at a glance...

Hometown: Liverpool, England
Formed: 1957

Personnel:
John Lennon -vocals, rhythm guitar, piano
Paul McCartney -vocals, bass, piano
George Harrison -lead guitar, vocals, sitar
Ringo Starr -drums, percussion

Related Bands:
Plastic Ono Band, Wings, The Rolling Stones, Cream, ELO, Ravi Shankar, every musical group, rock or otherwise, since 1964...

It is nearly impossible to overestimate this record. Revolver straddles with steady legs the divide between the exuberant pop of the '60s beat boom and the experimental outlands that followed. And then pisses over it all.

Revolver stands at the summit of western pop music, partly by virtue of its centrality to the musical revolution of the '60s, and partly because its songs have endured as well as any ever written. On cuts like "Taxman" (featuring a fantastically ferocious guitar solo from, of all people, Paul McCartney) and "Doctor Robert," The Beatles' harmony-rich R&B is on such masterful form, the only question remaining is what they would do for act two. The answer: Change Everything.

Imagine the impact of "Eleanor Rigby," a lyric that must have stopped Dylan in his tracks, emerging from the voice that had sung "Can't Buy Me Love" just two years earlier. Imagine the sophisticated, elegant balladry of "Here, There and Everywhere" and "For No One" colliding with the tape-loop-and-fractured drum collage of "Tomorrow Never Knows," a song so far ahead of its time that The Chemical Brothers play it in their DJ set. Imagine George's backward guitar solo on "I'm Only Sleeping," recorded when Hendrix was just a gleam in Chas Chandler's eye.

You don't have to imagine. It's all right here, sounding as fresh and exciting today as it must have then.

If you like Revolver, check out:
The Beatles Abbey Road
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles Help!
The Beatles A Hard Day's Night
The Beatles Beatles For Sale
The Beatles The Beatles
The Beatles Rubber Soul
The Beta Band The Three EPs
King Biscuit Time No Style
The Boo Radleys Giant Steps
The Stone Roses The Stone Roses
The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole
The Zombies The Singles Collection
The Rolling Stones Aftermath

-- jf