The infamous rock band, ‘The Beatles’ was formed in Liverpool, England in the 1960s, originally consisting of five band members; John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. With John Lennon as the front man for the group, the band built their reputation playing in clubs around Liverpool and Hamburg soon to become the hottest rock band that Britain had to offer to the world. In 1961 the band witnessed the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best to be strengthened as a four piece with the addition of Ringo Starr and soon acquired a nickname as the “Fab Four”. By 1964 they had become an international sensation that was invading the American Pop Market. Predominantly inspired by songs about Love, Culture, Government and Revolutionary ideas, The Beatles had the perfect ingredients to appeal to the youth and fans that were victims of the psychedelic movement of the 60s.
Preaching about love and carefree ideals they were considered the musical rivals of ‘The Beach Boys’ from California.
With their wide spread success and numerous albums already under their belt, ‘Revolver’ was their seventh studio album to be released on August of 1966. It was a milestone in the band’s career and would mark a new turn that the band would take. With this album they started their phase of studio and instrumental experimentation. Their lyrical content began to become stronger and more politically oriented. The album ‘Revolver’ consisted a total of 14 songs, starting with a strong politically oriented song called ‘Taxman’. It featured lyrical content regarding the unfairness and outrageous rates of taxing of the English Government during the times. With the second song ‘Elenor Rigby’ they start to propel their songs towards a more experimental and abstract song structure. As the song progress it gets more and more melodramatic set in a minor key talking about the mundane lifestyle of the People. As the album progresses we notice the lyrical content continue to change featuring topics such as Drug use, loneliness, dreams, revolutionary ideas, sex and love.
In a technical sense we can really see how much The Beatles exploit the studio in this album. They use panning to their advantage and often experiment with positioning instruments different in the stereo field in each song. They make use of ethnic instruments such as the sitar in the fourth song of the album called ‘Love You to’. Producer George Martin experimented with new drum techniques such as dampening the Bass drum and compression to sculpt the drum sound for Revolver album. We can also notice the use of reversing record playback on certain instruments or stems within the song to create a dreamy effect in the story telling in the song ‘I’m Only Sleeping’.
I consider the album ‘Revolver’ by the Beatles a “psychedelic gem” and a stepping-stone to musical and cultural experimentation. We can start to see how the band evolved from catering to awe struck teens into revolutionaries for the genrations to come.
