Radiohead and the Beatles

A defining album in the history of Rock music was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released by The Beatles in 1967. In fact, the album was recently ranked #1 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” According to the editors of Rolling Stone, one of the main reasons that the album was so influential, and thus deserving of number one of all time, was that it was innovative in a number of ways. It brought new recording techniques to the forefront of popularity, it changed the way all future album covers were designed, and most importantly, it helped to transform rock music from something which people danced to, to music which was perceived publicly as a more serious art form. This more serious music appealed to listeners with a new musical attitude. This attitude is what Professor John Covach calls, the “hippie aesthetic.” The Beatle’s transformation from a mere pop band, albeit a very talented one, to a band with such a long-lasting impact on music took place once they began recording music in accordance with the “hippie aesthetic.” This change was in part facilitated by technological advances in recording. The hippie aesthetic continues in rock music today overt thirty years later with another technologically innovative British band, Radiohead.

A major underlying component of the hippie aesthetic is the idea that music should have a purpose. By 1966, the Beatles were growing tired of touring and performing the same old pop-oriented act over and over again. They were tired of being known as a mere pop band, and they were tired of fans going to concerts to see the band members and not for the music. They believed that pop could aspire to be a "better" or more sophisticated form of music. To accomplish this, they stopped touring and spent the rest of their remaining time together as a group in the recording studio. To fulfill their musical ambition, the Beatles turned to techniques and approaches commonly found in other musical styles such as classical and jazz. Jazz and classical music both had more cultural prestige than rock or pop, so it was natural for artists such as the Beatles who wanted to advance musically to look to those particular genres for influence. Nevertheless, at the time this was a new development for rock musicians. Looking to be musicians and not just entertainers, the Beatles stopped touring and spent extensive time in the recording studio with producer George Martin.

To further fulfill their artistic vision, the Beatles took themselves in an entirely new direction for Sgt. Pepper. Paul thought that if the Beatles became Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band instead of the Beatles, or even instead of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, they would be free to do almost anything. They would no longer have to do the cute little pop songs that they’d outgrown, along with their mohair suits, mop-tops, and being good lads. Paul was especially committed to this avant-garde idea, and his enthusiasm helped make the Beatles the premier musical artists of their time. The album showed their daring, creativity, humor, versatility, and overall musical ability.

The move away from touring allowed the Beatles to do what they wanted to do musically. With studio technology at their disposal, the Beatles could do many more things that just couldn’t have been done on the road. Were it not for new advances in recording technology, the Beatles would have been very hard pressed to do what they wanted to do musically. In this way, studio technology facilitated the Beatles’ transformation from a “Beatlemania” pop band to one with an enduring musical legacy. Later Beatles recordings, starting with selected tracks on Revolver in 1966 and definitely with 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, helped to change the public’s perception of what rock music was. Sgt. Pepper’s band made music intended for “serious” rock fans, and it raised the level of artistry that fans expected to find in subsequent records. The Beatles began to “think symphonically,” and set out to create songs which borrowed from the grand form and techniques of symphonies without losing the urgency of rock’n’roll. The musical change between early Beatles recordings and later ones occurred in large part to the Beatle’s new found spirituality and drug experimentation, but also due in large part to technological studio advances that allowed the Beatles to record new experimental musical ideas that in the past could not have been possible. Hardly a note of music on Sgt. Pepper was left intact without some sort of innovative studio manipulation.

Drug experimentation may have led the Beatles to want to make weird new sounds on their recordings, but it was technology which allowed them to do so. After reading Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience, John found inspiration for “Tomorrow Never Knows.” This was one of the first Beatles songs to branch away from the pop-oriented recording methods of the past. “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the final track on the 1966 Revolver album, had the guitar notation written out backwards, played as written, recorded, and then played backwards. It also featured John's voice routed through a leslie speaker, a type of rotating loudspeaker used in organs, which produced a whirling effect on his voice. Musicologist Ian MacDonald said of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “it’s a challenge, an inspiration, a revolutionary innovation in the arrangement of prerecorded sound.” “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Eleanor Rigby,” which featured a string octet, were two tracks from Revolver which served as harbingers of things to come from the Beatles on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

There were a lot of differences in the recording of early Beatles “Beatlemania” songs and later albums such as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles recorded their first three albums more or less live, with no added effects or tape delays. In 1963, the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do” on what is now a now very ancient two track tape recorder. “Love Me Do” and the other early Beatles songs featured vocals on one track, and guitar, drums, and bass on the second track. This meant that early Beatles releases were essentially just tapes of live performances. If the sound didn’t come out right, the entire recording, both