Rubber Soul

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Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 3 December 1965 in the United Kingdom on EMI's Parlophone label, accompanied by the non-album double A-side single "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper". The original North American release, issued by Capitol Records, contains ten of the fourteen songs and two tracks withheld from the band's Help! (1965) album. Rubber Soul was described as an important artistic achievement by the band, meeting a highly favourable critical response and topping sales charts in Britain and the United States for several weeks.

The recording sessions took place in London over a four-week period beginning in October 1965. For the first time in their career, the Beatles were able to record an album free of concert, radio or film commitments. Often referred to as a folk rock album, particularly in its Capitol configuration, Rubber Soul incorporates a mix of pop, soul and folk musical styles. The title derives from the colloquialism "plastic soul" and was the Beatles' way of acknowledging their lack of authenticity compared to the African-American soul artists they admired. After A Hard Day's Night (1964), it was the second Beatles LP to contain only original material.

The songs demonstrate the Beatles' increasing maturity as lyricists, and in their incorporation of brighter guitar tones and new instrumentation such as sitar, harmonium and fuzz bass, the group striving for more expressive sounds and arrangements for their music. The project marked a progression in the band's treatment of the album format as an artistic platform, an approach they continued to develop with Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). The four songs omitted by Capitol, including the February 1966 single "Nowhere Man", later appeared on the North American release Yesterday and Today (1966).

Rubber Soul was highly influential on the Beatles' peers, leading to a widespread focus away from singles and onto creating albums of consistently high-quality songs. It has been recognised by music critics as an album that opened up the possibilities of pop music in terms of lyrical and musical scope, and as a key work in the creation of styles such as psychedelia and progressive rock. Among its many appearances on critics' best-album lists, Rolling Stone ranked it fifth on the magazine's 2012 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2000, it was voted at number 34 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums. The album was certified 6× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1997, indicating shipments of at least six million copies in the US. In 2013, Rubber Soul was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for UK sales since 1994. Template:TOC limit

BackgroundEdit

File:Beatles press conference 1965.jpg

The Beatles at a press conference during their August 1965 North American tour, two months before the start of the Rubber Soul sessions

Most of the songs on Rubber Soul were composed soon after the Beatles' return to London following their August 1965 North American tour.Template:Sfn The album reflects the influence of their month in America.<ref name="Lewisohn/MojoSpecial">Lewisohn, Mark. "High Times". In: Template:Harvnb.</ref> They set a new attendance record when they played to over 55,000 at Shea Stadium on 15 August, met Bob Dylan in New York and their longtime hero Elvis Presley in Los Angeles.Template:Sfn Although the Beatles had released their album Help! that same month, the requirement for a new album in time for Christmas was in keeping with the schedule established with EMI in 1963 by Brian Epstein, the group's manager,Template:Sfn and George Martin, their record producer.Template:Sfn

In their new songs, the Beatles drew inspiration from soul music acts signed to the Motown and Stax record labels,Template:Sfn particularly the singles they heard on US radio that summer,Template:Sfn and from the contemporary folk rock of Dylan and the Byrds.<ref name="Unterberger/AM" /> Author Robert Rodriguez highlights the Byrds as having achieved "special notice as an American act that had taken something from the Brits, added to it, then sent it back". In doing so, Rodriguez continues, the Byrds had joined the Beatles and Dylan in "a common pool of influence exchange, where each act gave and took from the other in equal measure".Template:Sfn Template:Refn According to music critic Tim Riley, Rubber Soul served as a "step toward a greater synthesis" of all the elements that throughout 1965 represented a "major rock 'n' roll explosion", rather than just the emergence of folk rock. Citing Dylan and the Rolling Stones as the Beatles' artistic peers during this period, he says that on Rubber Soul these two acts "inspire rather than influence their sound".Template:Sfn

Two years after the start of Beatlemania, the band were open to exploring new themes in their music through a combination of their tiring of playing to audiences full of screaming fans, their commercial power, a shared curiosity gained through literature and experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs, and their interest in the potential of the recording studio.Template:Sfn According to Ringo Starr, Rubber Soul was the Beatles' "departure record", written and recorded during a period when, largely through the influence of marijuana,Template:Sfn "We were expanding in all areas of our lives, opening up to a lot of different attitudes."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The album was especially reflective of John Lennon's maturation as a songwriter,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn as he was encouraged to address wider-ranging issues than before through Dylan's example.Template:Sfn George Harrison's outlook had been transformed by his and Lennon's experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD;Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> he said the drug had revealed to him the futility of the band's widespread fame<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> by "open[ing] up this whole other consciousness".Template:Sfn

Author Mark Prendergast recognises Rubber Soul as "the first Beatles record which was noticeably drug-influenced".Template:Sfn Lennon called it "the pot album".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Marijuana appealed to the band's bohemian ideal. Paul McCartney, who was the only Beatle still living in central London, said it was typical of a move away from alcohol and into "more of a beatnik scene, like jazz".Template:Sfn

ProductionEdit

Recording historyEdit

Template:Quote box Recording for Rubber Soul began on 12 October 1965 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London; final production and mix down took place on 15 November.Template:Sfn During the sessions, the Beatles typically focused on fine-tuning the musical arrangement for each song, an approach that reflected the growing division between the band as a live act and their ambitions as recording artists.Template:Sfn The album was one of the first projects that Martin undertook after leaving EMI's staff and co-founding Associated Independent Recording (AIR).Template:Sfn Martin later described Rubber Soul as "the first album to present a new, growing Beatles to the world",Template:Sfn adding: "For the first time we began to think of albums as art on their own, as complete entities."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn It was the final Beatles album that recording engineer Norman Smith worked on before being promoted by EMI to record producer.Template:Sfn The sessions were held over thirteen days and totalled 113 hours, with a further seventeen hours (spread over six days) allowed for mixing.Template:Sfn

File:Buckingham Palace, London - April 2009.jpg

The Beatles interrupted the intensive recording for the album to receive their MBEs at Buckingham Palace.

