Sixty Years Later, One Beatles Album Still Leaves The Rest Behind

It’s hard to believe this summer marks six decades since the Beatles, the greatest of pop-rock bands, released the album that truly catapulted them to that title. And I’m not talking about “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Rather, I mean the album that consistently ranks among the greatest of all time: “Revolver.”

“Revolver” was the seventh studio release by the Fab Four. It came at a seminal moment for them as musicians and artists. After their appearance at Candlestick Park in August 1966 — the same month the LP was released — the boys decided to quit the road and focus solely on exploring the studio to its fullest. They no longer wanted to be hindered by creating music they would then have to reproduce live as a stripped-down quartet (not that anyone in the shrieking crowd could have heard the music anyway).

And so, “Revolver” became the Beatles’ first post-tour-mindset album (I’ll explain what I mean later). It came on the heels of another phenomenal record, “Rubber Soul,” released just eight months earlier. Although this preceding album still contained traditional pop love songs, it also began moving into, for lack of a better term, more mature territory with songs such as “In My Life,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “Nowhere Man,” along with perhaps the band’s first oblique foray into psychedelia: the addictive “Think for Yourself,” with its distorted fuzz bass.