The Beatles Album That Saw John Lennon Lose His Position as the de Facto Leader
The social hierarchy of The Beatles formed as most groups do: the oldest is the leader. As the oldest founding member of The Beatles (save the drummer) and the one who recruited Paul McCartney, who then recruited George Harrison, the order of responsibility naturally fell to Lennon first. When the band was young and its members barely out of their teen years, Lennon’s quick, sharp wit pushed him to the front of the pack, both professionally and creatively speaking.
But as the band and its players matured, so, too, did the hierarchy. After so many hours of playing together, The Beatles had all honed in on their individual talents. They could stand alone on their instrument just as easily as they could work together in an ensemble, and the first album to show off this evolution with significant clarity was Revolver.
Released in 1966, Revolver features classic Beatles cuts like “Eleanor Rigby”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Got To Get You Into My Life”, and “Taxman”. Revolver shared a similar tracklist to earlier albums, with a majority of the tracklist being Lennon-McCartney compositions. What made the band’s seventh studio album so unique is that the songs that John Lennon didn’t write were becoming more and more successful.
Source: American Songwriter
