I like Revolution 9, though I remember the "Riiiiiiiiide" bit used to freak me out as a kid.

I don't listen to it very often, I have to be in a certain mood - but I do enjoy it from time to time.

I used to put it on when I left my college girlfriend's dorm room on certain nights, when she was too stoned to get up and turn it off. Really used to piss her off... no wonder we didn't last!!

http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...litz-game.html :-

Here we go, Bumping and Blitzing into a re-evaluation of this Beatles track, which I guess might be simultaneously the most controvertial Beatles track ever as well as the most famous piece of Avant Garde music ever - but feel free to prove me wrong on both those claims.

Haha, thanks for bumping this! As one of only two remaining active member who were part of the original conversation, it's funny to look back on how things have changed. Urban, Piss Me Off, and cardboard adolescent were all mods back then, and I was not. I lived on the opposite coast, 3000 miles away from where I live now. And George Bush was still president. My how time flies.

It's actually kinda fun to listen to through headphones because of the stereo jumping back and forth.

Last time I listened, I noticed that the snippet of classical that is used throughout (basically a flourish and a cymbal crash if I remember correctly) is from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture---I think.

Yeah, that was a long time ago! Just you and Anteater have survived. Cardboard Adolescent had already gone by the time I joined, but he left a lot of material here. A while ago I was reading his John Cale & Can album reviews.

Looking through this thread, I was surprised to see that Revolution #9 spawned one of many "What is music?" discussions - and your comment still stands as a pretty good definition eight years later. Nice work!

Being the resident Beatle fan here, I can say that Revolution No 9 is listenable; I don't think it's the worst song on the album, but I don't play the album to listen to that track either. I'm not sure if these were leftovers or a trial balloon for John and Yoko's Two Virgins album, which came out right after. It's safe to say the other Beatles had nothing to do with it and it may have even strengthened Paul and George's contempt of Yoko at the time. Anyhow, as an avant garde piece, it works okay, but it isn't exactly Beatlesque for want of a better word. Maybe that was John's intention; who knows?

^ Yes, I feel it hardly counts as a Beatles track at all and kind of demonstrates how little JL cared about the Beatles "brand image" at that time.

Out of deference to Pet_Sounds, I thought I should actually listen to it again, which I haven't done in years. I didn't pick up on the snippet of classical music he mentions though.
While the track wasn't quite as irritating as I recalled it being, there's nothing in it that would make me want to play it again either.

It's not irritating but it's incredibly dull. No one would think that it was particularly inventive if it didn't show up on a pop record, either.

Starting at about 0:54, there's a repeated ascending 4th and cymbal crash. The snippet returns later in the piece. I'm 95% sure it's from the 1812 Overture (sampling, if you will, La Marseillaise).



Go to about 0:44; you'll hear the interval I'm thinking of. They're not in the same key, but La Marseillaise runs throughout the 1812 Overture and is repeated in different keys.