Guido Merkins
Footballguy
A few months back I went through my favorite Beatles albums in order. I had always wanted to do a series of threads that would focus on each Beatles album, which is really ambitious. So I won't promise I'll get through all of them. But I'll start with the most famous ones first so hopefully I get through, at least, those. So, I'll tart with my favorite and many people's favorite, 1966's Revolver....
Revolver in context
The Beatles were now in the 3rd year of Beatlemania with no signs of slowing down. In those prior 3 years they had done 2 albums per year, a single every three months,and 2 movies. This was all done around tours and TV shows and appearances. They were becoming fed up with this endless cycle and wanted to focus more on making records.
Rubber Soul, the album that preceded Revolver was recorded in 30 days!!! A masterpiece in a month!! Not relying on cover songs anymore, they wrote and recorded 13 songs (and got one from the prior session, more when I cover that particular album). But Rubber Soul is important because it showed a marked maturity in their songwriting. A trend that would continue with Revolver.
They were supposed to make a new film, but they couldn’t agree on anything, so suddenly they had 3 months free from engagements, which was a first for the band since the early days. And since they had zero plans to play the new songs on stage and they were almost done with touring (3 of the Beatles especially, Paul would soon agree), they figured they could experiment with the technology a bit, and they did. Recording started in April 1966 and continued for 3 months, an ETERNITY in 1966.
Also 1966 was the year of the famous Lennon “Christ” statement which, IMO, overshadowed the work they were doing at the time. This led, I think to Revolver being overshadowed in its time by its predecessor (Rubber Soul) and its follow-up (Pepper). It would take a couple of decades for this historical wrong to be righted. But today, many people consider it their best work. As I say above, an opinion I share.
Overall impressions
John would call Rubber Soul the “pot” album and Revolver the “acid” album. And this fits with the general impressions of the albums. Rubber Soul is known as kind of a mellow album. As the Stones and The Who were getting louder, the Beatles were going more mellow and introspective. Revolver, on the other hand is louder, more electric. More painting pictures with sound. More experimental. To my ears, a lot of Revolver focuses on darker images. Death, anger, drugs, lost love, laziness, isolation, loneliness. For example Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby are often compared because of the use of strings, but similarities really end there. But Rigby is a far darker song and the strings aren’t sweet. They almost scrape. Even Yellow Submarine can sound like a drunken sing a long if you listen for that. Paul has the requisite upbeat songs (Good Day Sunshine and Here There and Everywhere) but not all of them are. For No One is sad. Rigby is too. More on each song later.
The cover art, to me, speaks to the isolation within. Klaus Voorhman did a great job with the collage and in a way, it’s as cool to look at as Pepper a year later, but to go totally black and white in an era where everybody’s cover art was colorful is a statement in and of itself. I love the picture on the back cover of the tripped out Beatles wearing sunglasses. They were the height of mid 60s cool at this point.
Revolver pioneered the use of many studio tricks the Beatles had learned that they would become more famous for on Sgt Pepper a year later. Artificial Double Tracking, backwards tapes, vari speed, close mics, compression, sound effects, sampling, tape loops and fuzz tone.
Two of the more distinctive new sounds on the album are the sound of Ringo’s drums, achieved by mics placed real close to each drum and using compression, tuning the drums lower and stuffing a woolen sweater in the bass drum, to create a punchier sound.
The other distinctive sound is the sound of Paul’s bass. For years the Beatles wanted to hear the same bass sounds they heard on Motown. In fact, there were even discussions had about Revolver being recorded at Stax or Motown. Due to British technical limitations, bass hadn't really been heard in all its glory until Rubber Soul, but the Beatles wanted even more. So by 1966, EMI had figured how to get that sound without the needle jumping out of the groove. Paul helped by switching to a Rickenbacker bass and Geoff Emerick started doing things like rewiring a speaker to act as a mic and putting it right in front of Paul’s bass cabinet. Paul also started laying down bass tracks at the end so he could react to the melody in his playing.
The sheer variety of music on the album is also astonishing. It has been said that every song on Revolver started it’s own sub genre, which is probably an exaggeration, but still. Social commentary, classical, pop, soul, Indian, children’s, jazz, psychedelic, proto metal, and even proto techno can be heard in these grooves.
And on no album was the Capitol Records butchering of the Beatles worse than on Revolver. Not only do the 3 songs that were pulled from Revolver and put on Yesterday and Today sound totally out of place, but they are 3 Lennon songs so it makes it seem like John didn’t do anything during Revolver. If you hear the Capitol Revolver in 1966, you didn’t get the whole story. Thankfully, Revolver would be the last “butchered” album.
