REVOLVER

This album is the 60's in an album...not Sergeant Pepper's which like the White Album has moments of brilliance and moments of self-indulgent waste. On the other hand, the excellent Rubber Soul was starting to incorporate more experimentation into the deceptively not-so-simple songcraft of the early Beatles, but only in a rudimentary way. Revolver (along with the several similar timed singles like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane) represent the balance point where it all comes together and it all works.

Fifth Beatle George Martin is all over this album, and George Harrison also has a strong hand. As in later releases, new recording techniques were created for the album, and here it all works. Heavy psychedelics (the Fabs had moved from speed and weed to LSD at this point in earnest) and some of the best depictions of tripping are on this album. And yet this is the album of the timeless Elenor Rigby and the best Ringo-romp Yellow Submarine.

This is the album that cracked open the gates to the flood of experimentation that changed what an album could be. Brian Wilson has said that Pet Sounds was an attempt to match this album, and was hailed as a masterpiece of redefining what an album was. Sergeant Pepper was the Beatles return volley, and really just finished the job that Revolver started.

The songs have been described individually and most people know them already. I simply want to put my vote in for this album as the beginning of the experimental rock album, the apex of the essential late 60's era.