The stream of reviews will probably shorten a bit for the upcoming weeks. I had a week without shifts and with friends who all were outside of the country so spending my days listening, thinking and writing about albums I've already heard and often aren't too excited about wasn't an issue time wise. However now I'm back at work and I'm working on starting a café with a couple of my friends from my facutly club at the university which most likely will also be time consuming. I still hope to finish this list before I'm back behinds books at my university since it will be hard to write more frequently by then. It's a daunting task but I will be trying my best!
Next up is the first Beatles review on the album Revolver, a monumental and historically important record in the tale that is The Beatles. While it isn't the highest rated Beatles record on this list (just one step down from Abbey Road) I do find it important for me to take this one first since it fits these type of reviews a bit better.
When you're speaking of The Beatles discography you often divide it into two parts, either as the Lennon-led era of the albums prior to The White Album or the McCartney-led era of albums that came after. I personally like to dissect their discography into their simple pop stuff that came before Rubber Soul (65) and their more original and innovative records from the time that came after.
Now Rubber Soul was the predecessor to Revolver and it signaled a change in sound for the band. Rubber Soul was less pop-centered and featured more folk influences, which is in my opinion the time when The Beatles decided that they wanted to be something more than the band who's singles saw radio time. Revolver doesn't continue the folk influence but does instead combine the bandmembers incredibly song writing and ear for melody with new unqiue elements and instruments which came to be what made Revolver such a memorable album. It's a record that pleased a huge majority of their fan base and most likely came to win people over in several ways, leading into a new era of The Beatles, a more daring and exciting one.
Revolver begins with the song Taxman, a song about losing all the money you make to the state, the government and the evil taxman, written from similar experiences that the band had experienced through royalties and the like. Taxman utilizes an at the time new production technique which is one of the most common and simple features of today's music production but which was new and exciting at the time, panning a majority of the instrumentals hard left and keeping percussion in the right ear.
A couple of tracks in we reach the Harrison-written Love You To which takes influence from Indian traditional folk music bringing in a sitar to the mix. It's an interesting element that quickly came to be a staple amongst the rest of The Beatles' compositions and just adds to the fact that Revolver was, and still is a many fauceted record with a lot to offer outside of simplistic fun pop songs.
Nowadays I rarely listen to The Beatles even if I have dug through a considerable amount of their discography. Maybe I won't rank this album amongst my all time favorites, but it's hard to deny that it had influence and a uniqueness to itself that I find incredibly admirable for a band who weren't known for much outside of their ear's for melody and their impressive songwriting. It's definitely two traits that are important to have when you're starting a band but it wasn't until Revolver that The Beatles finally proved that they had more to give than just a bunch of hit songs every year, and it wasn't until this era of the late 60's that the band made themselves worthy of the title the worlds greatest band.
"Did he seriously call The Beatles the greatest band?", and yes in fact I did. I don't believe any band has successfully created quality music over such a long time, enchanting and perplexing such a huge crowd and wide range of people and also being able to create something deeper than just simple pop music. Despite their career as a band only lasted 7 years they succeeded in leaving a huge impact on the world of music that is still felt today, 50 years later.
Revolver
The Beatles
7/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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