Revolver at 50...The teaser trailer for the decades second act

So, Revolver the iconic Beatles album turns 50.

So much has been written about it this past week, another blog churning over the same accolades seems redundant. No, we can't put a 'new and interesting spin' on what you've doubtlessly already read. Nor can we offer any new insight. The best we can give you, the reader and listener, is a paragraph from each of your 'Maximum Rhythm & Booze' hosts on an album that collectively changed our lives. Really.

Age before beauty. Warren Peace:

Okay, so in 2016 the cover may look like an adult coloring book, but that's more a reflection of the times we live in than the failings of designer Klaus Voormann. The teens and twenty- somethings of 1966 were fighting under hellacious conditions in Vietnam. Ours are on the sofa playing 'Call of Duty 4' under the hellacious conditions of 'Mum...we've run out of Doritos.' In general, we're softer now than we were a half-century ago when Revolver came into this world, both mentally and in the midriff.

It's always fascinated me wondering what it must have been like back then; slicing open the shrink-wrap, feeling the static cling of the vinyl as it slid out of the inner sleeve and onto the turntable. The needle running through the grooves for the very first time as what was arguably the greatest  34.75 musical minutes of the nineteen-sixties pumps through your speakers.  Excluding Revolver's sister album, 'Rubber Soul' (The 'Hail to the Thief 'to 'In Rainbows' for all you millennials), to that point in their careers, The Beatles had fed their fan-base a steady vanilla diet of 'Love ME do,' PS, I love YOU,' 'With Love from ME to YOU.' There are a couple of notable experimental exceptions, of course. In the US,  'Yesterday & Today's' infamous butcher cover is one, but that was quickly covered up (literally) before breaking a slew of delicate teen hearts and sending them off packing to join the Herman's Hermits fan-club.  The use of feedback at the intro of 'I Feel Fine'  is another, but it's not exactly Hendrix, is it? There's a buzzzzzz and 10 seconds later, John's "so glad" that  you're "his little girl." Again.


So let's travel back in time and meet Jane and Sarah in Dayton, Ohio. They've set their alarm, rushed out to the local record store just as it opens and there, in the 'file under Beatles' section, they see the black, the white, the beautiful... Revolver!

 "Gee Sarah... the Beeddles named their new album after a gun."

"I know Jane. Isn't it the MOST! Hey,  look at the cover. (She says, wistfully glancing at McCartney smiling back at her from the cover of  'Beatles VI' in the next rack). Aren't their eyes kinda....I dunno... creepy?"

They run home screaming with excitement and before  Jane can get her coat off, Sarah has the needle on the vinyl. Minutes later they're bopping to 'Taxman' smiling to 'Good Day Sunshine,' crying to 'Here There & Everywhere,' and singing along to 'Yellow Submarine.' And then, it happens... Side 2 track 5 starts to play. Sarah scratches her head and searches for her 45 of 'I Saw Her Standing There.' Jane however...

 'Tomorrow Never Knows.' The sonic eulogy to four smiling mop-tops. The drum and bass vinyl assassination of the velvet collar jacket. The teaser trailer for the decades second act.

The times were changing. Attitudes were changing. People (John George, Paul and Ringo...and Jane) were changing. The Beatles were defining that change with albums as timeless as Revolver.  Now if you'll  excuse me, I'm going to turn off my mind, relax and...you know the rest.



Penny Lane:

50 years ago... Can you picture it, sitting down after a long day at work, drink in hand, side B of the latest Beatles record is just about done, and while it's got that familiar Beatles "sound," there's something fresh and new about it..

Then the last track starts, a swirl of confusing notes that, like jazz, feels a second away from falling into chaos but somehow remains in sync, fills your ears. 

The world was dangling its feet off the cliffs of change at that point... Revolver pushed it off into a new stratosphere...

"When did music become so important?"

"It's always been important..."

Many people argue with me at length how the Beatles are not a 'Mod' band. I've said it often: there is no Mod music, just music Mod's listen to. Revolver is a work of art that has stood the test of time and is as relevant now as it was a half-century ago when it was unleashed on the world. It's sounds created a divide - either you embraced the changing face of music and you felt the shift or you watched from the sidelines as the world ran away from you one song at a time. The Beatles were maturing; as was their sound, their audience and their message. The Beatles weren't the only ones growing up. Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones, For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield and the album Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys all were released around the same time. 

Many would argue that by 1966, the original Mods were starting trade in their scooters and forget the scene. By 1967 Mod was mostly a memory. Who knows, maybe the changes heard in Revolver pushed the scene towards its slow end. But I would also argue that true modernists would have embraced the tracks in Revolver and have understood and found its message relevant. There is no Mod music, and amazing music should be enjoyed by all.

Happy birthday Revolver. I hope I'm this incredibly beautiful when I'm 50 too.



Jonny Owen: 

Jonny has always been very vocal about his love for The Beatles and how the album Revolver, in particular, was defining for him. Here, along with actor Martin Freeman and Gary Crowley, he shares his personal take on the impact of Revolver on his own life.

xxx Maximum Rhythm & Booze
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