The band were forced to work to a tight deadline to ensure the album was completed in time for a pre-Christmas release.Template:Sfn They were nevertheless in the unfamiliar position of being able to dedicate themselves solely to a recording project, free of touring, filming and radio engagements.Template:Sfn The Beatles ceded to two interruptions during this time.Template:Sfn They received their MBEs at Buckingham Palace on 26 October, from Queen Elizabeth II,Template:Sfn and on 1–2 November, the band filmed their segments for The Music of Lennon & McCartney, a Granada Television tribute to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn According to author Christopher Bray, this intensive recording made Rubber Soul not just unusual in the Beatles' career but "emphatically unlike those LPs made by other bands".Template:Sfn From 4 November – by which point only around half the required number of songs were near completion – the Beatles' sessions were routinely booked to finish at 3 am each day.Template:Sfn

After A Hard Day's Night in 1964, Rubber Soul was the second Beatles album to contain only original material.Template:Sfn As the band's main writers, Lennon and McCartney struggled to complete enough songs for the project.<ref name="Lewisohn/MojoSpecial" />Template:Sfn After a session on 27 October was cancelled due to a lack of new material, Martin told a reporter that he and the group "hope to resume next week" but would not consider recording songs by any other composers.Template:Sfn The Beatles completed "Wait" for the album, having taped its rhythm track during the sessions for Help! in June 1965.Template:Sfn They also recorded the instrumental "12-Bar Original", a twelve-bar blues in the style of Booker T. & the M.G.'s.Template:Sfn Credited to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr,<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref> it remained unreleased until 1996.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

The group recorded "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" during the Rubber Soul sessions for release as a single accompanying the album.Template:Sfn To avoid having to promote the single with numerous television appearances,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn the Beatles chose to produce film clips for the two songs, the first time they had done so for a single.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Directed by Joe McGrath, the clips were filmed at Twickenham Film Studios in south-west London on 23 November.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Studio aesthetic and soundsEdit

Template:Quote box Lennon recalled that Rubber Soul was the first album over which the Beatles took control in the studio and made demands rather than accept standard recording practices.Template:Sfn According to Riley, the album reflects "a new affection for recording" over live performance.Template:Sfn Author Philip Norman similarly writes that, with the Beatles increasingly drawn towards EMI's large cache of "exotic" musical instruments, combined with their readiness to incorporate "every possible resource of the studio itself" and Martin's skills as a classical arranger, "Implicitly, from the very start, this [music] was not stuff intended to be played live on stage."Template:Sfn

According to Barry Miles, a leading figure in the UK underground whom Lennon and McCartney befriended at this time, Rubber Soul and its 1966 follow-up, Revolver, were "when [the Beatles] got away from George Martin, and became a creative entity unto themselves".Template:Sfn In 1995, Harrison said that Rubber Soul was his favourite Beatles album, adding: "we certainly knew we were making a good album. We did spend more time on it and tried new things. But the most important thing about it was that we were suddenly hearing sounds that we weren't able to hear before."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

During the sessions, McCartney played a solid-body Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar, which produced a fuller sound than his hollow-body Hofner.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Rickenbacker's design allowed for greater melodic precision, a characteristic that led McCartney to contribute more intricate bass lines.Template:Sfn For the rest of his Beatles career, the Rickenbacker would become McCartney's primary bass for studio work. Harrison used a Fender Stratocaster for the first time, most notably in his lead guitar part on "Nowhere Man".Template:Sfn The variety in guitar tones throughout the album was also aided by Harrison and Lennon's use of capos, such as in the high-register parts on "If I Needed Someone" and "Girl".Template:Sfn

Template:Multiple image On Rubber Soul, the Beatles departed from standard rock and roll instrumentation,<ref name="Unterberger/AM" /> particularly in Harrison's use of the Indian sitar on "Norwegian Wood".Template:Sfn Having been introduced to the string instrument on the set of the 1965 film Help!, Harrison's interest was fuelled by fellow Indian music fans Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds, partway through the Beatles' US tour.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Music journalist Paul Du Noyer describes the sitar part as "simply a sign of the whole band's hunger for new musical colours", but also "the pivotal moment of Rubber Soul".Template:Sfn The Beatles also made use of harmonium during the sessions,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn marking that instrument's introduction into rock music.Template:Sfn

The band's willingness to experiment with sound was further demonstrated in McCartney playing fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself"<ref name="RS500 2012">Template:Cite magazine</ref> over his standard bass part,Template:Sfn and their employing a piano made to sound like a baroque harpsichord on "In My Life".<ref name="Easlea/BBC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The latter effect came about when, in response to Lennon suggesting he play something "like Bach",Template:Sfn Martin recorded the piano solo with the tape running at half-speed;Template:Sfn when played back at normal speed, the sped-up sound gave the illusion of a harpsichord.Template:Sfn In this way, the Beatles used the recording studio as a musical instrument, an approach that they and Martin developed further with Revolver.Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In Prendergast's description, "bright ethnic percussion" was among the other "great sounds" that filled the album.Template:Sfn

Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's three-part harmony singing was another musical detail that came to typify the Rubber Soul sound.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn According to musicologist Walter Everett, some of the vocal arrangements feature the same "pantonal planing of three-part root-position triads" adopted by the Byrds, who had initially based their harmonies on the style used by the Beatles and other British Invasion bands.Template:Sfn Riley says that the Beatles softened their music on Rubber Soul, yet by reverting to slower tempos they "draw attention to how much rhythm can do".Template:Sfn Wide separation in the stereo image ensured that subtleties in the musical arrangements were heard; in Riley's description, this quality emphasised the "richly textured" arrangements over "everything being stirred together into one high-velocity mass".Template:Sfn Template:Refn

