We can't believe it. Jak Housden is writing for The Muses! If you don't know him by name, then you'll certainly recognise him by ear. Jak's guitar stylings have inevitably tickled your eardrums via the Badloves and the Whitlams - not to mention his own solo projects, prolific producing and every conceivable musical skill and cameo under the sun. He's a very special friend of ours, and we're stoked to introduce him to you today - chatting about the Beatles legendary album, Revolver. It turns 50 this year! Here's what Jak had to say. 

From the initial low frequency hum, the illegible speaking, the coughing, the “a1, 2, 3, 4” count and finally the direct, angular sound of bass, distorted guitar and hi-hat free drums, the first ten seconds of Revolver alone almost makes the Beatles that’d come before this seem like something from an entirely different (and now passed) era.

The head-bopping optimism of She Loves You replaced with a cynical shot at the British tax system by four guys now heavily immersed in the British underground art scene.

It’s hard to imagine that Revolver could be 50 years old!

Even though it’s “swinging” and very of it’s time, it still feels so fresh and artful from start to finish.

I’ve listened to this album so many times over in the past 35 years - hey I missed it’s release date by a few years - pulling it apart and putting it back together.

I’m still in awe.

It’s experimental - yet retains the simplicity of the early part of the decade it was made in. Much of it still sounds like a 60’s guitar band…and yet it doesn’t.

It’s layered and deep… but it isn’t the flourishing technicolour that would come to dominate the following year.

Klaus Vordman’s cover art perfectly captures the mood within; abstract and layered yet restrained to simple black and white.

From the stinging Taxman through to the loping, hypnotic Tomorrow Never Knows, the fourteen tracks that make up Revolver soak up a number eclectic and disparate influences and styles from jaunty Pop, Rock & Motown soul to Classical, traditional Indian & Baroque.

Beginning side one, Harrison’s Taxman punches and drives and eventually fades over one of the great McCartney guitar solos, making way for the haunting strings intro of Eleanor Rigby (you know the one…the B-side of the Yellow Submarine single).

The sped up sound of Lennon’s voice follows in the dreamy I’m Only Sleeping and Harrison’s sitar drenched Love To You follows this. 

McCartney’s gorgeous For No One, the quirky Yellow Submarine and finally the all guitars blazing of She Said She Said - complete with cymbals that suck you in like the trip it was written after - conclude side one.

Side two begins with the jaunty Good Day Sunshine and ends with loping, hypnotic Tomorrow Never Knows. Sandwiched in between are: And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, Doctor Robert, I Want To Tell You & Got To Get You Into My Life

Revolver is the sound of a decade gearing up toward full freakout mode.

But beyond any of that, it’s really just a great little album!

It’s roots may sit in ’60’s soil, but it stands tall and strong today.

An evergreen.

An album perfect for any season of any decade.

a1,2,3,4…1,2,3,4!!!!