Revolver Entry

The Beatles made a huge impact on the U.S. and rock music the 1960's. Their image and music was very different before the 1966 release of the album, Revolver. Before this album, The Beatles’ image and music was more acoustic folk rock band and straightforward pop songs. After involving George Martin, their music and image gradually changed technically and musically.

Drugs and political interests were non-musical interests that influenced the music and lyrical content of Revolver hugely. LSD and marijuana had hugely influenced the Beatles by the release of this album. John Lennon experienced a hallucination while reading Timothy Leary’s book “The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead” and it influenced him on the track “Tomorrow Never Knows”.

The Beatles used the studio as an instrument and tried to experiment with everything to create unique sound. They sampled the studio atmosphere while talking and put it as an intro for the song. Also, they had a Hammond Organ hooked up to a Leslie speaker cabinet in the studio and put John Lennon’s vocal through a Leslie speaker cabinet, which made his vocal unique. They created new sounds by using many different tricks and innovative skills while recording Revolver. Another innovative trick that they used on Revolver was automatic double tracking. In the track “Tomorrow Never Knows”, they linked two tape machines and recorded vocals to double the vocal image and create an artificial chorus effect. It was a time to experiment with tricks for them and they created unique sounds and skills while recording Revolver such as backwards tapes and reversing and tape loops.

As a listener, each song is so amazing and I can feel that their music changed from their traditional love songs. They don’t talk about love any more and it gave them huge social charisma. As an industry professional, Revolver is full of experiments and unique recording skills, which was far ahead of the time back then.

Pet Sounds Entry

I was in middle school when I listened the Beach Boys for the first time from the radio. The sound of songs were totally different and new to me with my Asian cultural background. After I listened the Beach Boys, I started to have a dream about living in the U.S. The California Sound was so attractive to me back then. After 30 years as a huge hit in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, the California Sound still affected me as a teenager in Asia. The California Sound was that powerful.

 I think the music of the Beach Boys before Pet Sounds focused on harmony and catchy melodies. Their music was more like a commercial. Probably, the Four Freshmen influenced Brian Wilson a lot in his youth and that might have affected Wilson’s early work a lot.

As the oldest brother of the Wilson brothers, Brian Wilson played a huge role in the band. Also, he was the main songwriter of The Beach Boys and wrote most of the songs. He wrote the song “Surfin’” and made a contract with Capitol Record. I honestly think the Beach Boys' success came from Brian Wilson, as he was the founder, writer, arranger, and producer of the band and created their unique sound, which brought huge success to the band from all around the world.

I think Brian Wilson’s motivation came from The Beatles. It was because of how much of a huge effect the Beatles were in American culture and Brian Wilson was so motivated. That pushed him into creating something unique and Wilson made Pet Sounds with a little inspiration from Phil Spector.

Pet Sounds opened the new generation of the recording industry and it was very experimental. Brian Wilson created instrumentals in this album with full use of his creative mind. He used different percussion sounds, several bass instruments, accordions, and other wind instruments that created an amazing and new sound. Also, the lyrics of Pet Sounds were different. Before Pet Sounds, they used to talk about surfing, love, and girls. However, the lyrics of Pet Sounds were about expression of their mind and thoughts of how they viewed the world.

From Pet Sounds, their music changed a lot compared to albums before Pet Sounds. As a listener, I expected the songs I used to listen. I needed to listen several times to get used to it. As an industry professional, Pet Sounds opened a new era of recording with creative experimentation of instruments and systems. 

Welcome Entry

My name is Dong Min and I’m an international student from South Korea. I’ve been an avid lover of music since I was a middle school student. I love most genres of music but I like to listen electronic music. My primary focus in the industry is to become a sound designer for post-production. After being here at Full Sail University, my interest for sound designing for film and games grew. I really want to find my job as a sound designer or an engineer for post-production after graduating from Full Sail.