Revolution #9: Classic or Dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

My vote is for classic...how did Paul ever let this one sneak through, I guess it was either this or What's the New Mary Jane?

― douglas eklund (skolle), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

I would never put it on a mix or anything, but I always enjoy it when comes up on the album.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

As Ian Macdonald said, it's 'the world's most widely distributed avant-garde artefact'. So, important (?) in that respect I suppose.

― Wax Cat (Wax Cat), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

So true, Polyphonic, it is truly site-specific, i.e. only makes sense in relation to the whole, and to hear Good Night after it is just devastating.

― douglas eklund (skolle), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

I find it more amusing than it is supposed to be, for something so ostensibly avant-garde, but I do enjoy listening to it, even for its silliness, and it's not something I feel has to be painfully endured.

― Deluxe (Damian), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

it'a a big letdown at the pub

― Brian Jones (Brian Jones), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:47 (nineteen years ago)

I've always loved the Revolution #9/Goodnight ending of the White Album.

― mountain person, Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

CLASSIC CLASSIC CLASSIC!! How ahead of the curb do you have to be in order to come up with something like this back then? I'll never forget the first time I heard it either (it was on the radio surprisingly!only because they were playing the white album in its enitirety)I thought I was hearing the most beutiful thing ever.

― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:17 (nineteen years ago)

I was just thinking about this song. I still think that Lennon/The Beatles get too much credit for the fact that later bands adopted certain ideas from this song and helped make it influential. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy though in that the Beatles could throw a lot of half-baked and wild ideas out there that weren't much by themselves and their influence was so great that creative people would flesh out those ideas into truly amazing things later. But then again the history of pop music and a lot of history is original but crappy ideas not being much by themselves but other creative people coming in later and evolving them until perfection.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

What exactly is the precedent in in 1968 for something like Revolution #9? I've read that Macca dug Stockhausen's Gesang der Junglinge during making of Sgt Pepper, but what avant-garde composers made Pop Art-type collage stuff like Revolution #9 before it? Any help would be much appreciated...

― douglas eklund (skolle), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:49 (nineteen years ago)

Revolution 9: Classic or Dud? fwiw

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

Oops, I forgot to search for all variants of title...hate when I duplicate a thread! Sorry folks...

― douglas eklund (skolle), Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:01 (nineteen years ago)

Fantastic, John Cage it was, and Revolution #9 certainly holds its own against the snippets linked to on the other thread...thanks!

― douglas eklund (skolle), Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

Dud of course.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 12 February 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

Good.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 13 February 2006 00:33 (nineteen years ago)

Classic!

― Tokyo Ghost Stories (Tokyo Ghost Stories), Monday, 13 February 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

Classic.

Geir, I swear you remind me of that guy in the Fedex commercial who thinks he gets French benefits.

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Monday, 13 February 2006 02:21 (nineteen years ago)

Classic. "Take this brother, may it serve you well."

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 13 February 2006 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

It would've been SO much better if it had an underlying theme. Like if all the random bits told a story or something.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, 13 February 2006 03:52 (nineteen years ago)

Ya know, my first thought was to argue that it couldn't really be an "avant garde-artefact" if it was so widely distributed, and maybe say something about how any experimental-ness if might have was of course totally diffused by it occuring in the warm 'n' cozy and happily pluralistic context of a Beatles album and blahblahblah.

And then I remembered how much it scared me when I was 12, and what that felt like, and how pretty much no other "challenging" piece of audio artiness ever shook me up in an actual emotional way. And then I read the other thread, where a bunch of people said, "Jesus, that thing scared me when I was 12," and I thought a bit about what exactly it takes to scare 12-year-olds, and how difficult and maybe interesting that task is.

So: totally Classic.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Monday, 13 February 2006 03:58 (nineteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.