Well I think you're completely wrong about "Revolution 9" but I'm sure you expected me to say that. To discredit it entirely is to say that it has no effect on the listener and no point, but if that song doesn't creep you out or have some effect then I'm not sure if you're human. Plus, while we're spoiled by computers and modern technology, I can't even imagine how much trouble it was to make a sound collage out of samples back then. I just think it's a perfect climax to the album. The 80 minutes of scattershot music you just heard, the general atmosphere of tension and discomfort that surrounded the recording of it, all folded together into eight minutes of surreal terror. It's only natural, after all that you've heard at that point, that the band push 'music' to its very breaking point, followed brilliantly by of all things an orchestral lullaby.
And it goes back to that Opinz article I wrote about Metal Machine Music. Someone has to go as far as possible, to the point of becoming unpalatable, so that at least the ceiling is broken and someone else can start making something of it. In this case of course, we're talking about sampling, something that has become invaluable in hip-hop, electronic music, and so much else, but before then was the realm of avant garde composers and not pop musicians. I really do think that the huge amount of experimental music that emerged in the 70s - krautrock, noise and industrial music, various bands before and after punk - as far as they seemed from The Beatles, wouldn't have existed if The Beatles hadn't proven as thoroughly as possible that pop musicians can do whatever the hell they want.
I do see a point of comparison in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". In those guitars, I hear Sonic Youth, noise rock, shoegaze, genres and ideas whose roots were only just forming, being explored by the biggest band in the world.
Both songs were made for the same reason, I think: The Beatles made them because they were The Beatles, and they did ****ing everything.
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