. . . being in the other room and too lazy to get up and silence “Revolution Number Nine” when it came on, I gotta ask: is this the the most self-indulgent recording ever released?
Could anyone but the Beatles ever have had the chutzpah to actually, publicly release such a collection of random noise (while all were alive, not posthumously for John or George)? Mind you, I’m a huge Beatles fan . . . grew up on them. In fact,I think that makes the “joke-at-our-expense” impression that “R. No. 9” evokes all that harder to take. Almost like they were saying “are you fanboys and -girls so pathetic you’d buy literally anything we put out?”
It was certainly a polarizing piece, and one made during a period in which pop musicians were willing to incorporate avant-garde music (in this case, musique concrete) into their sound – or in the case of “Revolution Number Nine” simply cross over into the avant-garde. One could argue that maybe this stuff was better left to the likes of Stockhausen. Personally, I enjoyed hearing John Lennon (or in all likelihood John & Yoko) step out of his comfort zone. It was an interesting experiment. Then again, I also found Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” to be interesting. Of course, I was hearing all this stuff years after the fact, and after a healthy exposure to industrial music and other post-punk musics. Different strokes, I suppose.