Revolver

The Beatles, to me, will always be the biggest and best band of all time. Their music and charisma categorize them in their own special place where no other band can lay a finger on them. Originally quite “put together” and always singing about love and relationships, the foursome with their mop top hair were an instant sensation. Beatlemania thrived off of hit songs such as “Hard Day’s Night” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” These early songs were very simply styled and sung. Soon, however, they began to create a new and interesting path for themselves after the folk-driven Rubber Soul.

The introduction of marijuana, LSD, Timothy Leary’s work, and eastern music were huge influences on the very electric-driven rock album Revolver. LSD and marijuana influenced McCartney and Lennon’s lyrics extensively. This is the first album where The Beatles rarely speak about love, but instead society and the many issues it faces.

The drugs also influenced the music itself by using new techniques such as ADT (automatic double-tracking/artificial double-tracking), reverse guitar, looped effects, and Lennon’s voice being routed into a Leslie speaker – making it look like the music was on drugs. These techniques could be viewed as The Beatles using the studio as an instrument itself. It was new to use techniques like this – probably one of the first examples of how we’ve learned to record today. They also used new instrumentation in the creation of their songs with the use of sitars and other eastern-cultured instruments, which began to change the music of The Beatles entirely.

For me, Revolver is not only one of the best (if not the best) albums of all time; it is the best album that The Beatles released. I love all of their music very much, but I believe that Revolver really let the entire band have some freedom in their cooped up world of Beatlemania. They were experimenting and creating masterpieces. As a listener, I adore it – if you look at my list of favorite bands, they all use weird and bizarre forms of recording and instrumentation, just like this album. As a professional, I love it even more. It shows how complex the world of recording was and what it has come from. Revolver really opened the doors to the world of rock and I will always love it.