The Depths · All albums

Revolver

The Beatles · 1966

• Zone: Surface (level 1 of 5)
• Genre: Rock, Psychedelic rock
• Mood: dreamy, inventive, mischievous
• Sound: tape loops, backwards guitar, sitar and Indian instruments, studio experimentation, string quartet, distorted drums

In 1966, the Beatles turned the studio into an instrument, and the biggest group in the world made it sound normal to be strange. They looped and manipulated tape, sent vocals through a spinning organ speaker, and recorded guitar parts backward, so some tracks sounded like nothing a band could play live. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the boldest example: one droning chord, a wash of tape loops, and no real verse-chorus shape. Elsewhere, “Eleanor Rigby” swaps the rock lineup for a string octet, and “Love You To” brings in sitar and tabla.

Track list

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I’m Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here, There and Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine
7. She Said She Said
8. Good Day Sunshine
9. And Your Bird Can Sing
10. For No One
11. Doctor Robert
12. I Want to Tell You
13. Got to Get You into My Life
14. Tomorrow Never Knows