General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRevolver was released 50 years ago today.
Last edited Fri Aug 5, 2016, 09:02 PM - Edit history (4)
Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group the Beatles. It was released on 5 August 1966 in the United Kingdom and three days later in the United States. The record spent 34 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, for seven of which it held the number one spot. Reduced to eleven songs for the North American market, Revolver was the last Beatles album to be subjected to Capitol Records' policy of altering the band's intended running order and content. In America, the album topped the Billboard Top LPs listings for six weeks.
IMHO, it's a better album than Sgt. Pepper. Sgt Pepper is okay, but it's not the big deal that so many people make it out to be.
Here's 801's cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows," which I consider much better than the original:
ETA, 2:37: I have Japanese pressings of Revolver and Rubber Soul. I bought them about 1978, give or take, at a used record store in Charlottesville, Virginia. The store was run by someone named Ned Stacey. He was from Athens, Georgia. I have no idea where he is now.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)I've listened to it countless times and I still hear new things when I give it another listen. It's a brilliant album. ETA: And I agree, better than Sgt. Pepper's.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)I got it in 1966, when it first came out. I was 16. Fifty years? I never would have imagined that I'd ever be saying "fifty years ago."
Advice to the millennials. Enjoy it while you can, and live it to the fullest. Because you, too, will some dayand that day will seem to come much faster than you can imagineremember today as "fifty years ago."
boomer55
(592 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)39 days before I was born. Guess what happens to me next month?
frazzled
(18,402 posts)While I sometimes ponder how so many years have gone by (I'm 66, as you probably guessed from the post), I still think that's relatively young: my dad is about to turn 100! I can't even begin to imagine the kinds of changes he has seen and had to comprehend across his lifetime.
Fifty is still young (though a lot older than 25!). May you have another fifty years, like my dad, to enjoy all the new albums that come out. Happy Birthday in advance!
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)And pretty much physically. Can still spend a week fishing hard everyday on the boat in the gulf. Recreational not commercial. Could not have done commercial even at 25!
I often joke that I would only want to be 25 again if I could have my current wisdom and income!
Have a nice weekend.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)But I looked good!
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)It's all that electrolyte you have to drink in preparation.
Gawd, is that awful.
For the procedure, they shoot you up with, I don't know, fentanyl or something. Then they ask you to start counting backwards from ten.
You won't reach zero.
Cue the Ramones, "I want to be sedated."
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)with enough of that stuff they could have cut my head off with a rusty saw and I would be, like, "hey, no problem"
I understand why it is a popular- and dangerous- drug of abuse. But if I need to have another root canal, please fuck, hook me up.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)When I had some kind of scan for a cancer scare. Thankfully just a scare.
FuzzyRabbit
(1,969 posts)I wish I was 20 again, but knowing what I know now.
And you will turn 50? Well, that didn't take very long, did it?
Lithos
(26,404 posts)Ie, when I was duplicating what I already had in vinyl.
My first vinyl was the White Album, a great album, though I think like you Revolver and Rubber Soul were better in many respects.
L-
Glorfindel
(9,734 posts)I thought no album could ever top "Rubber Soul," but this one did! Thanks for the welcome reminder.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)I.m quite fond of Rubber Soul, too.
brewens
(13,620 posts)Beggars Banquet and Let it Bleed.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts). . .it's none. I don't like them. My wife likes a lot of the early stuff, but not me.
Chiyo-chichi
(3,586 posts)Their guest points out that George Martin said that Rubber Soul and Revolver could have been parts 1 and 2 of the same album.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)I have them both, who doesn't, and still can't remember which songs are on which albums,
don't really care, either
listening to a youtube mix as I type this; we can work it out is playing, and I can't remember which album it's from: I know it's from one of them, but that's it......hahaha....it was recorded during the rubber soul sessions, but released as a single, with.....what?...we can look it up, we can look it uh-up
so typical of how they did many of their songs
emulatorloo
(44,182 posts)Thanks for the thread and the reminder to LISTEN
As an aside, I've never understood the need to shit on Sgt Pepper in order to praise Revolver. They are quite different in tone/structure and both have some amazing songs.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)Up until then I had mostly ignored the Beatles (and most rock and roll.) Reevaluation. The dips into raga most compelling. I had seen Ravi Shankar at Carnegie Hall the year before.
--imm
boguspotus
(286 posts)I'd have to say it's their best album. Although so many others of their albums are pretty close too.
Response to mahatmakanejeeves (Original post)
milestogo This message was self-deleted by its author.
Iggo
(47,565 posts)...or Rubber Soul.
...or Abbey Road.
...or The White Album.
...or...
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)Most people start at the beginning.
As I've said at DU earlier, 801 Live is my favorite album, and "TNK (Tomorrow Never Knows)" is my favorite song on that album.
Thanks for sharing that.
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Just look at my username... Track 3 peeps
Glorfindel
(9,734 posts)The White Album is brilliant. I'll never forget the first time I heard "Revolution 9." It scared me silly.
