By John Batanchiev John Batanchiev John Batanchiev John Batanchiev

In 1966, the Beatles unveiled Revolver, which showcased a band in transition from teeny pop to a progressive rock band. Revolver is the middle of their evolution, where the Beatles shake off their mop top hair style and transformed into bigger rock stars. It contains everything from hard rock riffs to pleasant ballads; it is conservative and radical at the same time. It is the epicenter of what the Beatles did as a band.

Revolver reeks with the influences that the Beatles were experimenting with, which include Indian music, tape loops and new studio technology. On “Yellow Submarine,” the Beatles included non-musical sounds that worked in a musical fashion. This technique would be one of the many underlying statements of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The Beatles ended this impressive album with the easiest song in the Beatles collection to play on guitar. Lennon famously only played the C chord. But the magic came from McCartney’s experience with tape loops and was finished off with the nonchalant saying from Ringo, which became its title. And that is how “Tomorrow Never Knows” became the song that blew the minds of everyone who thought they had the Beatles pegged. The song has a continuous rhythmic drum beat and a large amount of effects placed onto Lennon’s vocals that make him sound like a guru talking from the mountain top.

The Beatles first showed a more mature sound on Rubber Soul but Revolver was their graduation into artsy rock music. Lennon and McCartney shared the limelight with George Harrison, who penned the cynical “Taxman,” followed by the Indian influenced “Love You To” and finishing the album with the R&B styled “I Want To Tell You.”

“She Said, She Said” was written based on an experience that John Lennon had during a party with James Fonda, who told Lennon that he almost died and showed him the scar. According to some, Lennon left the room because he was so disturbed by it.

It is easy to say that for six years the Beatles controlled the direction of rock ‘n’ roll. When rock ‘n’ roll was “created,” people wondered when it would end-when the Beatles were done with rock ‘n’ roll, people wondered where else it would go.

The Chronicle gives ´Revolver´, by The Beatles five out of five stars.