Editing Revolver (Beatles album) (section)

=== Development of popular music and 1960s counterculture ===
{{quote box|quote= The unearthly sounds that ''Revolver'' released into the world were at once the antithesis of the human and a provocative indication of the ''[[Numinous|mysterium tremendum]]''{{nbsp}}... As they took their audience through a radically defamiliarized acoustic universe, these sounds were essentially {{em|questioning}} sounds. They kept forcing their audience to ask: what is this I'm listening to?{{sfn|Bromell|2002|p=98}} |source=– Author and academic [[Nick Bromell]], 2000|width=25%|align=left|style=padding:8px;}}
MacDonald deems Lennon's remark about the Beatles' "god-like status" in March 1966 to have been "fairly realistic", given the reaction to ''Revolver''. He adds: "The album's aural invention was so masterful that it seemed to Western youth that The Beatles {{em|knew}} – that they had the key to current events and were somehow orchestrating them through their records."{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=213}} MacDonald highlights "the radically subversive" message of "Tomorrow Never Knows" – exhorting listeners to empty their minds of all ego- and material-related thought – as the inauguration of a "till-then élite-preserved concept of mind-expansion into pop, simultaneously drawing attention to consciousness-enhancing drugs and the ancient religious philosophies of the Orient".{{sfn|MacDonald|2005|p=192}} Author [[Shawn Levy (writer)|Shawn Levy]] writes that the album presented an alternative reality that contemporary listeners felt compelled to explore further; he describes it as "the first true drug album, not a pop record with some druggy insinuations, but an honest-to-heaven, steeped-in-the-out-there trip from the here and now into who knew where".{{sfn|Levy|2002|p=241}}{{refn|group=nb|In Nick Bromell's recollection, many teenagers would soon experiment with psychedelic drugs, but through the existential questions raised by ''Revolver'', the Beatles "made {{em|being}} feel right even for their fans who never experimented with psychedelics".{{sfn|Bromell|2002|p=101}} He comments that the album demanded that fans "learn a new way of listening, develop a new kind of taste", and their loyalty in doing so was apposite to the norm that pop culture should adhere to "a familiar, frictionless world".{{sfn|Bromell|2002|p=89}}}}

According to Simon Philo, ''Revolver'' announced the arrival of the "underground London" sound, supplanting that of Swinging London.{{sfn|Philo|2015|p=112}} Barry Miles describes the album as an "advertisement for the underground", and recalls that it resounded on the level of [[experimental jazz]] among members of the movement, including those who soon founded the [[UFO Club]].{{sfn|Miles|2006|pp=72, 77}} He says it established rock 'n' roll as an art form and identifies its "trailblazing" quality as the impetus for [[Pink Floyd]]'s ''[[The Piper at the Gates of Dawn]]'' and for Brian Wilson to complete the Beach Boys' "mini-symphony", "[[Good Vibrations]]".{{sfn|Miles|2006|p=77}} Citing composer and producer [[Virgil Moorefield]]'s book ''The Producer as Composer'', author Jay Hodgson highlights ''Revolver'' as a "dramatic turning point" in recording history through its dedication to studio exploration over the "performability" of the songs, as this and subsequent Beatles albums reshaped listeners' preconceptions of a pop recording.{{sfn|Hodgson|2010|pp=viii–ix}} In his review for ''Pitchfork'', Plagenhoef says that the album not only "redefin[ed] what was expected from popular music", but recast the Beatles as "avatars for a transformative cultural movement".<ref name="Plagenhoef/Pitchfork" /> MacDonald cites ''Revolver'' as a musical statement that, further to the ''Rubber Soul'' track "[[The Word (song)|The Word]]" and "Rain", helped guide the counterculture towards the 1967 [[Summer of Love]] due to the widespread popularity of the Beatles.<ref>MacDonald, Ian. "The Psychedelic Experience". In: {{harvnb|''Mojo Special Limited Edition''|2002|p=32}}.</ref>

