The Beatles -- Revolver

Growing up in the Anglo-American culture I have, of course, been familiar with The Beatles my whole life. For instance, I remember listening to the 8-track of 1962-1966 over and over again the Summer between 5th and 6th grade. In college money was tight and I didn't buy a lot of music that overlapped what my friends/roommates had, hence the extremely late date I got this album. The Beatles were in heavy rotation on Cather 5 during the 1992-93 school year, and that was where I discovered others who had a passion for music that rivaled my own. Revolver could be counted on to liven the party whenever it was played.

In reacquainting myself with it after a 14? 15? year absence recently, I was forced to concede that it, and not Sgt. Pepper's, is the best Beatles album mainly because it has fewer clunkers--four vs. six--but also because it seems less aware of itself than their next effort. An interesting historical note is that Revolver was recorded at almost exactly the same time as was The Velvet Underground's debut.

Best Song
Despite its wildly pretentious lyrics (yes, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is lame and pretentious; there, I said it), "Tomorrow Never Knows" is probably one of the best dozen or so songs ever put to tape. It is too short; you can feel it straining at the seams of the arbitrary three minute limit.

Released
5 August 1966

Acquired
Spring 2009 (see above)

Next Closest
For better or worse, somewhere between 30% and 40% of music released for general consumption since has descended more or less directly from this album.

Brush with greatness (note: may include name-dropping)
The Beatles broke up several years before I was born.

This post is dedicated to E.F.