The Beatles - Revolver POLL

it's not a ringo tune!

oh you're talking about the drum playing, nevermind

yes he kicks ass on it!

when it transitions from the opening chorus to the first verse that is a serious jump up and down like a maniac moment imo

"Sometimes I think the public reaction to that album in '68 was the correct reaction"

It wasn't seen as good then? Interested cuz I'm not real familiar with how each individual Beatles album was seen in its time, or which ones were more popular than the others, other than Pepper taking on iconic status

Rolling Stone loved it (I think they called it the Beatles' best), and it sold a shit-ton.

only tangentially related but ever since I read someone argue that Lennon gave up on writing thorough songs after Revolver and critiqued how he either went for soft repetition or chopped-up loud weirdness on The White Album it's kinda messed with my perception of some of his songs, not to say I don't dig a bunch of 'em there

Not necessarily identical to "the public reaction," but I found the Wikipedia section on its critical reception to be informative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album)#Critical_reception

I remember digging up some critical overview of the Beatles at my high school back in the 80s and being struck by how uniformly negative most of their post-Rubber Soul record reviews were. it was really striking, the mainstream press found all the psychedelic experiments and confessional songwriting etc really indulgent and tiresome. how they longed for the good old days of those classic verse-chorus-verse pop songs...

Lennon obv got much simpler, "stark" or "primal" or "direct" when it was to the good and "lazy" or "boring" or "lame" when it wasn't. I certainly have less interest in hearing his stuff of the mid 70s and later compared to Paul and George's...

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

yeah

also only tangentially related I remember picking up "The Lives of John Lennon" on a whim and dude arguing that McCartney held the band together 1967 on while he was off in a drug-induced haze, was the only true genius of the group, etc. etc. I thought OK, interesting viewpoint if possibly a little overstated, but then I skimmed the rest of it and apparently according to this guy Lennon was the 20th century's greatest monster

then I looked it up and saw all the commentary saying it was essentially a hitjob yellow journalism piece on him with sketchy sources lol

haha yeah that book is kinda legendary

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

There is some weird stuff in there, a la "#9 Dream", but overall I'd agree -- and not just rhthmically, but harmonically, production-wise, he really seemed to streamline his writing after the Beatles. There is nothing like "Because" or certainly "I Am the Walrus" anywhere in his solo discography. I listened to the RS 1971 interview today on youtube, and he mentions how he'd taken LSD and done a lot of experimenting in music, so he might have personally chalked up all that weirdness to the times. By contrast, though I usually prefer McCartney's Beatles output to his solo material, I'd be hard pressed to identify a purely musical aspect of his solo material that was objectively different after the breakup.

imo had Lennon lived, I'd be surprised if he wouldn't have ended up in the Travelling Wilburys. He was at least as "rootsy" in his appreciation of old rock and roll as any of the other Beatles.

v hobbity cover

yeah there are flashes of it - "All My Life" on Pussycats, "#9 Dream" - but not a lot

xxp

here's nik cohn's original NYT review of the white album, it's kind of astonishingly negative:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/nikcohn1968.pdf

Re the simplification of John's writing: I'd agree as well. Over the weekend I was reading the website of the tuba player Howard Johnson because of the revival of one of The Band threads and Hojo was saying that John never really learned piano voicings, he would always just play the simplest shape and then move it around. http://www.hojotuba.com/merch/

that nik cohn review and the howard johnson interview are two A-plus reads. thanks guys!

cohn's objective description of the white album is pretty much dead-on, though i disagree completely with his conclusions. it's a perfectly understandable first impression. his rave for beggars banquet in the same review is great, despite his complete miss of the power of "sympathy for the devil." but i'm trying to work out what songs he's talking about elsewhere: he quotes the lyrics to "dear doctor" in his description of a song called "squalor"; was "squalor" a working title or something? and if so, what's the country song with mouth harps and mandolins that he refers to as "doctor doctor"? is that (the otherwise unmentioned) "factory girl" maybe? i'm confused.

