Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Revolver

Rolling Stone Rank: 3

Revolver is awesome. There is no other way to describe the awesome-ness of this album. It has everything and anything you want.

I remember listening to this album for the first time. Every week in 8th grade, I had to walk from the middle school to the high school for percussion lessons. And after my lesson I would walk from the high school to the library. No joke, I think I listened to Revolver and Rubber Soul every week those final months of the year.

So two things came out of this experience, and both have been pretty enjoyable. A life-long love for The Beatles, and ummm oh yeah my career. (yes i realize that is just a link to a website with my name on it, but y'know I'll take what I can get.)

Ok, so where was I? Oh yeah, this album has EVERYTHING. Allow me to go track by track....

1.Taxman- Hard Rocking Harrison tune, with McCartney ripping out a guitar solo

2.Eleanor Rigby-One of the most well-known Beatles songs, plus it's Matt's favorite.

3.I'm Only Sleeping- John's song. Features some innovative tape techniques, that as an 8th grader I didn't really understand, but I knew it sounded cool

4.Love You To- Geroge's take on the Indian music style, also features tape techniques, and tabla

5.Here There and Everywhere-classic love song. I believe I sang this to my girlfriend once...

6.Yellow Submarine- Sing-a-long for everyone! No substance, but hey, it's Ringo!

7.She Said She Said- Yah for Acid! I haven't, but John, Ringo, and George did. Then they wrote a song.

8.Good Day Sunshine- Great song to start the second side of the album, Paul said he was going for "The Lovin' Spoonful" style.

9.And Your Bird Can Sing- Great vocals, and a rocking melody line in the guitar.

10.For No One- My Second favorite song on the album. Fantastic lyrics, beautiful song.

11.Doctor Robert- Another drug song, y'know as I go through this I'm starting to realize there's a lot of drug related songs on this album....Well, anyways, as an 8th grader I really liked the construction of this song.

12. I Want to Tell You- The Beatles used a fade-in for this song, something rarely used, but they use it fantastically, and who didn't love the piano banging out minor octaves.

13. Got to Get You Into My Life- Paul screaming out lyrics. Doesn't get better than that.

14. Tomorrow Never Knows- A great pychadellic song with more audio experiments.

Well, I took a lot of time to break down the tracks, but just to recap: The album is great, as far as I can tell the first time we hear the main vocals through on both the left and right tracks is the chorus of Eleanor Rigby. Powerful moment. Good stuff.

Take some time, take a listen, post your thoughts.

Stats:
Album: Revolver
Artist: The Beatles
Year: 1966
My Favorite Songs (Tie): Here, There and Everywhere & For No One

Tomorrow: Highway 61 Revisited.

1 comment:

Kim Holland said...

You did sing No. 5 to your girlfriend once.... love it =)