Sgt. Pepper was the first Beatles album I listened to, after 1 which doesn't really count. It's great to listen to straight through, and is indeed very cohesive. Every song on the album is excellent, and reminds me of a box of chocolate truffles (perhaps in a heart shaped box, if you're excited about the upcoming Valentine's Day): Each one is very sweet-sounding, sort of melts in your mouth (or ears), but in a very different way for each song, like the different flavors, textures, and consistencies of each chocolate. It's all very smoothly produced, and is extremely sonically dense and rich. I've listened to it many times, both straight through and shuffled into the rest of my monstrously large MP3 player. It's a great record.
However, like a box of chocolate truffles, there comes a point (for me at least) where it can become too much of a good thing, where too much rich sweetness, wonderful in reasonable portions, starts to become unpleasant rather quickly when consumed in large amounts. I find this point comes much sooner for Sgt. Pepper than it does for Revolver, and I therefore think that, although Revolver's not necessarily a better album, I do enjoy it more. Although sometimes the mood to listen to Sgt. Pepper straight through will strike me and on those occasions it's very fulfilling and enjoyable without a doubt, but I definitely find that I listen to Revolver much more frequently than Sgt. Pepper. The songs are equally strong on both albums and both are equally consistent in their quality, in my opinion.
However, Revolver is a much less involved album to listen to. If I listen to Sgt. Pepper and, rather than paying full attention to every instrument, zone out for a minute or so (as I often do, especially on "Fixing A Hole", interestingly enough. I always wonder whether that's something everyone experiences and therefore maybe was intentional, or if it's just me), I feel like I'm listening to it wrong, and there's a LOT to listen to. Because so much of the interest in the album derives from the many layers of music and sounds, it's just a lot harder to enjoy as it should be enjoyed. Sgt. Pepper is great if you're going to sit down and listen to it actively with good speakers, but Revolver is much easier to sing along to, and still get maximum enjoyment out of it. My feelings on this extend to the period singles for each album as well: Paperback Writer/Rain for Revolver and Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane.
As a tangent, although people often say Magical Mystery Tour and its period singles are a sort of "Sgt. Pepper Part II", but I disagree. While it does have the same psychedelia as Sgt. Pepper, the same intense studio trickery, and the same musical variety, its arrangements are much simpler, and it's got a much less effervescent and cheery, less rich, and less dense sound to it. I find that not only do I listen to Revolver more than Sgt. Pepper, I also listen to the Magical Mystery Tour album more than Sgt. Pepper.
That's my thoughts.
