My Review Of The Beatles Revolver

While 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band often gets credit as being The Beatles first real "rock album as art" statement, I think that overlooks the album that immediately preceded it, 1966's Revolver. And to a lesser extent it also overlooks 1965's Rubber Soul.

Revolver is considered by many music critics to be The Beatles very best album. It doesn't contain as many hits as some of their other albums. It doesn't have that "all connected" feeling of Sgt. Pepper and the second half of Abbey Road. It doesn't have sprawling masterpiece thing going on like The White Album. But what arguably does have is The Beatles greatest collection of songs on one album.

I've heard it said that every single song on Revolver started a new sub genre. I'm not sure if that's true but if it isn't it should be. It's easy to see how someone could come to such a conclusion because each of the songs on Revolver sounds like it's in it's own genre.

It starts of with "Taxman" and it's "one two three four" count in which is reminiscent of the way the first track on their very first album, "I Saw Her Standing There" on 1963's Please Please Me started. But everything's different. It's not an exuberant, it's menacing. The guitar solos were played by Paul McCartney and were inspired by Jimi Hendrix (who was already becoming famous in Britain.)

From "Taxman" it heads right into "Eleanor Rigby" which is one of The Beatles most memorable and most unique songs. It includes nothing but the sound of Paul McCartney's voice and strings. Like I said about every song being in a different genre? It's hard to imagine two songs being more different in a lot of ways. Until of course we get to the next song.

John Lennon's tripped out "I'm Only Sleeping" is the 3rd track. It features backwards guitars and a "sleepy" spacey sort of sound. It's one of my favorite Beatles songs. So far there's been three songs and yes they've definitely all been in totally different genres. They've also been by three different songwriters (Harrison, McCartney, & Lennon.)

The next song is "Love You To" and it's also by George Harrison. It features Indian instrumentation and Harrison's vocal. Obviously "Indian influenced pop song" is another genre to add to the list.

"Here, There, & Everywhere" is the next tune and it's a truly beautiful one. The simple way to describe it would be as a "ballad" but that definitely doesn't cover it. Paul McCartney has said he thinks it's the best song he's ever written.

"Yellow Submarine" is the 6th track. It was written mostly by Paul McCartney and sang by Ringo Starr. Interestingly through six songs only one has been written & sung by John Lennon. Again, this is another obviously different genre from every other song on this album. It's easy to see where the claim comes from that this album spawned off 14 new sub-genres, one for each song on the album.

"She Said She Said" could arguably be considered to be in the same "genre" as "Taxman" & "Dr. Robert" (coming later) but they are all far different songs from each other. This one features some of The Beatles coolest guitar riffing. This one was written and sung by Lennon.

"Good Day Sunshine." From the acid rock of "She Said She Said" to the positively bouncy "Good Day Sunshine." Another song that's hard to describe. What genre is this exactly? It's not a love song really, and it's definitely not a rocker. It's not a dance song. It's nothing obvious like that. It's art.

"And Your Bird Can Sing" features one of the coolest intros in rock music history. I love the guitars and I love the lyrics. Lennon at the top of his game.

"For No One." More people should know this song. It's absolutely incredible the quality level that Paul McCartney was putting out in 1966. All of his songs are absolute classics.

"Doctor Robert." I do admit that I sometimes think of "She Said She Said" & "Dr. Robert" as a bit of a pair so maybe that bursts the "every song is it's own genre" argument a bit but that being said, they are completely different songs from each other. You know how you can put on some albums by some bands and it's hard to tell one song from the next? That's definitely not a problem with Revolver.

"I Want To Tell You" is sort of a Byrds style song with a bit of a cool dissonance to it. George Harrison was beginning to come into his own as a songwriter.

"Got To Get You Into My Life" was apparently Paul McCartney's love song to marijuana. Definitely the subject of The Beatles music had changed since they burst onto the scene a couple of years earlier. This has a big bright horn sound that's unlike anything else on the album.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track on the album. You know how I was talking about each song being different from the last? Listen to these last two songs and it's just incredibly that they were by the same band. It's really a wonderful thing to think about, that the most popular band of all time put outs songs as interesting and mysterious as this. I'd like to see them do this song on American Idol (that's a joke by the way, I don't want watch that awful show. I want to make that clear as I consider American Idol to be a crime against society.)

All things considered, Revolver is an essential album. An absolute "must hear."