Revolver is the seventh album by the great band The Beatles. The record was the beginning of changes in the band’s sound, their appearance, and most importantly, changes in the development of the music industry. “Revolver” undoubtedly changed the world and became a miracle icon for the followers of this branch of rock and roll.

Tracklist

Taxman
Eleanor Rigby
I’m Only Sleeping
Love You To
Here, There And Everywhere
Yellow Submarine
She Said, She Said
Good Day Sunshine
And Your Bird Can Sing
For No One
Doctor Robert
I Want To Tell You
Got To Get You Into My Live
Tomorrow Never Knows

Every beat, every note, every sound has become an integral part of history.

From this album, the “boyish” sound of The Beatles was transformed into a postmodern quest. And it did not take long – a year later the Beatles unleashed their masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It was time for The Beatles to change. They were tired of the Beatlemania, when crowds of horny girls wouldn’t give them a break, of endless concerts that usually ended in mayhem, of making movies and recording hits in jukebox mode.

For the band, their time of learning and practicing lighthearted pop songs was over. They showed the world their talent and professionalism, and even received decorations from the British government. All in all, the guys got fed up and let it be known that it was time to move on. And what “onward” meant was not entirely clear. But what was clear was that it was time to revolutionize popular culture.

Innovative recording techniques
The album turned out to be beautiful not only aesthetically, but also technically. Revolver is often called groundbreaking. And there is a reason for that. While working on the disc, The Beatles discovered a lot of techniques that are still widely used in popular music today.

For example, it is commonly believed that double-tracking for vocals was first used on “Revolver”. This statement is not quite true (attentive listeners may have noticed the double vocals on the earlier recordings of the band as well). Let’s make the situation clearer. In fact, we are talking about a particular kind of double-tracking – artificial double tracking, and the invention is attributed to EMI engineer Ken Townsend. The essence of the technique is to mix two absolutely identical vocal tracks (i.e., the vocal is not recorded twice, but only a copy of it) and distribute them over a stereo panorama with a slight phase shift. The main purpose of the effect is to increase the power and depth of the voice relative to the entire arrangement.

One of the main sounding discoveries was the use of reverse – the playback of sound in the opposite direction. Especially many reverse tracks can be clearly heard on Tomorrow Never Knows, including the guitar solo “backwards”.

Paul McCartney invented the tape loop method – using pieces of tape glued together with sounds that are played in even repetitions. This discovery was a turning point for music. And it was then, in 1966, that the seeds of electronic music were planted in Abbey Road Studios, which is predominantly built on looped loops.

Album title and song themes
The album title is another charade from The Beatles, on par with the legend of Paul McCartney’s death, which appeared around the same time.

John Lennon said in one interview that the album title meant only what the word “revolver” might mean. Other sources claimed that Revolver did not mean a gun, but something that spins like a record. Paul McCartney’s word for it:

We suddenly thought: hey, what’s this record doing? It revolves (revolves). That’s great!
However, the album had other titles: Bobby, After Geography, Beatles On Safari, Fat Man, Magic Circle and Pendulums.

The themes of the songs were no longer limited to themes like “she was just 17 and you know what that means”. Here appeared the place for deeper searches of the musicians: forgetfulness and loneliness were sung by Paul in Eleanor Rigby, John expressed his mystic experience beyond the limits of reality in Tomorrow Never Knows, George criticized taxation in Taxman and at the same time informed about the importance of spiritual development in Love You To, and Ringo made his mark in the absurd kaleidoscope of Yellow Submarine.

The “godfather” of the album was no less innovative record Pet Sounds by the American band The Beach Boys. It inspired Paul’s outstanding exploits in the chamber-pop style.

Also, on “Revolver”, the Beatles lavishly praised drugs, which seems to have inspired them to create these songs. Well, that’s the story.

It was an attempt to create an exotic circus with tightrope walkers, yogis and authority figures. And it was a test of a pen. Because a year later this experiment turned into a conceptual masterpiece named after Sergeant Pepper.

The sound of the album and the recording
The band also grew musically. The songs became more and more “wispy”, the arrangements richer and more unpredictable, the performance more masterful, and the sound more solid.