'Revolver,' Newly Expanded, Shows the Beatles at a Creative Peak

A five-disc set reveals a band awash with musical and sonic ideas, having fun and making breakthroughs.Imagine — or if you’re young or distant enough, enjoy — a moment when Beatles songs weren’t bone-deep familiar, weren’t canonical, weren’t thoroughly embedded in succeeding generations of rock and pop. A moment when the band that had worked its way up to becoming the most popular act in the Western world was still just four guys knocking songs around in a room and keeping themselves loose and whimsical. The room, however, was a well-equipped recording studio — creating what were then state-of-the-art four-track master tapes — and for all their joking around, the Beatles were also pushing themselves to evolve while applying ruthless quality control.

Source: Jon Pareles/nytimes.com

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