McCartney said that as part of their increased involvement in the album's production, the band members attended the mixing sessions rather than let Martin work in their absence.Template:Sfn Until late in their career, the "primary" version of the Beatles' albums was always the monophonic mix. According to Beatles historian Bruce Spizer, Martin and the EMI engineers devoted most of their time and attention to the mono mixdowns, and generally regarded stereo as a gimmick. The band were not usually present for the stereo mixing sessions.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Band dynamicsEdit

While Martin recalled the sessions as having been "a very joyful time",Template:Sfn Smith felt "something had happened between Help! and Rubber Soul", and the family atmosphere that had once characterised the relationship between the Beatles and their production team was absent.Template:Sfn He said the project revealed the first signs of artistic conflict between Lennon and McCartney,Template:Sfn and friction within the band as more effort was spent on perfecting each song.Template:Sfn Template:Refn This also manifested in a struggle over which song should be the A-side of their next single, with Lennon insisting on "Day Tripper" (of which he was the primary writer)Template:Sfn and publicly contradicting EMI's announcement about the upcoming release.Template:Sfn

In addition, a rift was growing between McCartney and his bandmates as he continued to abstain from taking LSD.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The revelations provided by the drug had drawn Lennon and Harrison closer,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and were then shared by Starr when, during the band's stay in Los Angeles that August, he agreed to try LSD for the first time.Template:Sfn

SongsEdit

OverviewEdit

Pop historian Andrew Grant Jackson describes Rubber Soul as a "synthesis of folk, rock, soul, baroque, proto-psychedelia, and the sitar".Template:Sfn According to author Joe Harrington, the album contained the Beatles' first "psychedelic experiments", heralding the transformational effect of LSD on many of the original British Invasion acts.Template:Sfn Author Bernard Gendron dismisses the commonly held view that Rubber Soul is a folk rock album; he cites its incorporation of baroque and Eastern sounds as examples of the Beatles' "nascent experimentalism and eclectic power of appropriation", aspects that he says suggest an artistic approach that transcends the genre.Template:Sfn Template:Refn According to The Encyclopedia of Country Music, building on the Beatles' 1964 track "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", the album can be seen in retrospect as an early example of country rock, anticipating the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo album.Template:Sfn

Further to Lennon's more introspective outlook in 1964, particularly on Beatles for Sale, the lyrics on Rubber Soul represent a pronounced development in sophistication, thoughtfulness and ambiguity.Template:Sfn According to music critic Greil Marcus, "the Beatles were still writing about love, but this was a new kind of love: contingent, scary and vital", and so, while the music was "seduction, not assault", the "emotional touch" was tougher than before.Template:Sfn Author James Decker considers it significant that Rubber Soul "took its narrative cues more from folk crossovers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds than from the Beatles' pop cohorts".Template:Sfn In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced and negative portrayals.Template:Sfn In this way, Lennon and McCartney offered candid insights into their personal lives.Template:Sfn

Side oneEdit

"Drive My Car"Edit

{{#invoke:Listen|main}} The album opens with a pair of lead guitar parts that are soon rendered off-metre by the arrival of McCartney's bass.Template:Sfn "Drive My Car" is a McCartney composition with substantial contribution from Lennon with the lyrics.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Harrison, as the Beatles' most knowledgeable soul-music enthusiast, contributed heavily to the recording by suggesting they arrange the song with a dual guitar–bass riff in the style of Otis Redding's contemporary single "Respect".Template:Sfn In their joint lead vocals, McCartney and Lennon sing dissonant harmonies,Template:Sfn a quality that is furthered by Harrison's entrance and signifies what Everett terms a "new jazzy sophistication … in the vocal arrangement".Template:Sfn

The lyrics convey an actress's desire to become a film star and her promise to the narrator that he can be her chauffeur.Template:Sfn According to Riley, the song satirises the "ethics of materialism" and serves as a "parody of the Beatles' celebrity status and the status-seekers they meet".Template:Sfn Author and critic Kenneth Womack describes the lyrics as being "loaded with sexual innuendo", and he says that the female protagonist challenged the gendered expectations of a mid-1960s pop audience, as an "everywoman" with ego and a clear agenda.Template:Sfn

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"Edit

{{#invoke:Listen|main}} Lennon said he wrote "Norwegian Wood" about an extramarital affair and that he worded the narrative to hide the truth from his wife, Cynthia.Template:Sfn The lyrics sketch a failed meeting between the singer and a mysterious girl, where she goes to bed and he sleeps in the bath;<ref name="Unterberger/NW">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in retaliation at the girl's aloofness, the singer decides to burn down her pine-panelled home.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Arranged in Template:Music time,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and in the English folk style, the song has a Mixolydian melody that results in a drone effect in the acoustic guitars, complementing the sitar part, though switches to parallel scale of E Dorian during its middle eight.Template:Sfn The narrative draws heavily on Dylan's style through its use of ambiguity.<ref name="Unterberger/NW" />Template:Sfn In author Jonathan Gould's description, the song is an "emotional black comedy",Template:Sfn while Decker recognises it as a continuation of the "interrogation of sexual ambiguities" and "muddled sense of power" displayed in "Drive My Car".Template:Sfn

