Recording
Tomorrow Never Knows
The Beatles
Independently chosen for2 of our lists. Here is what each of them said.
- Released
- 1966
- Label
- Parlophone
- On
- Psychedelic Rock and Twice Over
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
Analysis
6 sections, the first drop at 0:04, 2% of the way in.
- Tempo
- 129.2 BPM
- holds throughout
- Dynamic range
- 2.5 dB
- compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
- Length
- 2:58
- measured from the YouTube master
The record, end to end
Click the track to jump · ← → move between sections
- 0:00Aintrobar -2
- 0:19Bpeakbar 8
- 0:58Cpeakbar 29
- 1:26Cpeakbar 44
- 1:51Cpeakbar 58
- 2:42Doutrobar 86
Drop at 0:04 (bar 1). A drop is a moment, not a stretch — marked on the track above rather than shaded across it.
0:00 · A · intro
opens the record below its own average energy · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:19
- Energy
- 58
- Brightness
- 38
- Density
- 88
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · sung
- Lasts
- 0:39
- Energy
- 88
- Brightness
- 100
- Density
- 75
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:28
- Energy
- 95
- Brightness
- 0
- Density
- 80
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · sung · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:25
- Energy
- 94
- Brightness
- 91
- Density
- 100
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · sung · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:51
- Energy
- 100
- Brightness
- 86
- Density
- 90
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
the closing fall · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:15
- Energy
- 0
- Brightness
- 85
- Density
- 0
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.
- drums
- the drum kit, separated from the mix
- bass
- the bass part, separated from the mix
- vocals
- the voice, separated from the mix
- other
- everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.
- intro
- opens the record below its own average energy
- peak
- sits at the top of this record's range
- outro
- the closing fall
Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.
Ranked No. 1 in Psychedelic Rock
One chord, five tape loops, a drum pattern lifted from nowhere and a vocal sent through a rotating speaker. The most radical thing on any pop record of the decade, at the end of side two.
Picked by Twice Over
Three years on from a handclap-and-harmony single: one chord, a tape loop orchestra and a vocal fed through a rotating speaker. The gap between this and the entry above is the shortest distance any artist here travels between two of our rankings.