superstars series featuring Larry Bird, the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics and the film The Mighty Ducks. Simon Dawson, who played on Rockeye, would eventually become the band's official third member.
QUESTION: what album was released in 1990?
IN: A synthesizer (often abbreviated as synth, also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones. Synthesizers may either imitate traditional musical instruments like piano, Hammond organ, flute, vocals; natural sounds like ocean waves, etc.; or generate novel electronic timbres. They are often played with a musical keyboard, but they can be controlled via a variety of other input devices, including music sequencers, instrument controllers, fingerboards, guitar synthesizers, wind controllers, and electronic drums. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are often called sound modules, and are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device, often a MIDI keyboard or other controller.

In the 1970s, electronic music composers such as Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Isao Tomita, released successful synthesizer-led instrumental albums. Over time, this helped influence the emergence of synthpop, a subgenre of new wave, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The work of German krautrock bands such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, British acts such as John Foxx, Gary Numan and David Bowie, African-American acts such as George Clinton and Zapp, and Japanese electronic acts such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kitaro, were influential in the development of the genre. Gary Numan's 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" made heavy use of synthesizers. OMD's "Enola Gay" (1980) used distinctive electronic percussion and a synthesized melody. Soft Cell used a synthesized melody on their 1981 hit "Tainted Love". Nick Rhodes, keyboardist of Duran Duran, used various synthesizers including the Roland Jupiter-4 and Jupiter-8. Chart hits include Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" (1981), The Human League's "Don't You Want Me" and Giorgio Moroder's Take My Breath Away (1986) for Berlin. Other notable synthpop groups included New Order, Visage, Japan, Men Without Hats, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Thompson Twins, A Flock of Seagulls, Heaven 17, Erasure, Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys, Bronski Beat, Kajagoogoo, ABC, Naked Eyes, Devo, and the early work of Tears for Fears and Talk Talk. Giorgio Moroder, Brian Eno, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, Kate Bush, Enya, Mike Oldfield, Donal Lunny, Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren all made use of synthesizers. The synthesizer became one of the most important instruments in the music industry.
QUESTION:
Did any other artists use it ?