Rating: 
Summary: A must for any Beatles fan
Review: This is a really great book for any die-hard Beatles fan. Have you ever wondered what was meant by "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"? Heard lots of stories about "Yesterday" but wonder how Paul really came to write it? Confused by all those strings on "The Long and Winding Road"? Then this is the book for you.It looks at all of the Beatles songs, in chronological order, and gives you little bits of insight into the stories, the logic and the madness that went into their creation. In a sense it is the history of the Beatles from the music's perspective, and fascinating it is too! I guess this is a little intense for anyone with a passing interest in the Beatles or the music of the 60s, but for the rest of us, it is a wonderful reference book.
Rating:
Summary: The End
Review: This is surely the final word on the Beatles. As someone brought up in Liverpool in the sixites I lived and breathed them - almost as much as Everton FC. I knew about their lives their schools, their houses. I owned all the albums and singles - all now neatly replaced by CDs. Macdonald gives us the music. A track by track journey through 186 recorded songs. When it was written, recorded, released. What was going between the Fab Four at the time. We even find out what happened between 3:25 - 3:27 mins on Revolution 9 on the White Album. It is also a fascinating and nostalgic review of the sixties and the influence of the Beatles on life and culture. An ideal evening in - glass of wine, box of chocolates, Abbey Road on the CD Player and this book giving you the run down on every moment.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreasonably harsh and ultimately maddening...
Review: When I first began reading "Revolution in the Head", I felt that I was in for a treat. I have read many, many Beatles books so I already know all of the stories behind the songs and who contributed what. I was more interested in reading Ian MacDonald's opinions on the songs. However, I was very putoff as I continued to read through the book. I don't really understand why MacDonald wrote this book because he doesn't seem to like much of anything the Beatles released. He divides the songs into three categories- "Going Up", "The Top" and "Coming Down". However, he only includes two albums in the section he sees as the top, these being "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper". His ratings are generally fair throughout this section but almost all reviews before and after are harsh and dismissive.
MacDonald seems to base his opinions of songs on the chord sequences and other technical jargon I found boring. That's great for music critics who want to read pages and pages of "...and A Minor switches uncharacteristically into B7" or whatever. But MacDonald seems to not care in the slightest for the emotions involved in the makings of the songs or the fact that the Beatles were four people with distinct personalities, traits and passions.
But the thing I found most annoying (and which led me to give it such a low review) was MacDonald's apparent hatred of anything related to George Harrison. George is and always will be my personal favorite Beatle, and I hold his musical genius at the same level as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. MacDonald treats George as if he is a random hobo pulled off the street and handed a guitar. He goes out of his way to insult George's voice, guitar solos and contributions to the band. He even attributes some of George's most important contributions to other members of the band. Here is a short list of quotations from the book to illustrate my point:
On "Norwegian Wood": "...provided by Harrison's doubling of the main descending line on sitar, a sound probably envisaged by Lennon from the outset."
On "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": "...Unhappy with his first attempt at recording the song--probably because he felt it overexposed his voice."
On "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": "...the track exudes a browbeating self-importance which quickly becomes tiresome."
On "Here Comes the Sun": "...the result is too faux-naif to appeal to those lacking the requistite sweet tooth."
On "Taxman": "While Harrison was rightly praised for this track, it should be heard as an ensemble effort, with McCartney's contribution bulking largest."
And many, many more. When MacDonald isn't insulting George or suggesting that his ideas were those of John or Paul, he is questioning whether George really did play guitar on a number of tracks. He implies that this is because the playing is too technical for George.
P.S.- Despite being able to tell which side Paul was sitting on when Lennon and McCartney composed "I Want to Hold Your Hand", MacDonald cannot seem to tell the difference between the Beatles' voices. For instance, he says that George and John sand background vocals on "Eleanor Rigby", when it is clearly Paul double-tracked. This book is riddled with such untruths.
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