In August of 1966, The Beatles released their seventh studio album, Revolver in the UK, accompanied by the double A-side single "Eleanor Rigby" / "Yellow Submarine". The album, released 3 days later in North America, was the Beatles' final recording project before their retirement as live performers and marked the group's most overt use of studio technology to date, building on the advances of their late 1965 release Rubber Soul.

Recorded during a rare three month break from touring beginning in April 1966 (the 3 months had been blocked off for a projected third Beatles movie but a satisfactory script couldn't be found), it has since become regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative albums in the history of popular music, with recognition centering on its range of musical styles, diverse sounds, and lyrical content. The band went into the project with no expectations of having to reproduce these tracks live onstage which freed them up to let their imaginations and new technology run free.

Among its innovative tracks are the psychedelic "Tomorrow Never Knows", the first track the group undertook on returning to the studio and the most overtly psychedelic/acid rock of all the album's tracks based on John Lennon's interpretation of the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, recorded using tape loops controlled on several machines simultaneously; "Eleanor Rigby", a meditation on loneliness featuring a string octet as its only musical backing; and "Love You To", a foray into Hindustani classical music. The sessions also produced the brilliant non-album single, "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain". The album is sometimes referred to as emerging from the band's psychedelic period. It also marked the point where Paul McCartney began exerting more individual input and control of the band.

In the UK, the original album contained 14 tracks. North America, Revolver was reduced to 11 songs by Capitol Records, with the omitted three ("I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Dr. Robert") appearing on the June 1966 LP Yesterday and Today. Revolver was the last Beatles album to be subjected to Capitol's policy of altering the band's intended running order and content for the North American market. When the Beatles re-signed with EMI in January 1967, their contract stipulated that Capitol could no longer alter the track listings of their albums.

The cover design by Klaus Voorman earned a Grammy award.

Initially the band considered recording the album at Stax studios in Memphis, Tennessee but Brian Epstein ultimately rejected the idea after investigating the studio and discovering that the cost of moving The Beatles there to recorded over an extended period was just too exorbitant.

Many music critics recognize Revolver as the Beatles' finest and most experimental album, surpassing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles spent over 220 hours recording Revolver – a figure that excludes mixing sessions, and compares with less than 80 hours for Rubber Soul.

Revolver represents the break between the "old Beatles sound" and the newer Beatles sound and approach and while it was a commercial, creative, artistic and groundbreaking album far ahead of its time presaging psychedelic music, it also left many of the band's early "moptop" and Merseybeat fans perplexed. What it did do was earn the band respect for its daring experimentation.

Creatively their high water mark. It set the stage for the brilliant Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to follow.

Follow JOHN EINARSON on FACEBOOK....we do