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Revolution in the Head  By  cover art

Revolution in the Head

By: Ian MacDonald
Narrated by: David Morrissey, Robyn Hitchcock, Danny Baker, Peter Curran, Matt Berry, David Hepworth, Geoff Lloyd
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Publisher's summary

Regarded as the greatest and most revealing account of how the Beatles recorded every one of their songs, Revolution in the Head is brimming with details of the personal highs and lows experienced by Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr as they made some of the most enduring popular music ever created.

©1994 The estate of Ian MacDonald (P)2014 Talking Music

What listeners say about Revolution in the Head

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Five Stars with an Asterisk

Any additional comments?

This is a fascinating book - lovingly narrated by an ensemble cast - all listenable, and a couple of them exceptional. After an introduction it traverses the Beatles recording career song by song - going session by session rather than album by album, including unreleased oddities. The writer is very intelligent and almost invariably brilliant in terms of his analyses of the lyrics and the broader role of the group in the culture of the 20th Century. He's also *sometimes* brilliant in his musical analyses - often enough to warrant 5 stars across the board. That said, he's also sometimes annoyingly stupid on strictly musical elements, making some technical musical errors and overlooking critical details. A perfect example is the song Day Tripper, which he pans rather ruthlessly. Failing to grasp the importance of layered thematic riffs in popular music (and frankly, failing to grasp what a musical hook is) he thinks this is merely a 12-bar blues variant that the Beatles rushed out in an uninspired moment. I find it hard to believe that anyone interested enough in the Beatle to consider buying this book could fail to hear the virtues of this song. He's even more critical of All You Need Is Love, whose thematic 7/4 riff is stunningly brilliant to anyone with ears but he ignores this entirely and damns the song for what he considers its nonsensical lyrics ("nothing you can do that can't be done") but then a few songs later he heaps near-Shakespearean praise on the (similarly full of convoluted word-play) lyrics of I Am The Walrus and lavishes modern "concept art" superlatives on Revolution 9. My point is that Walrus and All You Need is Love - whatever you think of their lyrics - are both dumbfounding brilliant and original from a musical point of view and to say that the first is pure genius and the second is a pathetic piece of rubbish is just infuriating. That said, many of his analyses are spot on and the fact that he's so arrogantly opinionated will challenge you to think, even if you sometimes want to reach through the speaker and slap the guy. So, 5 stars, take each opinion with a pillar of salt, and don't let his sometimes inaccurate use of highbrow technical musical terminology override what your ears are telling you. If you filter out the nonsense, there's an abundance of really great insights to be had.

If you're looking for a 5 star Beatles book without the asterisk, Lewisohn's Tune In is without the slightest doubt the gold standard in terms of both content and narration. Can't Buy Me Love is also fantastic.

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20 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Malicious, uninformed takedown by a group of amateurs

Colossal disappointment. The writers speak with imagined authority but clearly have neither the experience nor education to speak coherently about the Beatles, the 60’s cultural revolution, or music in general. The thinly veiled compliments are at all times backhanded and suggest an imagined general consensus about how trite or weak a particular song is, while presenting zero evidence to support their simplistic assertions. As a reader I wonder what led each writer to harbor such unbridled and uninformed vitriol. This book reads like the wild and inchoate ramblings of a lover scorned; I wish I could give it a negative-star rating, and I want my time back.

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1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Audio is not the best medium for this book

This is a great book. But it's best experienced as an actual book for reference. The audio book just doesn't translate into a satisfying listening experience. The author will keep you guessing as to what he's going to like as he has some strange favourites, and some shocking negative views of amazing songs. The narration runs from brilliant (Matt Berry anyone?) to downright almost unlistenable (the woman who did the White Album time period). So go buy this in a book store and save your credits here on the near perfect "Solid State" if you need a Beatles fix that works in the audio format.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Unbelievable.

An unbelievably great in-depth critique of the Beatles' entire recorded output, song by song. Indispensable for the serious Beatles fan.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not worth it

The author is a shadow of the artists he's just critiquing.
Reads like a bitter failed artist (who eventually takes his own life in 2003) who can't tell a very good story and so resorts to arbitrarily "breaking down" each song in the beatles discography.
So boring and his "insight" to the beatles personal life is outdated to say the least.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Crap

just a bunch of long winded pretentious "over analysis" and opinions. not worth an hour of your time

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Book – Lots of details on their records

I highly recommend this book, “Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties”

Ian MacDonald wrote a super interesting account of all the Beatles’ music.

I have a lot of the Beatles' music and some of their bootlegs, so I knew most of the songs that Ian MacDonald talked about. He has very good insights.

I read that this was the second-best book on the Beatles. I rank it very high—in the top 5 Beatle books. My favorite is Mark Lewison’s “The Beatles Recording Sessions,” which I loved and was fascinated by. My second favorite is Mark Lewison’s “Tune In.”

Ian MacDonald first talked about when the Beatles’ songs were recorded. Then Ian follows with details, descriptions, and backgrounds—sometimes a lot of them, sometimes he barely mentions anything about the song. He ended with his opinion on the song. Very interesting.

Overall comments?
A fun and interesting book. I think those who enjoy the Beatles will like this book. I don’t think you will need to be a die-hard Beatles fan.

Would you consider the audio edition to be better than the print version?
Yes. The different narrators do a great job.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Dropping the Baton

Multiple readers passing the “Beatles baton” was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Multiple accents which got difficult to understand- one was definitely Irish— book itself was nothing more than critique of every Beatles song. What music did this MacDonald guy ever write that changed the world? Oh he’s just another critic you say? Yeah I wish I got the book so I’d at least have had something to wipe with for a few months.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Robyn Hitchcock blows away the other narrators

Still an enjoyable trip through the Beatles catalog. For true fans only. I learned a lot.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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For any Beatles fan or pop-rock music lover

Once I realized most of the book was comprised of chronological synopses of each song, I accepted and enjoyed the content, even while I disagreed with some of the author's more scathing critiques. The variety of readers was necessary and made the listening more enjoyable.

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