Prior to the Beatles Revolver album, their mark on popular music and culture was already being established. The Beatles were a British rock and roll band who saw tremendous success in international and American markets. They had an original style of catchy synthesis and American rock and R&B. The band’s increasingly sophisticated experimentation propelled them across a variety of genres, including folk-rock, country, psychedelic, and pop without tarnishing their reputation. Some of the non-musical outside influences came from actor Peter Fonda where in a discussion with group members said that he knew what it was like to be dead because as a boy he almost died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His story was a direct influence for the song titled “She Said She Said.” “Got to Get You Into My Life” was a love song by McCartney dedicated to marijuana and the uses of it. For “Taxman”, the song was influenced and used as an act of protest against the high marginal rates of income tax paid by high earners like the Beatles, which was at times 95 percent of their income.
The Beatles were very known for using the studio as an extension to their music and has an instrument as well. They regularly demanded that something new be tried with the attitude in mind of how it might actually sound good. They constantly used accidents as used portions of their music such as guitar feedback, resonating glass bottle, a tape loaded the wrong way round so that it played backwards, all this mishaps lead to new ideas and recording strategies throughout their recordings.
I feel as though the Beatles may have been one of the most creative, revolutionary, and distinctive groups of their time. Their chart topping success propelled them to a status of musical legends that I feel they deserve to have.
