Rubber Soul marked a major step forward; Revolver, released in August 1966 a week before the band's final tour, marked another.[144]
Lewisohn identifies it as, "The vital plateau between their "touring
years" and "studio years" ... the album which ... shows the Beatles at
the peak of their creativity ... a masterpiece born out of a sudden
artistic and creative freedom, and the remarkable maturation of [the
band]".[145] Described by Gould as "woven with motifs of circularity, reversal, and inversion", Revolver
featured sophisticated songwriting, studio experimentation, and a
greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles ranging from innovative
classical string arrangements to psychedelic rock.[146] Abandoning the customary group photograph, its cover–design by Klaus Voormann "was a stark, arty, black-and-white collage that caricatured the Beatles in a pen-and-ink style beholden to Aubrey Beardsley."[146] The album was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", backed by "Rain".[147] The Beatles made short promotional films for both songs, which Harrison described as "the forerunner of videos."[148] They aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops in June 1966.[149]
Among Revolver's experimental songs was "Tomorrow Never Knows", for whose lyrics Lennon drew from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The track's creation involved eight tape decks distributed about the
EMI building, each manned by an engineer or a Beatle, who randomly
varied the movement of a tape loop while Martin created a composite
recording by sampling the incoming data.[150] McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" made prominent use of a string octet; Gould described it as "a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song."[151] Harrison was developing as a songwriter, and three of his compositions earned a place on the record. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Revolver as the third greatest album of all time.[131] During the US tour that followed its release however, the band performed none of its songs.[152]
As Chris Ingham explains, they were very much "studio creations ... and
there was no way a four-piece rock 'n' roll group could do them
justice, particularly through the desensitising wall of the fans'
screams. 'Live Beatles' and 'Studio Beatles' had become entirely
different beasts."[153] The final show, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on 29 August, was their last commercial concert.[154] It marked the end of a four-year period dominated by touring that included over 1,400 concert appearances internationally.[155]
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