The Beatles - Revolver [UK]
![Revolver [UK]](/images/Revolver-UK-B000002UAR-L.jpg)
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Free Music Notes for Revolver [UK]
Free Music Review: how could we forget this effort, ever?
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of the Fab 4's first truly spectacular efforts. "Eleanor Rigby" is one of those songs that has stuck with me, all my life. I can't imagine that there were a lot of pop songs at the time that really explored the themes of hopelessness in life, the way that the lyrics did here. "Good Day Sunshine" and "Yellow Submarine" are also long-time faves. Definitely worth the listen.Free Music Review: the Beatles masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
Revolver, so called by an intoxicated John Lennon because when you put it on the turntable, it revolves!
Bob Dylan, the antiwar, civil-rights, Woody Guthrie-imitating darling of the folksingers, the Voice and Conscience of his Generation, after penning "Blowin in the Wind", stunned his followers with "Bringing it All Back Home". Electric instruments and a turn from trying to change the world by preaching at it to a bemused satire. This is one of the two most influential albums of the sixties, maybe of music history. I remember.
Early Beatles were wildly popular with younger listeners, but generally dismissed by music critics of the time as being a wildly sucessful but totally Pop phenominon. Dylan said they were "Bubblegum". Dylan's friend Al Aronowitz (sp?), said that the Beatles weren't that bad. Dylan and friend were introduced to the Beatles at a certain party in Manhattan AUG 64, wherein there was some smoking and intoxicants, still legal at that time. Dylan and Lennon talked and found they had a lot in common. Dylan suggested Lennon should put more of his feelings into his songs. Following this party the Beatles became much more introspective, and a few months later "Rubber Soul". See DVD "No Direction Home" directed by Martin Scorsese for details, if you don't believe me.
Reflecting popular intoxicants of the time, some then legal, the Beatles music changed and changed the course of popular music and culture forever (for better of for worse). This album, their masterpiece "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul" were the watershed events of the sixties. If one carefully looks at the release dates of ALL music before and after "Rubber Soul" / "Revolver" one can determine what a sea change this was. Most of the music explosion now associated with the sixties, The Doors, The Mamas and the Papas, Led Zeppelin, Cream, the better Rolling Stones albums starting with Between the Buttons, Jimi Hendrix, etc etc came AFTER this.
Both lyrics and harmonies were much deeper and more elaborate than anything the Fab Four had done before. Starting with "Rubber Soul", the critics who had been dismissive fell over each other praising. Other groups covered these songs, overnight, even symphony orchestras. But "Revolver", was quite different. Thinking man's music.
Starting with the acid fuzz bass on George Harrison's "Taxman" (a commentary on the 95% income tax rate the Beatles faced) there was a lot more dissonance. Ending up with the buzzy, trippy, music-concrete, John Cage style "Tomorrow Never Knows" - this stunned listeners. It was NOT popular when it came out, in fact I remember DJ's of the day railing about how they Beatles had lost their minds. The album is chock-a-block with references to popular intoxicants of the day, from the body feelings of Taxman to the euphoria of "Good Day Sunshine" to "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream".
There's the acid visionary -She said She said- "Who put all those things in your hair???". The urgent post-trip resolution "Got to get You into my Life" which dealt with getting rid of one wife and acquiring another.
Following the happy day trip of Good Day Sunshine, on the original US release was the next day hangover of "For No One"- "The Day breaks, your mind aches, ...", ("And Your Bird Can Sing" was NOT on the album and it frankly breaks the mood on the new version.)
Eleanor Rigby with the the added string quartet, is really dark and existentialist. Existential angst was not a topic of popular music in 1966.
The Beatles would do two more great albums, the goodtime "Sgt Peppers" and penultimate "Abbey Road" but they would never hit these heights. Sorry kids. the Beatles greatest. We thought so when it came out, and now. This is the Beatle album I play most; it is the least likely to get stale.
John Lennon always claimed that "Doctor Robert" was NOT Bob Dylan ("take a drink from his Special Cup"), but now I'm not so sure...
For skeptics and non believers -
Note: original song sequence (without "Dr Robert", "And Your Bird can Sing", and "I'm only Sleeping") - is on the uploaded photo of my LP purchased 1966 - see above.
The UK version was not available in the US till decades after the original 1966 release. These songs were originally released on an earlier Beatles US LP, "Yesterday ...and Today" and leftover, and were added to the UK version.
These may be fine songs but were not heard, in America, in this sequence, until the CD version.
Free Music Review: Tomorrow Never Knows
Hit: 5 Stars
It's a Beatles CD so that automatically deserves 5 stars. This is however the album I am most amazed by. Great wit, awesome melodies and of course 'Tomorrow Never Knows', a song that predates acts like the Chemical Brothers by some 30 years.Free Music Review: Please Please me
Hit: 5 Stars
What idiot didn't give this 5 stars? Even with Yellow Submarine it is still a 5 star album. No other recording in the vast history of musical productions no other recording has ever come close to the beauty and innovation of Revolver.Free Music Review: Sgt. Who?
Hit: 5 Stars
You mention The Beatles and everyone thinks Sgt. Pepper......well...Sgt. Pepper is nothing compared to Revolver. This Cd and Rubber Soul combined make any other Beatles cd's pale by comparison. The emergence of the psychedelic era starts here. The band is truly comming into it's own and it shows. But enough of this rambling....if you are tired of "love me do", and you cannot stand another playing of "a little help from my friends" or "let it be", check out Revolver and Rubber Soul.