"You Won't See Me"Edit

Written by McCartney, "You Won't See Me" reflects the difficulties he was experiencing in his relationship with actress Jane Asher due to her refusal to put her acting career second to his needs.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Gould identifies the song as the third consecutive track in which the narrative conveys miscommunication.Template:Sfn McCartney described its music as "very Motown-flavored", with a "feel" inspired by Motown bassist James Jamerson.Template:Sfn The verses use the same chord sequence as the Four Tops' hit "It's the Same Old Song",Template:Sfn which was titled by its writers, the Holland–Dozier–Holland team, in acknowledgement that they had already used the same pattern in their composition "I Can't Help Myself".Template:Sfn

"Nowhere Man"Edit

{{#invoke:Listen|main}} Lennon recalled that "Nowhere Man" came to him fully formed one night at his home in Surrey,Template:Sfn after he had struggled to write anything for several hours.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The song reflects the existential concerns raised by his experiences with LSD, and, like "I'm a Loser" and "Help!", his self-loathingTemplate:Sfn during a time he later called his "fat Elvis period".Template:Sfn It was the first Beatles song to completely avoid boy–girl relationships,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and through Lennon conveying his feelings of inadequacy in the third person,Template:Sfn the first example of a literary character in the Beatles' work.Template:Sfn Riley views the message as a precursor to the "I'd love to turn you on" theme of "A Day in the Life" and, aided by the band's performance, optimistic in tone as Lennon "sings for the unsung, the people who have shut themselves off from life".Template:Sfn

Heavy equalisation was applied to the electric guitar parts through a series of faders,Template:Sfn giving them a treble-rich texture that, as with the harmony vocals,Template:Sfn recalls the Byrds' sound.Template:Sfn In Prendergast's description, the track "burst[s] forth with all the gusto of newly discovered psychedelia", as Lennon's lead vocal "luxuriates in an opiated haze of production and Harrison's Fender Stratocaster solo fuzzes with all the right hallucinatory sparkle".Template:Sfn

"Think for Yourself"Edit

Harrison's lyrics to "Think for Yourself" suggest the influence of Dylan's September 1965 single "Positively 4th Street", as Harrison appears to rebuke a friend or lover.Template:Sfn The song's accusatory message was unprecedented in the Beatles' work;Template:Sfn Jackson identifies it as the band's contribution to a "subgenre" of protest songs that emerged in 1965, in which artists railed against "oppressive conformity itself" rather than political issues.Template:Sfn Everett describes the composition as "a tour de force of altered scale degrees". He adds that, such is the ambiguity throughout, "its tonal quality forms the perfect conspirator with the text's and the rhythm's hesitations and unexpected turns."Template:Sfn Gould writes that, in its dialogue with Harrison's vocal, McCartney's fuzz bass suggests "the snarls of an enraged schnauzer, snapping and striking at its lead".Template:Sfn

"The Word"Edit

Template:Quote box In his book 1965: The Year Modern Britain Was Born, Bray recognises "The Word" as marking the start of the Beatles' "high psychedelic period".Template:Sfn Lennon's exhortation that "The word is love" anticipates the ethos behind the counterculture's 1967 Summer of Love.Template:Sfn The lyrics focus on the concept of universal love as a path to spiritual enlightenment, with what Decker terms "proselytizing zeal" on the narrator's part.Template:Sfn Author Ian MacDonald recognises the "distant influence" of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" and James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" on the song's rhythm, and highlights Starr's drumming (for its "feast of eccentric 'backwards fillsTemplate:'") and McCartney's dextrous bass playing.Template:Sfn The arrangement also includes seven vocal parts and Martin playing suspended chords on harmonium.Template:Sfn

"Michelle"Edit

"Michelle" was conceived by McCartney in the late 1950s. During a writing session for Rubber Soul, Lennon added a new middle eight, part of which was taken from Nina Simone's recent cover of "I Put a Spell on You".<ref name="Halpin/Louder">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> MacDonald identifies the song as another example of the Beatles' "comedy song" approach, which, in a contemporary interview, McCartney had suggested was a possible new direction for the group.Template:Sfn In Womack's view, the French phrases in the lyrics accentuate the premise whereby a language barrier separates two lovers, and the narrative conveys an acceptance that their relationship is doomed to fail, such that the singer is already looking back nostalgically at what could have been.Template:Sfn Gould describes the performance as "sentimental … French cabaret" which, following McCartney's declaration of "I love you", leads into a guitar solo by Harrison that represents "one of Jean-Paul Sartre's existential café workers".Template:Sfn

Side twoEdit

"What Goes On"Edit

The Beatles had attempted to record an early version of Lennon's "What Goes On" in 1963.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn With little time to complete Rubber Soul, the song was reworked by Lennon and McCartney as a vocal spot for Starr,Template:Sfn who also received his first songwriting credit, as co-composer.Template:Sfn The song is in the country style favoured by Starr,Template:Sfn and in its lyrics the singer laments his lover's deceit.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In Everett's description, the arrangement includes Harrison's rockabilly-inflected lead guitar, played on his Gretsch Tennessean, contrasting with Lennon's "Steve Cropper-styled Memphis 'chick' rhythm part".Template:Sfn

"Girl"Edit

Lennon said he wrote "Girl" about an archetypal woman he had been searching for and would finally find in Yoko Ono,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn the Japanese artist he met in November 1966.Template:Sfn In the lyrics, he also expresses his disdain for Christian moral values.Template:Sfn The song was the final track recorded for the album.Template:Sfn The composition incorporates aspects of Greek folk music,Template:Sfn while the arrangement includes an instrumental passage set as a German two-step Template:Sfn and an acoustic guitar part played to sound like a Greek bouzouki.Template:Sfn Template:Refn High equalisation was applied to Lennon's vocal over the choruses to capture the hissing sound as he drew breathTemplate:Sfn – an effect that also suggested he was inhaling on a marijuana joint.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn McCartney recalled that he and Harrison sang "Tit-tit-tit" on the middle eights to capture the "innocence" of the Beach Boys singing "La-la-la" on one of their recent songs.Template:Sfn Riley likens the musical arrangement to a "scene from the old world" and he concludes of the song: "The old-fashioned atmosphere conveys desire and deception, and Lennon sings it as much to console himself as to make sense of its bewildering proportions ('And she promises the earth to me and I believe her/After all this time I don't know why'). It's the sympathetic side of the anger in 'Norwegian Wood.Template:'"Template:Sfn