Glad you liked the Hojo interview, fcc, it was one of the more inspiring things I've read recently, maybe ever.

the duds are massive and sprinkled in evenly: "Love You To," "Yellow Submarine," and "Got to Get You Into My Life." not so hot on "doctor robert" either. not a dud though.

Revolver is the go-to safe-cool pick for "best" Beatles LP because it's sort of weird, sgt pepper is too obvious, and white album is too weird. the white album is much more cohesive than revolver. sgt pepper too

here's nik cohn's original NYT review of the white album, it's kind of astonishingly negative

Really negative, until the bit where his list of the few positives begins with Bungalow Bill! Great read though.

"Nobody Told Me" is some mid-era Lennon with a weird time signature

mid-era?

Eh, late-era.

cohn wrote a lukewarm review of abbey road for the times as well

Actually, reading that review (which I agree is interesting in a lot of points, though basically completely disagree on the quality of lots of tracks the writer dislikes), makes me wonder what other bands have issued records (or even just songs) that *knowingly* parodied the band itself. I can think of Police songs that reference other Police songs, for example, but none that parody the Police, per se. Or, what would Radiohead making a Radiohead pastiche -- not unintentionally mind you -- sound like? Further still, do you think U2 even realize their sound could be parodied?

(in truth, I'd bet they do)

smashing pumpkins, nirvana

really, which songs?

"Nobody Told Me" is some mid-era Lennon with a weird time signature

― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, May 22, 2014 12:26 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's in straight 4/4 with the occasional 2/4 bar in the pre-chorus.

"i hate myself and want to die" & "tales of a scorched earth"

cohn:

"What's gone wrong basically, the trouble is, simply that rather more than half the songs are profound mediocrities."

it gives me confidence that some people who construct sentences as terribly as i do manage to wind up reviewing beatles albums for the nyt

cohn's review of abbey road is up too -- he loved the medley but hated everything else:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/music/100569lennon-beat.html

small mistake on the Oh! Darling analysis there

two songs by George Harrison, mediocrity incarnate;

Yeah, what ever became of THOSE two pieces of crap?

Sinatra used to introduce "Something" as "the most mediocre love song of the last 50 years."

lol

not gonna lie, sometimes I start Abbey Road on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." might make me a bad person. I like "Something" well enough though, but def. prefer "Here Comes the Sun"

i love abbey road but it was the first and only beatles stuff i heard for a long time (i had a weird musical upbringing) and it kind of gave me the wrong idea about them for several years

I love both Harrison tunes, and sometimes marvel at the utterly batshit and equally unselfconscious time-signature changes in "Sun."

small mistake on the Oh! Darling analysis there

― nova, Thursday, May 22, 2014 5:56 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, of course McCartney sings it and not Lennon, but aside from that error he's actually OTM regarding the vocal. It's a well known fact that McCartney struggled to get that vocal to his satisfaction, and Lennon is quoted as saying he'd have done a better job, and I agree. At this point in time, Lennon could still scream 'em out, but I think McCartney kinda forgot how to do it during the years he wasn't playing live.

I love both Harrison tunes, and sometimes marvel at the utterly batshit and equally unselfconscious time-signature changes in "Sun."

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:42 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a soft spot for many Harrison songs in his Beatle period, but I'd definitely say that 'Here Comes The Sun' and 'Something' are two of his finest without a doubt. I totally agree about the time sig changes in 'Here Comes The Sun'... I get a similar feeling from all the strange and completely natural time sig changes in Lennon's 'Good Morning Good Morning'.

