Seems that most people pick Sgt. Pepper or the White Album as their favorite Beatles LP, best but to me, it's always been Rubber Soul and Revolver. Not to mention the outstanding 45's they released in late '65 and '66 (Day Tripper b/w We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer b/w Rain) which weren't on the LPs.
Me too. The timbres were getting edgier but they were still singing the 3 and 4 part harmonies.
And they were still
rocking, unlike most of
Pepper's .
I never really did make my peace with all the orchestration on
Pepper's.
Everything after
Revolver always had "Well I'll sit through this one (or even 2 or 3) to wait for the next
good one..." moments for me,
especially Let it Be but
Abbey Road was almost as fully satisfying as
Rubber Soul. (
Revolver's still my absolute favorite)
I think we got some hints of what was to come on "Help" (You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen a Face, title track) but you're spot on it was a different listening experience altogether after Rubber Soul. They sure took us for a great ride. It was a gift to grow up when they were around.
Don't forget "Ticket To Ride"!
And my other 2 faves from that period, George's "Only A Northern Song"; initially recorded during the Pepper's sessions but held back until the
Yellow Submarine soundtrack, and "It's All Too Much" which was recorded just
after completion of
Pepper's.
RE the whole "Drug period" or "Psychedelic" thing:
I never really considered
Pepper's to be all that "psychedelic", especially compositionally.
Really it was more about the unusual and exotic timbres (like the watery harpsichord on "Lucy") achieved during production and the colorful evocative lyrics and the idea of a thematic concept.
It occurs to me that there were 2 schools of psychedelic music evolving simultaneously:
The "English" school was inaugurated by
Pepper's and marked by heavy orchestral supplementation of a rock band and evocative lyrics (Moody Blues, Procol Harum, even the Stones: "She Comes in Colors");
and the "San Francisco Sound" evolved from Mike Bloomfield's seminal "raga rock" soloing on "East West" which was quickly picked up by musicians in LA and San Francisco including the likes of the Grateful Dead who "standardized" the extended improvisational jam and the Airplane and Big Brother who dabbled in the same but also went for raw
heavy overdrive and feedback timbres and those Indian-inspired modal lines.
Absolutely inspired by George's "Love You To" on
Revolver, but none of those 3 would ever consider expanding the sound of the basic band with horns or strings until much later.
And the Beatles kept it to a minimum until Pepper's as well.
The Yardbirds never went full-blown orchestral although they did occasionally dabble with unusual enhancements like a harpsichord or a bowed guitar, and were absolutely a major influence on Hendrix.
The first person he wanted to meet when he got to London was Jeff Beck.
And the very first raga rock tune was quite likely "Heart Full of Soul".
Consider that their
"Roger the Engineer" album was
released at around the same time the Revolver
sessions were occurring, and one suspects there may have been a bit of influence on our boys from
that direction as well.
It contains the landmark "Over Under Sideways Down", itself a continuation of the formula that yielded "Shapes of Things" and "Mr. You're a Better Man" and the whole album is every bit as satisfying as
Revolver to listen to straight through.
You've got your exotic rhythms and timbers on "Hot House of Omagarashid" and your wistful ballad with subdued feedback solos in "Turn Into Earth"; and Beck's overdriven Les Paul powering the straight-ahead rocking "What Do You Want"; analogous in
feel to "Taxman" from
Revolver.
Even the band I consider the absolute leaders of
real "acid rock", Quicksilver Messenger Service, only used some horn arrangements on a couple of tunes on their first album and not at all on
the definitive psychedelic epics, "The Fool" on the first album, and "Calvary" on
Happy Trails.
Those 2 tunes exemplify what a trip is
really like, a full blown journey in your mind from a starting point to someplace different, a sound painting evoking images beyond mere daily experience, not just a vignette or portrait of a character or situation circumscribed by the lyrics, as colorful as they may be.
I was always a much bigger fan of
that version of "psychedelic sound", and the Beatles only hit it the hard-rocking English style of psychedelia occasionally after
Revolver, and those're my favorite tunes from the later stuff.
:friendly_wink:
And oh, btw, the photo of "the boy's pad" from
"Help" came from here:
https://hiveminer.com/Tags/beatles,rephotography