Next....Taxman
Revolver in context
The Beatles were now in the 3rd year of Beatlemania with no signs of slowing down. In those prior 3 years they had done 2 albums per year, a single every three months,and 2 movies. This was all done around tours and TV shows and appearances. They were becoming fed up with this endless cycle and wanted to focus more on making records.
Rubber Soul, the album that preceded Revolver was recorded in 30 days!!! A masterpiece in a month!! Not relying on cover songs anymore, they wrote and recorded 13 songs (and got one from the prior session, more when I cover that particular album). But Rubber Soul is important because it showed a marked maturity in their songwriting. A trend that would continue with Revolver.
They were supposed to make a new film, but they couldn’t agree on anything, so suddenly they had 3 months free from engagements, which was a first for the band since the early days. And since they had zero plans to play the new songs on stage and they were almost done with touring (3 of the Beatles especially, Paul would soon agree), they figured they could experiment with the technology a bit, and they did. Recording started in April 1966 and continued for 3 months, an ETERNITY in 1966.
Also 1966 was the year of the famous Lennon “Christ” statement which, IMO, overshadowed the work they were doing at the time. This led, I think to Revolver being overshadowed in its time by its predecessor (Rubber Soul) and its follow-up (Pepper). It would take a couple of decades for this historical wrong to be righted. But today, many people consider it their best work. As I say above, an opinion I share.
Overall impressions
John would call Rubber Soul the “pot” album and Revolver the “acid” album. And this fits with the general impressions of the albums. Rubber Soul is known as kind of a mellow album. As the Stones and The Who were getting louder, the Beatles were going more mellow and introspective. Revolver, on the other hand is louder, more electric. More painting pictures with sound. More experimental. To my ears, a lot of Revolver focuses on darker images. Death, anger, drugs, lost love, laziness, isolation, loneliness. For example Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby are often compared because of the use of strings, but similarities really end there. But Rigby is a far darker song and the strings aren’t sweet. They almost scrape. Even Yellow Submarine can sound like a drunken sing a long if you listen for that. Paul has the requisite upbeat songs (Good Day Sunshine and Here There and Everywhere) but not all of them are. For No One is sad. Rigby is too. More on each song later.
The cover art, to me, speaks to the isolation within. Klaus Voorhman did a great job with the collage and in a way, it’s as cool to look at as Pepper a year later, but to go totally black and white in an era where everybody’s cover art was colorful is a statement in and of itself. I love the picture on the back cover of the tripped out Beatles wearing sunglasses. They were the height of mid 60s cool at this point.
Revolver pioneered the use of many studio tricks the Beatles had learned that they would become more famous for on Sgt Pepper a year later. Artificial Double Tracking, backwards tapes, vari speed, close mics, compression, sound effects, sampling, tape loops and fuzz tone.
Two of the more distinctive new sounds on the album are the sound of Ringo’s drums, achieved by mics placed real close to each drum and using compression, tuning the drums lower and stuffing a woolen sweater in the bass drum, to create a punchier sound.
The other distinctive sound is the sound of Paul’s bass. For years the Beatles wanted to hear the same bass sounds they heard on Motown. In fact, there were even discussions had about Revolver being recorded at Stax or Motown. Due to British technical limitations, bass hadn't really been heard in all its glory until Rubber Soul, but the Beatles wanted even more. So by 1966, EMI had figured how to get that sound without the needle jumping out of the groove. Paul helped by switching to a Rickenbacker bass and Geoff Emerick started doing things like rewiring a speaker to act as a mic and putting it right in front of Paul’s bass cabinet. Paul also started laying down bass tracks at the end so he could react to the melody in his playing.
The sheer variety of music on the album is also astonishing. It has been said that every song on Revolver started it’s own sub genre, which is probably an exaggeration, but still. Social commentary, classical, pop, soul, Indian, children’s, jazz, psychedelic, proto metal, and even proto techno can be heard in these grooves.
And on no album was the Capitol Records butchering of the Beatles worse than on Revolver. Not only do the 3 songs that were pulled from Revolver and put on Yesterday and Today sound totally out of place, but they are 3 Lennon songs so it makes it seem like John didn’t do anything during Revolver. If you hear the Capitol Revolver in 1966, you didn’t get the whole story. Thankfully, Revolver would be the last “butchered” album.
Next....Taxman