"I'm Looking Through You"Edit

Like "You Won't See Me" and "We Can Work It Out", "I'm Looking Through You" focuses on McCartney's troubled relationship with Asher.Template:Sfn Gould describes it as the "disillusioned sequel" to McCartney's other 1965 songs centring on "a face-to-face (if not necessarily eye-to-eye) encounter between two lovers".Template:Sfn Decker likens the lyrics to a less philosophical version of "Think for Yourself" in which "the narrator has grown, yet the woman has failed to keep up."Template:Sfn The composition contrasts acoustic-based verses with harsher, R&B-style instrumental sections,Template:Sfn suggesting a combination of the folk rock and soul styles.<ref name="Halpin/Louder" /> The Beatles had taped two versions of the song before achieving the final version,Template:Sfn which they recorded during the last, frantic day of the Rubber Soul sessions. In its final form, the song gained a middle eight where previously there had been a twelve-bar blues jam.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

"In My Life"Edit

{{#invoke:Listen|main}} Lennon credited a remark made by BBC journalist Kenneth Allsop, who had asked why his songs appeared to lack the wordplay and childhood focus evident in his 1964 book In His Own Write, as the catalyst for "In My Life".Template:Sfn Lennon considered the song to be his "first real major piece of work".Template:Sfn The lyrics evoke his youth in Liverpool and reflect his nostalgia for a time before the onset of international fame.Template:Sfn McCartney recalled writing the melody on his own and said that the song's musical inspiration came from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles;Template:Sfn Template:Sfn according to Lennon, McCartney merely assisted in writing what he called "the middle-eight melody".Template:Sfn In Gould's description, "In My Life" "owed a conscious debt" to the Miracles' contemporary hit "The Tracks of My Tears" and thereby served as "the most recent installment in the lively cultural exchange between Motown's Hitsville Studios and EMI's Abbey Road".Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Martin's Bach-inspired piano solo was overdubbed in the Beatles' absence,Template:Sfn over a section that they had left empty.Template:Sfn Womack says that the baroque aspect of this contribution furthers the song's nostalgic qualities,Template:Sfn a point also made by Gould, who adds that, by revisiting the past and presenting emotional themes that are resolved in the narrative, "In My Life" serves as the album's only song that "sounds the Beatles' original ground theme of happiness-in-relationship".Template:Sfn

"Wait"Edit

"Wait" was a Lennon composition to which McCartney contributed a middle eight.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Gould includes the song among a category of Beatles Template:"'coming home' songs",Template:Sfn while Riley pairs it with "It Won't Be Long" but adds that, relative to that 1963 song, in "Wait" "the lovers' reunion has more anxiety than euphoria goading the beat."Template:Sfn The band completed the track on the final day of recording for the album, overdubbing tone-pedal lead guitar, percussionTemplate:Sfn and a new vocal by McCartney onto the June 1965 rhythm track.Template:Sfn MacDonald writes that, although Lennon and McCartney would most likely have viewed the subject matter as dated even in June, the group's performance gives the song the required "drive and character" for Rubber Soul, particularly Starr's approach to the rhythm changes between its contrasting sections.Template:Sfn

"If I Needed Someone"Edit

Harrison wrote "If I Needed Someone" as a love song to Pattie Boyd, the English model to whom he became engaged in December 1965 and married the following month.Template:Sfn In the song's Rickenbacker 12-string guitar riff, the Beatles returned the compliment paid to them earlier in 1965 by the Byrds,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn whose jangly guitar-based sound McGuinn had sourced from Harrison's playing the previous year.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In MacDonald's view, the song is influenced "far more" by Indian classical music than by the Byrds, through Harrison's partly Mixolydian melody and the presence of drone.Template:Sfn The latter aspect is furthered by McCartney's arpeggiated bass line in A major continuing over the chord change to a Template:MusicVII triad.Template:Sfn

The detached, dispassionate tone in the lyrics has invited alternative interpretations. Gould refers to it as "a rueful rain check of a love song" directed to the "right person at the wrong time";Template:Sfn according to Jackson, "the lyrics address all the women of the world, saying that had he met them earlier [before committing to Boyd], it might have worked out, but now he was too much in love (but give me your number just in case)".Template:Sfn

"Run for Your Life"Edit

Lennon wrote "Run for Your Life" based on "Baby Let's Play House",Template:Sfn which was one of Presley's early singles on the Sun record label.Template:Sfn Lennon retained a line from the Presley track – "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The lyrical theme is jealousy,Template:Sfn betraying an overtly misogynistic quality that Decker finds at odds with the Beatles' approach to making the album.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Performed in the country style,Template:Sfn it was the first track recorded for the album and features a descending guitar riff played by Harrison and slide guitar parts.Template:Sfn

Template:Anchor North American formatEdit

Adhering to the company's policy for the Beatles' albums in the United States, Capitol Records altered the content of Rubber Soul for its release there.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> They removed "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone", all of which were instead issued on the Beatles' next North American album, Yesterday and Today, in June 1966.Template:Sfn The four songs were replaced with "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love",Template:Sfn which had been cut from Help! as part of Capitol's reconfiguring of that LP to serve as a true soundtrack album, consisting of Beatles songs and orchestral music from the film.Template:Sfn