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)Greybnk48
(10,176 posts)go together for me. The summer I graduated! Also, Good Day Sunshine. Every album the Beatles brought out was like a release of a Harry Potter book without the parties!
Photographer
(1,142 posts)SeattleVet
(5,479 posts)I have to stop for a second and think, "Wait - what? What do you mean, 'oldies'? It's on my current playlist!"
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)McCartney....probably none, now that I think of it
just got concert for George from the library
JESUS!!!!!
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)My god, that French horn...
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Boomers aren't the only ones feeling old, man.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)30? Really? 30.
Sigh.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I remember that summer pretty vividly. A lot going on.
I like the Beatles, too, of course, but as some here mark the phases of their youth by Beatles releases, that's how I feel about R.E.M.'s IRS albums.
skylucy
(3,743 posts)Thanks for posting this.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Revolver was a gem....then ??? until hip hop.
I just wish a new form of popular music would come to the fore.
EDM is a contender, but I am too old. Back to In a Sentimental Mood, I guess.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)At least, in my opinion.
rufus dog
(8,419 posts)I remember my brothers bringing that album home and I stared at the cover for days. Damn if it wasn't 50 years, trippy cover for a 4 year old.
Here is a Warren Haynes/Gov't Mule version of She Said She Said, in to Tomorrow Never Knows
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)thanks for that.
seen the Clapton/allman brothers tunes on youtube?
now we're even
spanone
(135,874 posts)Little_Wing
(417 posts)Divine... sigh... It could be my desert island selection...
We used to listen to right channel/left channel to suss out the little hidden gems:
Good Day Sunshine-- John grunting "She's looking good" in the background of Paul's sunshiney delivery. Teenage Beatlemaniac chills! And they thought we were all such innocent little girls.
My always favorite after "Please Please Me," an album that changed my Detroit adolescence forever.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)was dancing on top of the built-into-the-wall desk-bookcase my dad made (so well crafted that the desk didn't need legs; cantilevered out so I could stand on it, reaching the highest shelves), going cracked to that song. this was before they got 'popular'.....just about a year before Sullivan show mania
thanks, dad! wish you were here.....93 years plus one month, 4 days....love you
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Truly three of the greatest works in modern music history.
GReedDiamond
(5,316 posts)...I'm listening to it this very moment.
The 801 version of Tomorrow Never Knows is one of the great covers ever done by any band, and, as you say, better than the original.
Anyone who likes the original TNK, but has not heard 801's version should do themselves a favor and give it a listen.
Thanks for the thread, mahatmakanejeeves.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)at some sort of beatle fest in Chicago today and tomorrow, talking about, among other things, a book he wrote about his composition of the cover of that album
http://www.voormann.com/
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)had anything to do with the beatles
here, this describes it much better than I could:
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_day_in_the_life.html?id=LUwIAQAAMAAJ
There are also many intriguing stories of all the creative talented people who brought the Beatles' ideas to fruition such as producer/arranger George Martin, recording engineer Geoff Emerick, manager Brian Epstein and many more. Mark Hertsgaard is only one of two "outsiders" that gained access to the infamous Abbey Road Studio Master Tapes, listening to over 50 hours of their recordings and documenting them masterfully. Truly a must-read for any student or fan of the Beatles' music.
those fifty hours are one eighth of the master tapes recorded. I can't remember what the total of released material is, but there's a LOT in there that hasn't seen the light of day. this book has about a hundred pages of notes, used to verify the information/conversations cited in the body of the work. this guy is one of the finest journalists extant (he wrote the seminal "On Bended Knee," about the press's role in creating the Reagan myth, which enabled him to destroy our economy, among other things). that's why they gave him access to the material......can't recommend this book highly enough
my favorite takeaway from the book so far (haven't finished it yet); the B side of Lady Madonna:
"the farther one travels,
the less one knows"
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)which is a bit of an acquired taste. Try starting at 16:41, "Ski-ing."
Freddie
(9,273 posts)As a little kid I totally adored the "mop tops" but I was just too young to like their more sophisticated stuff then. Love it now of course and everything they recorded but my favorite Beatles period is still "mid-early"--if pressed, favorite Beatles albums are "With The Beatles" and "A Hard Day's Night". IMO this period seems more timeless, less "stuck in an era" than the later stuff.
Of the millions of Beatle books, if you really want an exhaustively researched and definitive history, get "Tune In" by Mark Lewisohn. This is the first of 3 planned volumes and covers their births through the end of 1962.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)I posted this about a month ago, in the DU Lounge thread Ok...greatest opening guitar riffs..I'll start..:
Are Chapman Sticks allowed?
And, from a year ago:
49 years ago today, The Beatles released "Revolver"
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)glorifies handguns.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,602 posts)I don't think anyone here doesn't get the reference, but for the young'uns:
Yesterday and Today
And I'm currently listening to the 50-minute version of "Tomorrow Never Knows," linked here:
Revolver - Tomorrow Never Knows - (50 MINUTE VERSION)
That definitely separates the real fans from the sort-of fans.