Still haven't heard the UK Revolver, strange to see all those songs on the same list.
This is the US LP version of Revolver, the only one I've heard (and orig.thought it cooler than Pepper's, dunno why, except for being 15)
Side one
No. Title Length
1. "Taxman" 2:36
2. "Eleanor Rigby" 2:11
3. "Love You To" 3:00
4. "Here, There and Everywhere" 2:29
5. "Yellow Submarine" 2:40
6. "She Said She Said" 2:39
Side two
No. Title Length
1. "Good Day Sunshine" 2:08
2. "For No One" 2:03
3. "I Want to Tell You" 2:30
4. "Got to Get You into My Life" 2:31
5. "Tomorrow Never Knows" 3:00

the fact that "I'm Only Sleeping" was omitted = no bueno

The US version makes the album more weighted towards McCartney. All three of the songs that got the chop ('I'm Only Sleeping', 'And Your Bird Can Sing' and 'Doctor Robert') were Lennon's!

Yet, even with those three tracks left off, 'She Said She Said' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' still tower over pretty much the rest of the album for me.

Well, this US-only cobbler, Yesterday and Today, also 1966, still looks good to me; at least, I remember it a lot better than Revolver (I'd put "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Taxman", "For No One" and "I Am The Walrus" on the burned tail of my personal Pepper's)

Side one

"Drive My Car" – 2:25
"I'm Only Sleeping" – 2:58
"Nowhere Man" – 2:40
"Doctor Robert" – 2:14
"Yesterday" – 2:04
"Act Naturally" (Morrison–Russell) – 2:27

Side two

"And Your Bird Can Sing" – 2:02
"If I Needed Someone" (George Harrison) – 2:19
"We Can Work It Out" – 2:10
"What Goes On" (Lennon–McCartney–Richard Starkey) – 2:44
"Day Tripper" – 2:47

one thing that bugs me about Lennon's solo work is that sometime around 1970 or so his stuff becomes much more rhythmically simple and straightforward. His Beatles stuff has a lot of weird dropped beats and mid-song time signature shifts, but this seems to be a stylistic tic that he just completely abandoned at some point. it's strange, as it's a very distinctive feature of some of his best material.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, May 21, 2014 10:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmm. If there's anything that bugs me the most about The Beatles solo work (aside from the slips of quality control that come with having to write more material for an album, because The Beatles with three writers could afford to be selective as to which tracks they recorded), is that the performances of the musicians don't feel as "vibey" (for want of a better word).

I mean, I get this feeling from different albums by all the solo Beatles... McCartney's Driving Rain is a notable example for me: it's professionally performed by a team of hot-shot session players who are undoubtedly good musicians, but I don't get any sort of vibe from the performances and equally, I don't think they're adding much. It's all very "yep, we'll sit down, shut up and just play these songs as Paul wants 'em, and we'll take the cheque and job done". McCartney might have been quite into those songs while he was writing 'em, but if the band don't seem to be excited by 'em, it kinda shows. The musicians on Driving Rain don't seem to be in it for the excitement of playing on a McCartney record, they're essentially there to do a job. And fuck me, does it feel like it.

I get a similar vibe from a couple of Lennon's albums, particularly Mind Games and Walls and Bridges. I like some of the tracks from both on a songwriting level, but the performances just feel like they have some kind of "professional sessioneer autopilot" thing going on.

With The Beatles, regardless of who wrote the song, and even with the animosity and bullshit going down, everyone put their own stamp and contribution on the track, and the recordings still feel very "vibey", even as late as Abbey Road. With some of the solo stuff, the players feel a bit anonymous and "hey, we're just doing a job, man".

Yeah, I was going to answer something like that:

Basically, Lennon's albums had session dudes doing whatever John wanted, as opposed to Paul, Ringo and George doing what they wanted.

And switch for whoever's album it was.

Except the occasional Ringo track that featured some combo of the other three, they got closer to BeatleVibe sometimes.

Mark, I agree about the two you specify, but John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band's stark lyrics, austere beats, concise vocals times electronic shading still sound on point, to put it mildly. Imagine, Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey still have their own soulful lucidity, not hemmed in by sessioneers or Yoko (who sounds better on her own albums). Also like the outtakes etc. on Menlove Avenue and the box set sampler Wonsaponatime (the box itself is worth checking out).