Revolver

The Beatles took music to an entirely new level when they released their multi-platinum selling album, Revolver. It changed both the face of music and the face of The Beatles as musicians. While respected by the music industry early on in their careers, The Beatles always came off as a clean cut, fun, boy band. Girls would scream so loud over at their concerts that it was hard to even hear the music at points. They wrote pop hits about love and holding hands and all sorts of other cheesy scenarios. Revolver really took everything that everyone knew about the Beatles and threw it out the window.

A big part of what may have caused The Beatles to drastically change their sound into more of a psychedelic vibe was the use of psychedelic drugs, mainly LSD. In many interviews The Beatles admitted to using various drugs when writing songs although John Lennon claims to not have ever written any better or worse because of them. Some lyrics off of Revolver even derived from conversations that happened during acid trips. Whether or not it made them write any better, it clearly had some sort of influence to the way they went about writing and recording their music.

Revolver showed everyone that the studio could also be used an instrument rather than just a mean to record audio. With the help of George Martin, The Beatles really pushed the limit to what a studio was capable of producing. On the very first track, 'Taxman,' we can hear what sounds like the beginning of a take alongside some other weird sounds that you might hear in a studio. Within a matter of seconds the listener is subconsciously transported into the studio and they become aware of an entity. The song became more than just a song and the listener's mind begins to image just what is going on in the studio.

Some of the interesting techniques used in the studio for the recording process for Revolver included reversing tape and the vast arrangement of instruments. The Beatles were the first to try reversing vocals and instruments on a commercial release. They added an extremely unique vibe to songs and is most evident on the track, "Tomorrow Never Knows." They relied heavily on overdubbing multiple instruments to create a rich listening experience by bouncing back and forth between tracks. Once a track had been bounced, there was no going back, making the entire process impressive on its own. They also used an interesting technique on vocals to add a higher pitched tonality to certain sections. They would record vocals while running the tape at a slower speed than usual. When played back at normal speed the vocals would have a higher pitched tonality. These are only a few of the various experimental techniques that they used while recording Revolver.

As both a lover of music and a professional in recording engineering Revolver is an highly impacting album. Not only are all of the songs masterfully crafted in a musical aspect, they also shine on the production side. It still baffles me how complex these songs were for their time. It makes me realize that we rely too much on technology now to fix our mistakes rather than just trying and trying again until it's right. I love how unique this album still sounds in today's industry. It's definitely an album to look up to and has set standards for musicians.