Serj Tankian’s favourite album by The Beatles
System of a Down frontman Serj Tankain has possibly one of the most interesting backstories in music. Before he enjoyed a career in the spotlight, Tankain was building a professional career in business and marketing. Not only that, but he owned and ran his own software company purely because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Although Tankain eventually embarked on a journey in music, his unsuspecting pivot is something he would keep a secret if given the choice to meet his younger self. “I’ve done a lot of interesting things that led me to this particular road of music and art, and I don’t regret a moment of it,” he once said. “Someone asked me, ‘If you could talk to your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give him?’ I wouldn’t say a thing.”
Hence, considering Tankian’s versatility as a musician, both within System of a Down and as a solo artist, his inspiration spans various artists and genres, from rock to disco and reggae. One of which includes the Fab Four themselves, The Beatles, and one of their most divisive albums, Revolver. “I’m a huge Beatles fan, but I’ve only really gotten into them as an adult,” the musician told Spin. “In my 20s, I was listening to the Beatles like nuts and ended up getting every album.”
Continuing, he added: “I realised that I’d heard every song as a kid but just never knew they were by the Beatles. Musically, the Beatles are as universal as music gets. Revolver is sort of where they started to turn into something completely unique. But I love all of the records–Sgt. Pepper’s [Lonely Hearts Club Band], Let It Be, The White Album, everything. Revolver is a good place to start because it’s a nice bridge between the early and late Beatles.”
Revolver marked a significant change in direction for The Beatles, who had grown tired of Beatlemania and were eager to apply more expression and experimentation to their songwriting. In short, they wanted to be taken more seriously while also having the freedom to explore new musical territories. While Rubber Soul marked the first approach as an exercise in artistic expression, Revolver saw the band branch out, working with different sounds and loops to create new sonic experiences.
Engineer Geoff Emerick even once recalled Paul McCartney and John Lennon arriving at the studio each day with little to no preparation, but it didn’t matter because they could achieve anything they wanted in the studio. He said: “Almost every afternoon, John or Paul or George would come in with a scrap of paper that had a lyric of a chord sequence scribbled on it, and within a day or two, we’d have yet another unbelievable track down on tape.”
This was undeniably the album that represented the band’s inherent need for a creative breakthrough. No longer were they restricted to the confines of generic expectation or physical limitations; Revolver was going to be everything they had ever worked towards, whether fans liked it or not. As Emerick put it, “Revolver very rapidly became the album where the Beatles would say, ‘OK, that sounds great, now let’s play it backwards or speeded up or slowed down’. They tried everything backwards, just to see what things sounded like.”
