In my opinion, the Beatles hit their peak with the 1966 album “Revolver” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the mind-bending track that concluded that masterpiece. I love the way the odd sound effects and distorted vocals blend so well together with a driving beat … in just under 3 minutes!  “Tomorrow” was recently used to great effect at the end of a particularly good “Mad Men” episode (“Lady Lazarus”) from season 5.

“Revolver” was their last album that wasn’t a self-conscious mess. Yes, the Beatles had a lot of great songs after 1966, but in my opinion, the ratio of truly great to merely good or worse songs got wider and wider. That period between 1965 and 1966, when they released “Help!,” “Rubber Soul,” and “Revolver” was their best.

I still don’t know why people claim “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (the first post-“Revolver” album) is the Beatles’ best album, let alone “the greatest of all time.” Yes, its mixing and production were revolutionary for its time. But the actual songs (except for “A Day in the Life” which is legitimately great) are mediocre at best. To call “Pepper” a masterpiece for its production value is like saying “Titanic” is a great film because it cost a lot of money and had cool CGI. The cheesiest psychedelia from that period (and that includes The Strawberry Alarm Clock and Iron Butterfly) is way cooler that “Pepper” could ever hope to be. But I digress…