Maps of Music

Revolver (1966)

Where the lyrics of Revolver take you, and where it was really made.

The title is a pun on a handgun and on a record spinning on a turntable, and the band nearly named the album Abracadabra before another band took that name.

Key places

Recording begins at EMI Studio 3 (1966)

Recording site Abbey Road Studios — Recording for the album began at EMI Studio 3 in London on 6 April 1966, with George Martin again as producer. Studio 2 in the same complex was later used for the sound effects on Yellow Submarine. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: Jubilee line to St John's Wood station, then about a 5-minute walk.

Album story

Overview

• Revolver: seventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles
• Released 5 August 1966 with the double A-side single "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine"
• Final recording project before the band retired as live performers
• Marked the group's most overt use of studio technology up to that point
• Regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative albums in popular music

Background

• Recorded after a three-month break at the start of 1966
• London was then feted as the era's cultural capital
• Some commentators regard it as the start of the group's psychedelic period
• Songs reflect interest in LSD, Eastern philosophy and the avant-garde
• Band had no plans to reproduce the new material in concert
• Tracks include "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Eleanor Rigby"
• Sessions also produced the non-album single "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain"

Recording

• Sessions began at EMI Studio 3 in London on 6 April 1966, with George Martin again as producer
• Band had worked on ten songs by 1 May, when they paused for the NME Poll-Winners Concert
• Automatic double tracking was invented by EMI engineer Ken Townsend on 6 April
• Over 220 hours of recording, compared with fewer than 80 hours for Rubber Soul
• Final mixing took place on 22 June 1966

Cover

• Designed by Klaus Voormann, one of the band's oldest friends from their time in Hamburg
• Combined line drawing and photo collage
• Won the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
• Grew out of Lennon's earlier band the Quarrymen
• Built its reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg
• Starr officially joined in 1962

Members

• John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr

Career

• Manager Brian Epstein shaped them into a professional act
• Producer George Martin developed their recordings after they signed with EMI
• First hit Love Me Do came in late 1962
• By early 1964 they were international stars
• Part of the British Invasion of the US pop market
• Retired from live performance in 1966
• Turned to more sophisticated studio albums: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album and Abbey Road
• Founded Apple Corps in 1968
• Broke up in 1970

Around this album

• Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded together
• On 20 September 1969, six days before release, Lennon told McCartney, Starr and manager Allen Klein that he wanted a divorce from the group
• No public announcement of the split came until McCartney announced he was leaving in April 1970

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Critical reaction was highly favourable in the UK but less so in the US
• Melody Maker lauded it as a work that would change the direction of pop music
• Gramophone's jazz critic Peter Clayton called it an astonishing collection that defied easy categorisation
• Edward Greenfield of The Guardian praised the songwriters for finding inspiration beyond the sloppy love theme
• In the US, reviews were muted amid the controversies surrounding the band's tour
• KRLA Beat described it as a musical creation of exceptional excellence, but said it received only a fraction of the attention due

Reappraisal

• Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes Revolver as the ultimate modern pop album
• Ralph J. Gleason, jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote it was the most outstanding pop album in years, possibly the best of all time
• Rob Sheffield in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) called it the best album the Beatles ever made
• Chris Coplan of Consequence of Sound rated it a B and called it the black sheep of the Beatles' catalog
• Robert Christgau said he prefers Sgt. Pepper, Rubber Soul and Abbey Road to Revolver

Records

• UK: entered the Record Retailer LPs chart at number 1, seven weeks at the top
• UK: number 1 for nine weeks on the Melody Maker chart
• US: number 1 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, six weeks at the top
• UK: second-highest-selling album of 1966, behind The Sound of Music
• Ranked first in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 1998 and 2000
• Ranked third in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003 and 2012
• Certified double platinum by the BPI and 5× platinum by the RIAA
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The group had originally wanted to call the album Abracadabra, until they discovered that another band had already used it.
• The album's title, like that of Rubber Soul, is a pun, referring to both a kind of handgun and the revolving motion of a record.
• In the US, the album's release was a secondary event to the controversy surrounding the recent publication there of Cleave's interview with Lennon.
• The Beatles spent over 220 hours recording Revolver, a figure that excludes mixing sessions.
• Revolver was released in the UK on 5 August and in the United States on 8 August.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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