''Revolver'' has been recognised as having inspired new subgenres of music, anticipating [[electronica]], [[punk rock]], [[baroque rock]] and [[world music]], among other styles.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|p=xiii}} According to ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', the album "signaled that in popular music, anything – any theme, any musical idea – could now be realized".<ref name="RS 500 Greatest" /> Through the Beatles' example, psychedelia moved from its underground roots into the mainstream, thereby originating the longer-lasting [[psychedelic pop]] style.<ref name="AM/PsychPop">{{cite web|title=Psychedelic Pop|url=https://www.allmusic.com/style/psychedelic-pop-ma0000011915|publisher=[[AllMusic]]|access-date=30 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161208111908/http://www.allmusic.com/style/psychedelic-pop-ma0000011915|archive-date=8 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Russell Reising and Jim LeBlanc credit the songs on ''Revolver'' with "set[ting] the stage for an important subgenre of psychedelic music, that of the messianic pronouncement".{{sfn|Reising|LeBlanc|2009|p=100}} As with ''Rubber Soul'', Walter Everett views the album's "experimental timbres, rhythms, tonal structures, and poetic texts" as the inspiration for many of the bands that formed the [[progressive rock]] genre in the early 1970s.{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=95}} He also considers ''Revolver'' to be "an innovative example of [[electronic music]]" as much as it broke new ground in pop by being "fundamentally unlike any rock album that had preceded it".{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=31}}{{refn|group=nb|While recognising it as the inspiration for [[the Moody Blues]]' 1968 album ''[[In Search of the Lost Chord]]'', Everett says that ''Revolver''{{'}}s most profound influence on the Beatles' contemporaries was through "its general emancipation from Western pop norms of melody, harmony, instrumentation, formal structure, rhythm, and engineering".{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=67}}}} ''Rolling Stone'' attributes the development of the Los Angeles and San Francisco music scenes, including subsequent releases by the Beach Boys, [[Love (band)|Love]] and [[the Grateful Dead]], to the influence of ''Revolver'', particularly "She Said She Said".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/she-said-she-said-19691231|title=100 Greatest Beatles Songs: 37. 'She Said, She Said'|publisher=[[Rolling Stone|rollingstone.com]]|date=19 September 2011|access-date=24 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924154855/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/she-said-she-said-19691231|archive-date=24 September 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>

Steve Turner likens the Beatles' creative approach in 1966 to that of [[modern jazz]] musicians, and recognises their channelling of Indian and Western classical, Southern soul, and electronic musical styles into their work as unprecedented in popular music.{{sfn|Turner|2016|p=6}} He says that, through the band's efforts to faithfully translate their LSD-inspired vision into music, "''Revolver'' opened the doors to psychedelic rock (or acid rock)", while the primitive means by which it was recorded (on four-track equipment) inspired the work that artists such as Pink Floyd, [[Genesis (band)|Genesis]], [[Yes (band)|Yes]] and [[the Electric Light Orchestra]] were able to achieve with advances in studio technology.{{sfn|Turner|2016|pp=404, 414}} Turner also highlights the pioneering [[Sampling (music)|sampling]] and tape manipulation employed on "Tomorrow Never Knows" as having "a profound effect on everyone from [[Jimi Hendrix]] to [[Jay-Z]]".{{sfn|Turner|2016|p=405}}{{refn|group=nb|He also recognises ''Revolver'' as the forerunner to songs celebrating recreational drugs – whether LSD, amphetamines, [[heroin]], cannabis or [[MDMA|ecstasy]] – by Hendrix, the [[Small Faces]], [[the Velvet Underground]], [[Primal Scream]], [[Lil Wayne]] and Jay-Z.{{sfn|Turner|2016|pp=404–05}}}}

Rodriguez praises Martin and Emerick's contribution to the album, saying that their talents were as essential to its success as the Beatles'.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|pp=xii–xiii}} While also highlighting the importance of the production, David Howard writes that ''Revolver'' was a "genre-transforming album", on which Martin and the Beatles had "obliterated recording studio conventions".{{sfn|Howard|2004|pp=2, 20}} Combined with the similarly "visionary" work of American producer [[Phil Spector]], Howard continues, through ''Revolver'', the recording studio had become "its own instrument; record production had been elevated into art."{{sfn|Howard|2004|pp=2, 3}}