Customer Reviews

Revolver

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I was 15 and a friend lent me "revolver" in July of 1966. I loved the cover almost on sight (covers were a huge part of the music experience back then) and sensed something exciting was inside the LP jacket.
Almost 40 years later and I still put this album on my player with a real sense of anticipation, familar yes but anticipation nonetheless. I don't think its ever been pointed out but it is Beatle John who in fact begins this album and closes it too, for surely that is Lennon doing the country bumpkin count-in for George's "Taxman" and it is certainly John's own song "Tomorrow never knows" which closes this phantasmorgical piece of art. It remains the Beatles most perfect record, with its wonderful fusion of pop, rock, avant-garde, ballads and even a children's song. It's never been copied because it is beyond imitation.

1966 was The Beatles' greatest year. True, this year they ended touring, almost got killed in the Phillippines, and were denounced in America with record-burnings after Lennon said, "We're bigger than Jesus." Yet, out of this chaos rose The Beatles masterpiece, REVOLVER.

REVOLVER was considered Just Another Beatles Record when it was released in August 1966 and to some was considered their swan song in the dying days of Beatlemania. However, REVOLVER has stood the test of time and today outshines SGT. PEPPER. The reason is that the 1987 CD release ignored the inferior 11-track U.S. version of REVOVLER (omitting John's I'm Only Sleeping, And Your Bird Can Sing, Dr. Robert) and belatedly presented to North Americans the complete British 14-song album.

REVOLVER represents The Beatles at the top of their game. The level of composition is at its highest, outshining PEPPER and everything that followed. There is not a weak song here, lyrically or musically. The instrumentation by all four Beatles reaches its peak. Ringo, especially, earns top marks songs like She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows. Lastly, the level of experimentation and breath of style is staggering. There are so many styles of music on REVOLVER, from classical to Indian raga to ballad to hard rock to soul and sampling (then called "tape loops") that the album almost bursts at the seams. Above all, this is a group effort which is lacking in later records such as the The White Album.

George takes a quantum leap forward on REVOLVER. He kicks off an album for the first time with Taxman, which features some of the sharpest lyrics ever to appear in a Beatles' song. Taxman signals that this is no Beatles album like any other. The lyrics are not cute, but bitter and biting, backed by one of Paul's best-ever bass lines (copped by Beck in The New Pollution). George's anger is also heard in the Raga-ish Love You Too, a rocking song that left many fans puzzled in 1966, but which has aged better than Within You Without You. His I Want To Tell You is a fine contribution to side two.

Paul displays his melodic, gentle side with two of his finest love songs, Here There and Everywhere and For No One, which feature exquisite vocals in the former, and a sparse but mournful arrangement in the latter. Unlike Michelle, Paul here avoids sentimentality and achieves beauty. Got To Get You Into My Life is a driving number featuring towering horns a la Stax, and actually describes an early pot experience (not acid as widely believed). Yellow Submarine (sung by Ringo) is a fun children's song, and Good Day Sunshine is also lighthearted and catchy without being shallow.

Most of all Eleanor Rigby stands as Paul's masterpiece, more mature in lyric and arrangement than Yesterday and not melodramatic and overproduced like the later She's Leaving Home. Rigby remains one of the Beatles' best lyrics and perhaps their most haunting tune. It never ages.

John too reaches a peak with REVOLVER. I'm Only Sleeping is an introspective song featuring backward guitars and confessional lyrics. She Said She Said recounts an acid trip in L.A. with Peter Fonda, and features some of Lennon's most harrowing imagery and stunning guitars-and-drums. And Your Bird Can Sing and Dr. Robert are fine rock songs.

Tomorrow Never Knows is the stunning conclusion to the album, full of tape loops, Ringo's hypnotic drumming and otherworldly lyrics inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Nothing ever sounded like this before and arguably not since.

REVOLVER is the culmination of four talents peaking at the same time. Others will insist on PEPPER as the definitive Beatles statement, but PEPPER has weaker songs, is self-consciously psychedelic, and is lopsided, favouring McCartney. REVOLVER sounds as fresh today as in 1966, and stands at the pinnacle of the Beatles' recording career. This is my favourite Beatles album and I never tire of playing it. Few albums by any band continue to sound fresh.

All Beatles albums have their qualities, but if there is one Beatles record you must pick up, this is the one.