Through the mix of predominantly acoustic-based songs, according to Womack, the North American release "takes on a decidedly folk-ish orientation".Template:Sfn Capitol sequenced "I've Just Seen a Face" as the opening track, reflecting the company's attempt to present Rubber Soul as a folk-rock album,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and "It's Only Love" opened side two.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Gould writes that the omission of songs such as "Drive My Car" provided a "misleading idea" of the Beatles' musical direction and "turned the album title into an even more obscure joke", since the result was the band's least soul- or R&B-influenced album up to this point.Template:Sfn The stereo mixes used by Capitol contained two false starts at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You",Template:Sfn while "The Word" also differed from the UK version due to the double-tracking of Lennon's lead vocal, the addition of an extra falsetto harmony and the panning treatment given to one of the percussion parts.Template:Sfn

Title and artworkEdit

The album title was intended as a pun combining the falseness intrinsic to pop music and rubber-soled shoes.Template:Sfn Lennon said the title was McCartney's idea and referred to "English soul".Template:Sfn In a 1966 press conference, Starr said they called the album Rubber Soul to acknowledge that, in comparison to American soul artists, "we are white and haven't got what they've got", and he added that this was true of all the British acts who attempted to play soul music.Template:Sfn McCartney recalled that he conceived the title after overhearing an American musician describing Mick Jagger's singing style as "plastic soul".Template:Sfn Template:Refn In Phillip Norman's view, the title served as "a sly dig at their archrivals (and private best mates) the Rolling Stones", with the added implication that the Beatles' "variety" of soul music "at least was stamped out by a good strong northern [English] Wellington boot".Template:Sfn

Rubber Soul was the group's first album not to feature their name on the cover,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn an omission that reflected the level of control they had over their releases and the extent of their international fame.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn The cover photo of the Beatles was taken by photographer Robert Freeman in the garden at Lennon's house.Template:Sfn The idea for the "stretched" effect of the image came about by accident when Freeman was projecting the photo onto an LP-size piece of cardboard for the Beatles' benefit, and the board fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn Harrison said the effect was appropriate since it allowed the group to lose "the 'little innocents' tag, the naivety" and it was in keeping with their emergence as "fully fledged potheads".Template:Sfn Author Peter Doggett highlights the cover as an example of the Beatles, like Dylan and the Stones, "continu[ing] to test the limits of the portrait" in their LP designs.Template:Sfn

The distinctive lettering was created by illustrator Charles Front,Template:Sfn who recalled that his inspiration was the album's title: "If you tap into a rubber tree then you get a sort of globule, so I started thinking of creating a shape that represented that, starting narrow and filling out."<ref name="Bachelor/Guardian" /> The rounded letters used on the sleeve established a style that became ubiquitous in psychedelic designs Template:Sfn and, according to journalist Lisa Bachelor, "a staple of poster art for the flower power generation".<ref name="Bachelor/Guardian">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ReleaseEdit

File:Empire Theatre, Liverpool 2018.jpg

The Beatles performed at the Liverpool Empire during their December 1965 UK tour. The shows there marked the group's final concerts in their hometown.Template:Sfn

EMI's Parlophone label issued Rubber Soul on 3 December 1965.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper" single was also released that dayTemplate:Sfn and was the first example of a double A-side single in Britain.<ref name="White/OCC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> EMI announced that it had pressed 750,000 copies of the LP to cater to local demand.Template:Sfn Its advance orders of 500,000 almost equalled the total sales for the new single and were described by the Daily MirrorTemplate:'s show business reporter as marking a new record for pre-release orders for an LP.Template:Sfn

On the day of the album's release, the Beatles performed at the Odeon Cinema in Glasgow,Template:Sfn marking the start of what would be their final UK tour.Template:Sfn Weary of Beatlemania, the group had conceded to do a short tour, although they refused to reprise their Christmas Show from the 1963–64 and 1964–65 holiday seasons.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn They performed both sides of the single throughout the tour, but only "If I Needed Someone" and "Nowhere Man" from the new album.Template:Sfn In the United States, Rubber Soul was their tenth albumTemplate:Sfn and their first to consist entirely of original songs.Template:Sfn The release took place there on 6 December.Template:Sfn

Template:Quote box In an interview following the album's release, McCartney said that although people had "always wanted us to stay the same", he saw no reason for the Beatles to pander to such limitations, adding, "Rubber Soul for me is the beginning of my adult life."Template:Sfn Lennon commented, "You don't know us if you don't know Rubber Soul."Template:Sfn

According to Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner, Freeman's cover photo was viewed as "daringly surreal" and led some fans to write to the band's official fanzine, Beatles Monthly, alarmed that the image "made their heroes look like corpses".Template:Sfn In her study of the Beatles' contemporary audience, sociologist Candy Leonard writes that some young listeners were challenged by the band's new musical direction, but "With Rubber Soul, the Beatles came to occupy a role in fans' lives and a place in their psyches that was different from any previous fan–performer relationship."Template:Sfn Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, who was an eleven-year-old fan at the time,Template:Sfn later recalled thinking that the band had "lost their minds". He added: "I didn't understand a word, I didn't think it was any good, and then six weeks later you couldn't live without the record. And that's good – that's when you trust the people who make music to take you somewhere you haven't been before."<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Commercial performanceEdit

