Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...
...this is an album I've never heard, featuring surprisingly few songs I've heard - but I had high hopes for it after recent Beatles entries (excluding The White Album, obviously!)
#11 : Revolver - The Beatles (1966)
Revolver was the sound of the Beatles fully embracing the recording studio as a sonic canvas, free to pursue musical ideas and possibilities that would reshape rock forever. It speaks volumes that the first song the band worked on upon entering Abbey Road studios in April 1966 would have been impossible to replicate live — a swirl of hazy guitar, backward tape loops, kaleidoscopic drum tumble, and John Lennon’s voice recorded to sound like “the Dalai Lama singing from the highest mountaintop.” They titled it “The Void” and later renamed it “Tomorrow Never Knows.” “I was wondering how George Martin would take it,” Paul McCartney later recalled. Martin’s response: “Jolly interesting.”The Beatles’ lives were changing too: Lennon had taken LSD at this point, George Harrison was deepening his interest in Eastern mysticism, and McCartney was getting into avant-garde composition. All those influences came through here.
Our 8th (and penultimate) visit with The Beatles, but this one features only two tracks I knew well and a couple of others I was aware of, with the rest being unknowns (yes, I'm a heathen), so I was intrigued to listen to it. And, well, it was OK - I mostly liked it, but if I'm being honest I was expecting more. So let's have a look at the track-by-track breakdown to find out why...
1. "Taxman"
A good start to the album with some interesting sounds, but it doesn't really seem to go anywhere - although it sounded a lot better through headphones. I'll be interested to read whether (as it sounds) they were just pissed off at HMRC when they wrote this.
2. "Eleanor Rigby"
Just in case you've somehow never heard this, it's a well-constructed song with some very interesting stringy things going on. It's another one that sounds better through headphones - in fact, from now on, just assume they all do unless I specifically say they don't.
3. "I'm Only Sleeping"
Seemingly normal, but there are some strange sounds going on in there. Guitar sounds played backwards, I think - shades of the red room in Twin Peaks ("sometimes my arms bend back")
4. "Love You To"
OK George, if you really want to play your sitar then you're up. God, this is "interesting". And by "interesting", I don't mean "good".
5. "Here, There And Everywhere"
Nice enough sounds - Beatles crossed with Beach Boys. Yeah, I quite like this.
6. "Yellow Submarine"
Yes, it's nonsense. But it's fun nonsense and I like the film. Or I did when I last saw it approximately 20 years anyway. I can imagine quite a few Beatles fans at the time were starting to think "what's going on here?" though...
7. "She Said She Said"
Fine. I tried to think of something more to say about it and came up with "mostly fine" (so thank you to Douglas Adams).
8. "Good Day Sunshine"
Fine - if maybe a bit lightweight at first listen.
9. "And Your Bird Can Sing"
Yeah - didn't mind this one with its interestingly different guitar work
10. "For No One"
An interesting structure - I liked this one.
11. "Doctor Robert"
OK - harking back to much earlier Beatles tracks. But one of the few ones I didn't think sounded better over headphones.
12. "I Want To Tell You"
Yeah - perfectly fine but I don't think either this one or the previous one are absolutely essential tracks.
13. "Got To Get You Into My Life"
This is more like it - and I even like the quirky shouty chorus.
14. "Tomorrow Never Knows"
Lots of interesting noises in this one and whilst I think it would be easy for the track to sound a bit of a mess, I think it hangs together well.
So, it's generally at least perfectly fine - but for a lot of the tracks that was all I came up with. There are some interesting noises throughout but I was quite surprised at how short all the tracks were (the longest is 3:00) - it felt like some of them could have done with being given a bit more room to develop (and yes, I'm well aware I normally complain about tracks being too long - but I want my have my cake and eat it, OK?). For me, the album lacked as many killer tracks as Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper, so I didn't find it as obviously enjoyable.
I did think it was an interesting step on their musical evolution (which continued and went over the top for me on The White Album) - however, where some people obviously consider it to have the best bits of both, I found myself thinking it was neither one thing nor the other. So overall, I enjoyed it - but must admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by it at the minute. No doubt further listening would improve its standing in my eyes (ears?), but at the minute I'd go for either of its neighbours over this one. It's got a fine freaky album cover though - sitting nicely between the two extremes of Sgt Pepper and The White Album.
Wikipedia has a chunky entry on the album, but it's nowhere near Sgt Pepper length, so I felt brave enough to tackle it - but having said that, a lot of it is surprisingly dull. I guess the "Innovations" section is interesting if you're interested in that sort of thing although some of it seems surprisingly obvious now - eg automatic double tracking where rather than having someone sing the same thing twice, you use two tape recorders to record it twice (I suspect there's a bit more to it than that though!). All the "playing stuff backwards" was apparently genius as well, but seeing as how any kid loves doing that now, it doesn't seem an incredible step forwards (I'm not scoffing at their creative use of such innovations though - I know exactly what it would sound like if I tried it).
Wikipedia has a slightly more complete track-by-track breakdown and gives us some interesting facts - "Taxman" was indeed written about HMRC (the top tax rate on savings was 95% at the time apparently). "Eleanor Rigby" is McCartney's first composition which isn't a standard love song (and is another one of the few which doesn't feature any Beatle playing an instrument). And "She Said She Said" is indeed "mostly fine".
Upon release, the critics generally loved it and time has only resulted in their opinions being revised upwards - with many viewing it as their finest work (except for Rolling Stone, I guess, given that we still have one album of theirs to go). The public generally liked it, although it is noted that it marked the start of the period where "their young, female-dominated fanbase gave way to a following that increasingly comprised more serious-minded, male listeners" - because we all know that those silly females can't be serious-minded now, don't we?
The album was #1 for 9 weeks in the UK and 6 weeks in the US (immediately following a 5 week run by their previous US album Yesterday and Today) and has sold over 6 million copies, so I guess it's done OK - but interestingly, the general consensus is that it was somewhat overshadowed by the various controversies surrounding the group at the time and it's only relatively recently that people have begun to view it as "better than Sgt Pepper". I guess only time will tell if my opinion also changes. And finally, some interesting names pop up providing backing vocals on "Yellow Submarine" - Brian Jones, Marianne Faithful, Pattie Boyd (her third mention on the list) and Mal Evans (10 points if you remember where he was mentioned before).
There's no danger of me wading through their Wikipedia entry again - so I'll pick out a couple of highlights from this period. "Paperback Writer", which was released as a single just before, was accompanied by a short promotional film which is considered as one of the first music videos. And the tour after the albums release was their last ever tour and featured no songs from the album (since it was impossible to play them live). Their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Franciso marked the end of almost 4 years constant touring that included over 1,400 appearances. Which is a few I guess.
"Customers also listened to" John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison - never heard of any of those guys. The Turtles always seem to pop up as being popular with Beatles fans as well, which is odd because I'd never heard of them otherwise. So, to sum up I quite liked this but only quite liked it - it didn't push the buttons everyone has been telling me it will. It remains to be seen what their final entry on the list does for me - we'll find out in 6 days time.
And with that, we're into the top 10!
Comments
Post a Comment