Who would have thought at the beginning of the Beatles recording career that there would come a day when John Lennon and Paul McCartney would put their feet down and stop doing covers and would also allow a George Harrison song to kickstart the greatest pop/rock album of all time? Yet Revolver begins with Taxman, a song far superior to anything done by George Harrison (to this point), a link in a hard-rock chain that runs from I Feel Fine through Ticket to Ride, Taxman, Rain, and culminates in Revolution. A brilliant beginning has a great sequel in Eleanor Rigby. Sung by Paul, John claims to have written most of the lyric and some of the music; it is difficult, though not impossible, to imagine Paul writing this alone. McCartney did pen Penny Lane a few months later and later still would write Lady Madonna, but Eleanor Rigby sounds like it was influenced by John Lennon. There is not a weak track on this album. Paul McCartney excels on the uptempo Good Day Sunshine and Got to Get You Into My Life, massages the lovely Here, There and Everywhere, and sounds almost wise on For No One. Yellow Submarine, the kids song, is the least compelling number, along with Harrison's Love You To, but the latter redeems himself again with I Want to Tell You. John Lennon sings at his nasally best on I'm Only Sleeping, And Your Bird Can Sing, and Doctor Robert, but his finest songs on Revolver close out sides one and two. She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows are musically progressive songs that might have floundered but for the Beatles growing proficiency in the studio. Just as Help pointed in the direction of Rubber Soul, these last two songs point in the direction of Sgt. Pepper. Although Paperback Writer and Rain might have been a better fit than Yellow Submarine and Love You To, Revolver is as near to a perfect album as you get in a genre such as rock n' roll. Taken together, Rubber Soul and Revolver are the Beatles two strongest musical statements, recorded before anyone even expected that the fab four would make musical statements. We sometimes forget that the early Beatles were not taken very seriously. A famous music critic once told Paul McCartney that he never thought there was anything to a Beatles lyric until he heard "Eleanor Rigby, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door." And a Rolling Stones fan, circa 1966, once told me that he didn't "think that much of the Beatles, but that Rubber Soul and Revolver were real good." After Revolver, however, the Beatles were treated as genuine artists. Most of their fans grew with them, while the younger kids that had until 1966 screamed at Beatles concerts, deserted the Beatles for a newer, less authentic group, the Monkees, dubbed the pre-fab four by those able to distinguish between art and hype.

Honestly, I love this album. For me it's everything you want in a Beatles album. It's not just way out psychedelia, it's also got some quite catchy 60's pop too. It's sort of Please Please me meets Sgt Pepper. It's my favourite so far. But why is it so good? The individuality. Paul was getting more unique by making really tuneful old-fashioned sounding songs full with orchestration, beautiful harmonies and wonderful melodies. My favourite of his tracks is the wonderful Elanor Rigby. John Lennon is getting really weird and whacky and his fun but unusual rockers are great. So his individualism was shining through. My favourite track from him is Tomorrow never knows, really psychedelic. Then comes George's three contributions. He was probably [though I don't know for sure] frustrated at having to play 2nd fiddle and he wanted to be known as just as experimental and yet tuneful. So we have a tuneful 60's pop-rocker in Taxman, which is really social, Love you to, which has a really unusual melody and arrangement, and I want to tell you, my favourite song here, with a really unusual yet catchy melody. And of-course, Yellow Submarine is a gem, sung by Ringo. All in all a fabulous offering from the fab four.

This album was released in Britian before the Beatles last American concert at Candlestick Park. The British version here includes material from the American only release of "Yesterday and Today". Even without the extra tracks it shows that the Beatles while still working as a group are showing some flowering into thier own sounds. Paul is more hit oriented with songs like "Eleanor Rigby", "Here There and Everywhere" John is more edgier with songs like "She Said She Said", and "Tomorrow Never Knows", George is getting into the act with "Taxman" as a slam that John wishes he would've wrote, and the love song "I Want To Tell You" that Paul could've written, but "Love You To" is George's alone as he showcases his sitar playing on this rather well, and Ringo just wants to have fun, and "Yellow Submarine" is given to him. Even with the personalities starting to flex thier muscles they still show group harmony with the song "Good Day Sunshine". Revolver has had some interesting raps taken at it as "The Acid Album" as the group was experimenting more and more with LSD, and also one of the numerous signs that "Paul Is Dead". With the album cover showing John, Ringo, and George facing front Paul is given a side shot like he doesn't fit in. However, it's still a worthy album, and it's my all time favorite.

