Mention this album in conversation and you are most likely to meet with the replies "the greatest album ever written!", or "not as good as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". Revolver, released in 1966 was the Beatles seventh album and was a radical departure from the previous six. Their last album, Rubber Soul had only been released the Autumn before and can be considered as one of the finest pop albums of all time, but in the time that elapsed between the release of the albums the band took the decision to quit touring. Lennon and McCartney had started experimenting with drugs and Harrison was developing a strong interest in the Indian culture. With more time on their hands now, the band spent a lot of it in the studio as they were full of new ideas of where they wanted to take the music scene next.
The release of this album shocked many of their fans at the time as it seemed to destroy everything the Beatles stood for. Gone was the American R & B influence, and in was a distinctly Eastern sound. Gone was the trademark "Ooh, Ooh, Oohs" and in was loops and backwards lyrics.
The first track on Revolver is "Taxman". It opens with a countdown (not used since their first
album) and is a thinly disguised whinge from a wealthy young man stuck in the 96% tax bracket. It is written by Harrison and is one of the first songs to name check politicians (Wilson and Heath). The song also has a great bass line pinning it together with a cracking guitar riff. This is the first of three Harrison songs which appear on the album.
The second track is probably the album's most famous song. Lennon described the track as one of McCartney's "boring songs about boring lives". Lennon was of course talking about McCartney's view of the pitiless world in "Eleanor Rigby". This track has a real minimalist feel to it, as it features none of the Beatles playing instruments. It is basically the fab four singing harmonies along with a string quartet.
The third track is "I'm only sleeping". This was written by John Lennon and has a typically woozy trippiness feel about it. It is a classic, folkie, acousitc guitar song, which leads brilliantly into the Indian flavoured "Love You Too". Harrison's sitar playing had improved greatly since the Norwegian Wood track.
"Here, There, Everywhere" is another dreamy ballad written by McCartney about his girlfriends of the time, Jane Asher. The song just saunters along much like the previous "I'm only Sleeping".
"Yellow Submarine" is possibly the finest kids song ever written. I suppose it is pretty apt that lead singer on this daft track is Ringo Starr, it couldn't be anyone else. The lyrics are not brilliant but the inclusion of all of Lennon's daft whistles and clanking noises bring this song into its own element.
Next up is Lennon's "She Said, She Said". This was apparently inspired by a conversation he had overheard with actor Peter Fonda, saying "he knew what it was like to be dead". The track has a destinctive feeling of paranoia.
"Good Day Sunshine" is a classic summery pop song, which is followed by Lennon's "And Your Bird Can Sing" who apparently could not remember writing it! The song contains one of the best Beatle guitar riffs of all time and is my favourite track on the album - pure class!
"For No One" is another quality ballad from the pen of McCartney. The song has a depressing nature, possibly due to it being about the imminent end of a relationship. This is followed by the upbeat groove of "Doctor Robert", which is probably the most ironic track on this album. Considering the Beatles at this time were delving into a drug-addled world, this is possibly the greatest anti-drug song ever written. This is a Lennon track based on an American Doctor, Robert "Dr Feelgood" Freymann.
"I Want To Tell You" is Harrison's final contribution to song-writing on the album. "Got To Get You Into My Life" is a soulful song again written by McCartney, at the time when Motown was starting to become a big hit in Britain.
The album finishes with the Lennon track "Tomorrow Never Knows" This is 3 minutes of what is best described as experimental trance music, which finds the Beatles messing around with loops and playing music backwards. This proved to be a fitting end to the album, as it shows which direction the band would eventually take the music scene next.
With this album the band had taken jangly guitar pop to its logical extreme. From here on the would investigate psychedelia with the "Sergeant Pepper's..." album before moving onto rock (The "White Album").
Revolver is probably not as well known as "Sergeant Pepper's..." because that was the album that introduced the world to the psychdelic experience. Revolver could be considered as laying the foundations for what was to come, but it is an important album in its own right. I suppose it could be considered as the world's first proper studio album, and it finds the band at their best: willing to experiment and always looking to create new sounds. I doubt an album as important, influential, or at least as good as this could be written today. The Beatles managed to map out the entire pop world in a little over 35 minutes with this collection of fourteen tracks.
You should really own at least one Beatles' album, and you would be hard pushed to pick a better one than this. Then again, you cannot really go wrong with any of them, can you?
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