
The Beatles
Photo: Central Press/Getty Images
The Beatles Take Aim With 1966's 'Revolver': For The Record
By 1966, the Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr —were ready for a change in their musical direction. Namely, they planned to retire from live performances. Before that, however, they released their seventh studio album on Aug. 5, 1966, Revolver.
Revisit The Beatles' 'Revolver'
Because Revolver was the final album the band made before retiring from live shows, the Fab Four never intended to perform it, so they freed up their creativity in the studio, incorporating groundbreaking techniques such as tape loops and backward recordings on "Tomorrow Never Knows." They also stretched their instrumentation, employing a string octet ("Eleanor Rigby"), French Horn ("For No One") and sitar on multiple tracks.
On the strength of these songs and other now classic Beatles hits such as "Yellow Submarine," "She Said She Said," "Good Day Sunshine," and "Got To Get You Into My Life," the album peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
At the 9th GRAMMY Awards, Revolver earned the Beatles a GRAMMY nomination for Album Of The Year, while the album's cover designer Klaus Voormann won Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts for the LP's cover.

In 1999 Revolver was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame, one of seven Beatles albums currently in the Hall. The track "Eleanor Rigby" was inducted in 2002.