How the Beatles' Studio Wizardry Drove the Stones to Make 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'

The Rolling Stones listened to pretty much every Beatles album as it came out—they were friends and rivals, after all. But the ones that really shook them were Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966). Those records showed the Beatles moving beyond three-chord rock into layered harmonies, tape loops, and weird instrumentation. Keith Richards later said Revolver made them realize they had to step up their game. Then came Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, recorded just down the hall at Abbey Road while the Stones were making Between the Buttons. They heard the orchestral swirls, the backward tapes, the sheer ambition—and decided to go full psychedelic.

The result was Their Satanic Majesties Request, released later that same year. It’s the Stones’ most obvious Beatles homage: the cover mirrors Pepper’s crowded collage, the songs drift into mellotron flutes, sitars, and phased drums. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards admitted they were trying to make a “Sgt. Pepper of their own.” But where the Beatles’ experiments felt effortless, the Stones’ version came off as a forced trip—a band trying on costumes that didn’t quite fit. Still, it pushed them into new production tricks and paved the way for the grittier, more confident sound of Beggars Banquet the next year.