REVOLVER

REVOLVER

The Beatles are one of my favorite bands of all time. As a child I didn’t really appreciate much of the early recordings but once I heard Revolver on vinyl when I was about seven years old it definitely left a thumbprint on my heart. As time moved forward, I began to appreciate the earlier albums such as Please, Please Me. However, the Beatles from 1965-1970 hold some of my favorite albums of all time. It was within this time frame that the band shied away from the teen sensation, pop music and became artistic. With that being said, Revolver is no exception. Prior to this album, The Beatles were very pop oriented. In my opinion, the group started experimenting a bit on the Help! and Rubber Soul albums and once Revolver dropped, they were a whole new band. Some of the non-musical influences that helped make Revolver such a staple in the music industry were books such as Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary and experimenting with LSD. The Beatles also used their studio as an instrument. An example of this would be how the vocals were put through a Leslie speaker cabinet to give Lennon that amazing effect on “Tomorrow Never Knows”. The Leslie Speaker routing as well as artificial double tracking were two innovations found on the album. Revolver in its entirety is such a solid album, one of my favorite albums by The Beatles. Aside from my personal opinion, the album is simply revolutionary. Music would not have evolved the way it did if this album didn’t exist. We wouldn’t have many artists that we have today without The Beatles. The creativity and experimentation of this album is phenomenal and will remain one of the best albums of all time until the end of time.  

 

Howard, D. (2004) . The California Sunshine Sound. Sonic Alchemy. Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings.