This year marks 60 years since The Beatles released Revolver, the 1966 album widely credited with transforming popular music by treating the recording studio itself as an instrument. Freed from touring commitments after 1965's Rubber Soul, the band worked with producer George Martin to pioneer techniques such as double-tracking, tape loops, varied recording speeds and backwards guitars, blending them with strings, horns, tablas and sitars to create sounds that could not be reproduced live.

The album features tracks including George Harrison's "Taxman," Paul McCartney's string-laden "Eleanor Rigby," and John Lennon's psychedelic "Tomorrow Never Knows," which used reversed tape effects and a Leslie speaker to manipulate vocals. George Harrison's growing interest in Indian music, inspired by Ravi Shankar, brought sitar, tambura and tabla into songs such as "Love You To," while McCartney credited The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, released a month earlier, as an influence on "Here, There and Everywhere."