1. The BeatlesRevolver
Let’s start with Revolver, an easy record to talk about. Oh my god, I remember getting this at the J.J. Newberry drugstore on Main Street in the town I grew up in, Malone, New York. You’d walk in and the cashier and record bins were on the right hand side. I’d get to buy a couple of albums every year – my grandmother would let me buy two albums and I remember getting Revolver, a pretty amazing record and a good one to have a clear memory of.
I think for a lot of us who love pop music that has psychedelic overtones, that was the record that really showed you what you could do with delay and with reversing the tape – that early manipulation that everybody can do now with their phone, you know? Revolver had just amazing songwriting. It was nice ‘Taxman’ starting the record, you know having George up front with something is great – an underrated guitar player. That was right at that moment when they were experimenting in the studio and you knew that something big was gonna happen, but it still had that rawness of the early work. It was really, to me, the pivotal moment.
Sgt. Pepper’s… is unbelievable but it’s a whole different world. Zen Arcade was the same kind of spot, right where you can stretch out a little bit and you have the sense that you’re about to do something different and bigger than you normally do.
