Editing Revolver (Beatles album) (section)

=== Ascendancy over ''Sgt. Pepper'' ===
{{quote box|quote= There's a case to be made that the Beatles went on to do ''Sgt. Pepper's'' because there was nowhere else to go but too far. With ''Revolver'', they had mapped out the pop universe so perfectly that all they could do next was tear it up and start again.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|pp=228–29}} |source=– [[David Quantick]], writing in ''[[Q (magazine)|Q]]'' magazine, 2000|width=25%|align=right|style=padding:8px;}}
Whereas ''Sgt. Pepper'' had long been identified as the Beatles' greatest album, since the 2000s ''Revolver'' has often surpassed it in lists of the group's best work.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|pp=xi–xii}} Sheffield cites the album's 1987 CD release, with the full complement of Lennon compositions, as marking the start of a process whereby ''Revolver'' "steadily climbed in public estimation" to become recognised as the Beatles' finest work.{{sfn|Brackett|Hoard|2004|p=53}} Everett also attributes the "problem" regarding the album's standing in the US to the "inferior track listing" available to Americans until the CD release.{{sfn|Everett|1999|p=329}}{{refn|group=nb|Riley calls ''Revolver'' the Beatles' best album but also, in the edition issued by Capitol, their "most artistically compromised".{{sfn|Riley|2002|pp=181–82}}}} In Britain, its supremacy over ''Sgt. Pepper'' was one of the cultural revisions established by the [[Britpop]] phenomenon in the 1990s.{{sfn|Stanley|2014|p=531}} Writing on the [[BBC]]'s website in August 2016, [[Greg Kot]] identified the "More popular than Christ" controversy and the attention subsequently afforded the release of ''Sgt. Pepper'' in 1967 as the two factors that had contributed to ''Revolver'' being relatively overlooked. Kot concluded that the ensuing decades had seen this impression reversed, since ''Revolver'' "does everything Sgt Pepper did, except it did it first and often better. It just wasn't as well-packaged and marketed."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160804-what-is-the-greatest-beatles-album |first=Greg|last=Kot |title=Why Revolver is the greatest Beatles album |date=5 August 2016|publisher=[[BBC]]|access-date=24 June 2017}}</ref>{{refn|group=nb|In his 2004 review for ''PopMatters'', Medsker similarly opined that "It's taken almost 30 years for music historians to put the Beatles work into proper perspective. ''Sgt. Pepper'' carried the title of best album of all time for ages{{nbsp}}... In the last couple years, however, revisionist history has actually changed things for the better. ''Revolver'' is king."<ref name="Medsker/PM" />}}

Rodriguez writes that, whereas most contemporary acts shy away from attempting a [[concept album]] in the vein of ''Sgt. Pepper'', the prototype established by ''Revolver'', whereby an album serves as an "eclectic collection of diverse songs", continues to influence modern popular music.{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|p=xiv}} He characterises ''Revolver'' as "the Beatles' artistic high-water mark"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7461767/beatles-revolver-album-anniversary|first=Steve|last=Marinucci|title=The Beatles' 'Revolver' Turns 50: Classic Track-by-Track Rundown|date=5 August 2016|publisher=[[Billboard (magazine)|billboard.com]]|access-date=24 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170616011340/http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7461767/beatles-revolver-album-anniversary|archive-date=16 June 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and says that, unlike ''Sgt. Pepper'', it was the product of a collaborative effort, with "the group as a whole being fully vested in creating Beatle music".{{sfn|Rodriguez|2012|p=xii}}