#3 Revolver by The Beatles

The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time

2025 Album Rank

3

2011 Album Rank

2

Total Points

2826

Year Released

1966

Genre

Rock

Billboard 200 Chart Peak

1

Weeks at #1

6

RIAA Sales Certification

5,000,000 (Multi Platinum)

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Revolver Album Details

Revolver, released in August 1966, stands in the middle of the evolution from the more folk-rock album Rubber Soul to the psychedelic experimentation of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and reveals The Beatles growing confidence in their songwriting ability, musicianship and their knowledge of what could be achieved in the studio.

From the children's pop song Yellow Submarine, the political anger in George Harrison's Taxman and his first song to fully incorporate classical Indian music into a pop song in Love You To, the experimental psychedelic rock of John Lennon's She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows, and the shimmering pop of Paul McCartney's Good Day Sunshine and Got to Get You into My Life, there is not a single throwaway or filler song on the whole album.

Revolver features some of Paul McCartney's finest works from the Beach Boys inspired love song Here, There and Everywhere, which John Lennon called "One of my favorite songs of The Beatles", to the loneliness of two people who meet when it is too late in Eleanor Rigby, and the sadness in the end of relationship song For No One.

In recording Revolver, The Beatles spent more time in the studio than they had on any previous release and after completing the album, The Beatles would go on a North American concert tour for one last time before giving up the road completely and focusing all of their creative energy on working in the studio.

Other albums by The Beatles on the chart: Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Beatles (White Album)

Interesting Facts about Revolver

• Tomorrow Never Knows was based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and was the first track recorded for the album, though it appears last in the tracklist. It featured reverse guitar, tape loops, and a vocal processed through a rotating Leslie speaker cabinet.
• The title for Tomorrow Never Knows is not heard in the lyrics of the song and John got the title from one of Ringo Starr's malapropisms, which is the same way A Hard Day's Night got it's title.
• Eleanor Rigby was a major departure from the band's earlier work. None of the Beatles played instruments on teh tack, only a string octet arranged by George Martin accompanies McCartney's vocal. McCartney won the Grammy for Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance for the song.
• George Harrison contributed three songs to the album Taxman, Love You To, and I Want to Tell You his strongest showing to date. Love You To was the first Beatles track to fully embrace Indian classical music, featuring sitar and tabla.
• For I'm Only Sleeping, engineer Geoff Emerick recorded George's backwards guitar solo by first recording it normally, reversing the tape, and then having Harrison learn to play it backwards so it would sound melodic when reversed again.
• The album's distinctive cover art was created by German bassist and artist Klaus Voormann, an old friend of the band from their Hamburg days. It won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts.
• Yellow Submarine was written as a children's song for Ringo Starr to sing, and features a party-like sound collage of sound effects and studio antics.
• She Said She Said was inspired by a conversation John Lennon had with actor Peter Fonda during an LSD trip. The line "I know what it's like to be dead" came directly from Fonda.
• Revolver was the last Beatles album to be mixed in mono as the primary format. The stereo mix was treated as secondary, with fewer production resources allocated.
• The title Revolver refers not to a firearm, but to the spinning motion of a record on a turntable.
• In 2022, a deluxe edition of Revolver was released with remixed audio, outtakes, and session recordings, revealing alternate takes and the evolution of tracks like Rain and And Your Bird Can Sing.
• Got to Get You into My Life wasn't released as a single in the U.S. until 1976, ten years after it's initial release on the album. It went on to reach #7 on the Billboard chart.
• The original names for the characters in the song Eleanor Rigby were Daisy Hawkins and Father McCartney.
• The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 for its cultural and historical significance.

Revolver Tracklist

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby - Reached #11 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
3. I'm Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here, There and Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine - Reached #2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
7. She Said She Said
8. Good Day Sunshine
9. And Your Bird Can Sing
10. For No One
11. Doctor Robert
12. I Want to Tell You
13. Got to Get You into My Life - Reached #7 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
14. Tomorrow Never Knows

• Next Album: #2. Thriller by Michael Jackson
• Previous Album: #4. Nevermind by Nirvana