In only thirty minutes or so of music, The Fab Four made the transition from mere geniuses to legends, cementing their status as one of the most (maybe even THE most) influental and creative bands of all time. And when you hear Revolver, there is no question as to why. It is one of the most diverse, experimental, entertaining, original, provocative, and musically competent albums of our time, spanning multidudes of styles, recording techniques, and lyrical themes.
Frequently over the course of the album, the Beatles rekindle their early love for R&B, on such spirited rockers as "Taxman, " "Docter Robert," and "And your Bird Can Sing." At other points, they experiment with orchestral violen ballads ("Elenor Rigby"). They delve into phsycadelia, with tracks like "She Said She Said," "Only Sleeping," and the absolutely stunning "Tomorrow Never Knows."
Seemingly for the fun of it, they mix horns, violens, and whole orchestras into songs. "Only Sleeping" features a bckwards guitar solo. "Tomorrow Never Knows" contains random snippits that are haphazardly mixed together, creating an excellent "trippy" environment for the song. "Love you too" features a sitar, played by George Harrison. The imagery of the songs is boosted by superb studio technique, and the employment of echo and fuzz bass, giving the songs a dreamy, but energetic quality. Revolver is a brilliant and experimental record that you have to hear to believe. Listen to it. Trust me, you'll love it.

When I first bought REVOLVER, on vinyl in the 70's, I was astonished. A Beatles album with more songs by George Harrison than John Lennon??? I didn't realize then I was getting a truncated American version of what the band had assembled in England. Three of John's songs -- "I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Dr Robert" -- were plucked from the album and put on a collection called YESTERDAY AND TODAY -- that's the album with the notorious butcher cover. The release of the Bealtes' library on CD finally gave us North American Beatlemaniacs the "real" REVOLVER -- and what a magnificent, groundbreaking achievement it was! George's music matured here, with "Taxman" being one of his best and "Love You Too" representing his first (and best) excursion into full Indian instrumentation (although he'd played sitar on John's "Norwegian Wood" on RUBBER SOUL). Paul McCartney offers some of his best-ever compositions on this album. "For No One" and "Here There and Everywhere" were exquisite -- and "Eleanor Rigby" remains a classic of its kind. The soul-tinged "Got To Get You Into My Life" was also first rate. But as usual, the best, and most groundbreaking, offerings were from John. "And Your Bird", "Dr Robert" and "She Said She Said" are further livened up by some great Harrison guitar work -- he shines throughout the album. And Lennon's closing track -- the mind-bending "Tomorrow Never Knows" -- is the summit to which the entire CD ascends. A great way to finish this album (and to hint at what would come next year -- SGT PEPPER). Maybe the best pop/rock album of all time.

on the surface, i'd say this is the greatest pop album ever made. but it seems to go much deeper than that. there is something extremely haunting about this album. in the right mood, songs like I'm Only Sleeping and She Said She Said will fill you with a strange emptiness while nudging you towards fulfillment at the same time. a bit too esoteric maybe, but that's the only way i can describe it.

whether you love or hate the beatles, their influence on music and society in general is undeniable.. and in my opinion, this album shows that influence more clearly than any of their others.

"Revolver" is one of my favorite Beatles' collections. The musical progress each Beatle has made is so evident in this collection. The Eastern influence is very much a part of this collection; the fine sitar playing George Harrison is prominently featured in "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Love You, Too." It is in fact George's contributions that make this collection so distinctly delightful. His 1966 classic "Taxman," is a scathing, satirical commentary of the times ("Taxman, Mr. Wilson, Taxman, Mr. Heath"). The lyric, "Now my advice for those who die/declare the pennies on your eye" has a historical base. During the Age of Antiquity, it was believed that departed souls entered the Underworld via ferry and that payment had to be made to Charon, the mythical ferryman.

"I Want to Tell You" is George Harrison at his best. This highly developed, high caliber song has strong, vivid lyrics. The guitar playing is rich and full; this particular song is a statement unto itself. (I think it is the best song on this collection). In short, the song is a plea for communication.

The Beatles are virtuosos at playing the full range of emotions from the light hearted "Got to Get You Into My Life" to the serious, somber "I Want to Tell You" and the sad, bittersweet "Eleanor Rigby."

I Want to Tell You that this is a nonpareil, outstanding collection. How can anybody not like this? It is truly excellent!

it's a must-have album (only 2, with Rubber Soul, of the Beatles that everyone must own). Polished up to it's sonic best. Don't have it? Then you better go out and get it!