Rubber Soul began its 42-week run on the Record Retailer LPs chart (subsequently adopted as the UK Albums Chart) on 12 December 1965.<ref name="RubberSoul UK chart">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The following week it replaced the Sound of Music soundtrack at the top of the chart,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> where it remained for eight weeks in total.<ref name="RubberSoul UK chart" /> On the national chart compiled by Melody Maker, Rubber Soul entered at number 1 and held the position for thirteen weeks; it remained in the top ten until mid July 1966.Template:Sfn Template:Refn In the United States, Rubber Soul topped the Billboard Top LPs chart on 8 January 1966,Template:Sfn having sold 1.2 million copies there within nine days of release.Template:Sfn<ref name="Kronemyer">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> These initial sales were unprecedented for an LPTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn and were cited by Billboard magazine as evidence of a new market trend in the US in which pop albums started to match the numbers of singles sold.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The album was number 1 for six weeks in total; it remained in the top twenty until the start of July, before leaving the chart in mid December.Template:Sfn As the more popular of the joint A-sides, "We Can Work It Out" became the Beatles' sixth consecutive number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, all of which were achieved over a twelve-month period from January 1965.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

While British albums typically avoided including previously released songs,Template:Sfn the lack of a hit single on the North American version of Rubber Soul added to the album's identity there as a self-contained artistic statement.<ref>Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets; Template:Harvard citation no brackets.</ref> Everett writes that in the US the album's "hit" was "Michelle", through its popularity on radio playlists.Template:Sfn After their inclusion on the EMI-format LP, "Norwegian Wood", "Nowhere Man" and "Michelle" were each issued as singles in various markets outside Britain and America,Template:Sfn with "Norwegian Wood" topping the Australian chart in May 1966.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> "Nowhere ManTemplate:"'s first release in North America was as a single A-side,Template:Sfn backed by "What Goes On", in February, before both tracks appeared on Yesterday and Today.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn "Nowhere Man" topped Record WorldTemplate:'s singles chart in the US<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and Canada's RPM 100 chart,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.Template:Sfn Template:Refn In July, Parlophone released an EP titled Nowhere Man,Template:Sfn which contained "Nowhere Man", "Michelle" and two other songs from Rubber Soul.Template:Sfn

The album was also the source of hit songs for several other contemporary artists.Template:Sfn "Michelle" became one of the most widely recorded of all the Beatles' songs.Template:Sfn Cover versions of "Girl", "If I Needed Someone" and "Nowhere Man" similarly placed on UK or US singles charts in 1966.Template:Sfn

In the UK, Rubber Soul was the third highest-selling album of 1965, behind The Sound of Music and Beatles for Sale,<ref name="Mawer/1965">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the third highest-selling album of 1966, behind The Sound of Music and Revolver.<ref name="Mawer/1966">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The extent of its commercial success there surprised the music industry, which had sought to re-establish the LP market as the domain of adult record-buyers. From early 1966, record companies in the UK ceased their policy of promoting adult-oriented entertainers over rock acts, and embraced budget albums for their lower-selling artists to cater to the increased demand for LPs.Template:Sfn In the US, Rubber Soul was the fourth highest-selling album of 1966, as reported in Billboard.<ref name="BB/TopOf66">Template:Cite magazine</ref> According to figures published in 2009 by former Capitol executive David Kronemyer, further to estimates he gave in MuseWire magazine,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Rubber Soul sold 1,800,376 copies in America by the end of 1965 and 2,766,862 by the close of the decade.<ref name="Kronemyer" /> As of 1997, it had shipped over 6 million copies there.Template:R In 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry altered its sales award protocol, the album was certified Platinum based on UK sales since 1994.<ref name="BPI 2013">"Beatles albums finally go platinum". BBC News. 2 September 2013. Archived from the original on 10 April 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2017.</ref>

Critical receptionEdit

Contemporary reviewsEdit

Critical response to Rubber Soul was highly favourable.Template:Sfn Allen Evans of the NME wrote that the band were "still finding different ways to make us enjoy listening to them" and described the LP as "a fine piece of recording artistry and adventure in group sound".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> While outlining to American readers the differences in the UK-format release, KRLA Beat said Rubber Soul was an "unbelievably sensational" work on which the Beatles were "once again ... setting trends in this world of pop".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Newsweek lauded the Beatles as "the Bards of Pop",Template:Sfn saying that the album's combination of "gospel, country, baroque counterpoint and even French popular ballads" lent the band a unique style in which their songs were "as brilliantly original as any written today".Template:Sfn Like Newsweek, The New York Times had belittled the group when they first performed in America in February 1964, but following the release of Rubber Soul, entertainment critic Jack Gould wrote an effusive tribute in the newspaper's Sunday magazine.Template:Sfn In HiFi/Stereo Review, Morgan Ames wrote that, like other supportive professional musicians, he recognised the devices the band employed as "they tromp on the art of music", and while he viewed their formal musicality as limited, he expressed joy at its effectiveness. Having opened the review by saying, "The Beatles sound more and more like music", he concluded of the album: "Their blend is excellent, their performance smooth, and their charm, wit and excitement run high."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

The writers of Record MirrorTemplate:'s initial review found the LP lacking some of the variety of the group's previous releases but also said: "one marvels and wonders at the constant stream of melodic ingenuity stemming from the boys, both as performers and composers. Keeping up their pace of creativeness is quite fantastic."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> By contrast, Richard Green wrote in the same magazine that most of the album "if recorded by anyone Template:Em the Beatles, would not be worthy of release", with many of the tracks devoid of "the old Beatles excitement and compulsiveness". Green acknowledged that his was an unpopular opinion, before stating: "Judging LPs strictly on their merits, recent albums from Manfred Mann, the Beach Boys and Jerry Lee Lewis rank high above Rubber Soul."<ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages Template:Webarchive (subscription required).</ref>

