summer album of the week 08/22/09
the beatles: revolver (released august 1966)
A mere eight months after The Beatles released Rubber Soul, thus establishing an artistic depth and stylistic variance that exceeded the band’s out-of-bounds pop appeal, we received Revolver. While it opens with George’s topical Taxman, Paul quickly cuts deep with Eleanor Rigby, an elegy of devastating loneliness set to a string quartet. Just as things get heavy, Ringo sings the tune that forever endeared The Beatles to children: Yellow Submarine. Meanwhile, George is getting metaphysicial with Love You To while John gets trippy on I’m Only Sleeping and, at album’s end, the pioneering psychedelic exercise Tomorrow Never Knows. Amazingly, Revolver still sounds cohesive and thrilling while displaying The Beatles’ almost frightening escalation of pop art maturity.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.