Savvy fans don't think so, because Revolver did everything first - and better - than Pepper did a year later. Robert Rodriguez explains why.
For years – most recently in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Rock Albums of All-Time list, The Beatles’ 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was held up as top of the heap, the pinnacle in all of rock as a collection that re-wrote the rules of what a rock album could be while influencing much of what followed.
With Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll, Robert Rodriguez calls BS on this nonsense, asserting that Pepper isn’t even the Beatle’s best album.
Rather, it was 1966′s Revolver, their seventh collection, that boldly staked out the position that a rock group need not limit themselves to creating recordings that could be reproducible onstage. Instead, taking an unprecedented amount of studio time, the Beatles set out to capture sounds never before heard – except in their own heads.
Furthermore, the group’s collective esprit de corps was never higher, as all four members contributed to the greater whole, crafting the finest Beatles music ever made. (Future albums saw three members supporting the vision of the fourth, but not here.)
Unlike with Sgt. Pepper, a greater emphasis was placed on the compositions that lay at the heart of their efforts, not the bells-and-whistles adorning them.
(George, in fact, was accorded an unprecedented three tracks, including the opening cut.)
Revolver possesses a freshness and timeless quality that Sgt. Pepper – practically the soundtrack to the Summer of Love – does not. Though its presentation was stellar, Sgt. Pepper‘s impact was felt greatest at the time of its issue, as an event. Revolver‘s arrival, conversely, was smothered beneath non-musical controversies (“We’re bigger than Jesus…”), resulting in bannings and bonfires.
Moreover, what was issued in America was not even the fulfillment of their vision, as three John Lennon compositions were removed for earlier release on the US-only Yesterday and Today collection, seriously warping the album’s integrity. Revolver represents the Beatles most important musical statement.
Whether or not it’s your favorite Beatle album, it demands respect as a tremendous risk; one gambling that fans would follow an act exploring the freedom that studio craft could offer, as they took on dark themes not usually addressed in pop music (chiefly, isolation and death).
Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll, tells the story of this album and how the Beatles re-shaped rock’s existing paradigms.
Professional Reviews
Review: ‘Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll’
Without a truly era-altering record since 1991, when Nirvana released Nevermind, it is now easy to forget there was a time when a single disc of pop songs could make the earth quake. In the mid-‘60s that record was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. With its audacious jacket, cornucopia of weird sounds, and weighty “concept album” conceit, The Beatles’ Summer of Love definer was the first Rock & Roll album to be widely accepted as serious art. Strange, when just a year earlier, The Beatles had put out a record that was even more experimental and was wrapped in an even more avant garde jacket… not to mention it contained considerably better and more diverse songs. No claims of an overarching concept necessary.
Why wasn’t Revolver regarded as the masterpiece it is during its own time? Robert Rodriguez spends a good deal of his new book Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll getting to the bottom of this question. He also addresses the album’s composition, recording process, and immediate aftermath in deep detail. By also checking in on the peers who influenced and were influenced by Revolver—The Beach Boys, Dylan, The Stones, The Byrds—Rodriguez crafts a complete and compelling portrait of one of Rock’s key years.
In an era when books seem to escape the editor’s desk with any number of embarrassing factual errors intact, Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll is a true rarity. This is an impeccably researched work. The writer doesn’t let a single question about some of Rock’s greatest music go unaddressed, right down to why Paul’s front tooth only appears to be chipped in certain shots of the “Paperback Writer” promo video. Rodriguez attempts to address who really played the dual guitar leads on “And Your Bird Can Sing” and if and why Paul walked out on the “She Said, She Said” session. He is not always able to emerge with definitive answers, but the explorations are always thorough and fascinating. From the differences between the various available mixes to the precise details behind the “Butcher Cover” photo shoot, Rodriguez allows no Beatles-’66 stone to go unturned. Like me, you may have read a tower of books on the Fabs and all but vowed you never need to crack another. As long as excellent ones like Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock ‘N’ Roll are being published, you’re going to have a real tough time sticking to that vow.