In another review that Richard Williams later cited as an example of the British pop press not being "quite ready" for the album, Melody Maker found the Beatles' new sound "a little subdued" and said that tracks such as "You Won't See Me" and "Nowhere Man" "almost get monotonous – an un-Beatle-like feature if ever there was one".<ref>Williams, Richard. "Rubber Soul: Stretching the Boundaries". In: Template:Harvnb.</ref> Author Steve Turner also highlights the comments made by the Melody Maker and Record Mirror reviewers, who were typically aged over 30, as indicative of how UK pop journalists lacked "the critical vocabulary" and "the broad musical perspective" to recognise or engage with progressive music.Template:Sfn Turner adds that Rubber Soul "may have perplexed the old guard of entertainment correspondents, but it was a beacon for fledgling rock critics (as they would soon be called)".Template:Sfn Among the few newspaper columnists seriously reviewing rock music was Ralph J. Gleason, jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle,Template:Sfn who credited Rubber Soul with "experimenting far past the style of outright imitations of Negro rhythm and blues artists" which had often characterised the Beatles' earlier work.<ref name="Gleason 65">Template:Cite newspaper</ref> In a FebruaryTemplate:Nbsp1966 article, he contended it was "one of the most universally appealing albums ever issued", extending the band's reach beyond teenagers to "[a]ll ages, all colors, all sexes, [and] all social and economic levels".<ref name="Gleason 66">Template:Cite news</ref>

In a September 1966 review of Revolver, KRLA Beat said that the title of Rubber Soul had "become a standard phrase used to describe a creation of exceptional excellence in the field of music", such that several highly regarded releases had since earned the description "a Template:'Rubber Soul in its fieldTemplate:'".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Refn Writing in Esquire in 1967, Robert Christgau called it "an album that for innovation, tightness, and lyrical intelligence was about twice as good as anything they or anyone else (except maybe the Stones) had done previously".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Retrospective assessmentEdit

Template:Music ratings According to Decker, notwithstanding the band's advances in 1964, music critics generally view Rubber Soul as the Beatles' Template:"'transitional' album ... from successful pop act to unparalleled masters of the studio".Template:Sfn It is frequently cited by commentators as the first of their "classic" albums.Template:Sfn Greil Marcus described it as the best of all the band's LPs.Template:Sfn In his 1979 essay on the Beatles in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, Marcus wrote: "Rubber Soul was an album made as an album; with the exception of 'Michelle' (which, to be fair, paid the bills for years to come), every cut was an inspiration, something new and remarkable in and of itself."Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph wrote in 2009: "this is where things start to get very interesting ... Rubber Soul is the result of their first extended period in the studio. The production is open and spacious, adorned but not yet overcrowded with new instruments and ideas. The songs themselves are like little Pop Art vignettes, where the lyrics are starting to match the quality of the melodies and arrangements."Template:Sfn Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork describes the album as "the most important artistic leap in the Beatles' career – the signpost that signaled a shift away from Beatlemania and the heavy demands of teen pop, toward more introspective, adult subject matter".<ref name="Plagenhoef" /> Paul Du Noyer wrote in his review for Blender in 2004: "Their talent was already a source of wonder, but now the songs themselves were turning mysterious. Under the influence of Bob Dylan – and, it might be said, marijuana – the Fab Four laced their tunefulness with new introspection, wordplay and social comment. University professors and newspaper columnists started taking note."<ref name="DuNoyer/Blender" />

Writing in Paste, Mark Kemp says that the influence of Dylan and the Byrds seems overt at times but the album marks the start of the Beatles' peak in creativity and, in the context of 1965, offered "an unprecedented synthesis of elements from folk-rock and beyond".<ref name="Kemp/Paste">Template:Cite magazine</ref> According to Richie Unterberger of AllMusic, the album's lyrics represented "a quantum leap in terms of thoughtfulness, maturity, and complex ambiguities", while the music was similarly progressive in its use of sounds beyond "the conventional instrumental parameters of the rock group". He adds that Rubber Soul is "full of great tunes" from Lennon and McCartney notwithstanding their divergence from a common style, and demonstrates that Harrison "was also developing into a fine songwriter".<ref name="Unterberger/AM" /> Writing in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Colin Larkin describes it as "not a collection of would-be hits or favourite cover versions … but a startlingly diverse collection, ranging from the pointed satire of 'Nowhere Man' to the intensely reflective 'In My Life'."Template:Sfn In the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Sheffield recognises Help! as "the first chapter in the [Beatles'] astounding creative takeoff", after which the band "grew up with an album of bittersweet romance, singing adult love ballads that feel worldly but not jaded".Template:Sfn

In an article coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, for The Guardian, Bob Stanley lamented that Rubber Soul was often overlooked in appraisals of the Beatles' recording career, whereas Revolver and The Beatles had each gained in stature to surpass Sgt. Pepper. Stanley highlighted Rubber Soul as having been "a good 18 months ahead of its time" and "the first album of the rock era that sounded like an album".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Also writing in December 2015, in Rolling Stone, Sheffield especially admired the singing and the modern qualities of the female characters depicted in the lyrics. He said that the album was "way ahead of what anyone had done before" and, given the short period in which they had to record, he called it the Beatles' "accidental masterpiece".<ref name="Sheffield/RS">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Conversely, Jon Friedman of Esquire finds the work vastly overrated, with only the Lennon-dominated songs "Norwegian Wood", "Nowhere Man", "In My Life" and "Girl" worthy of praise, and he dismisses it as "dull" and "the Beatles' most inconsequential album".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Although he considers that McCartney "comes off third-string" to Lennon and Harrison, Plagenhoef defends the album's subtle mood; highlighting the influence of cannabis on the Beatles throughout 1965, he writes: "With its patient pace and languid tones, Rubber Soul is an altogether much more mellow record than anything the Beatles had done before, or would do again. It's a fitting product from a quartet just beginning to explore their inner selves on record."<ref name="Plagenhoef" /> In his review for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham highlights the musical arrangements, three-part harmonies and judicious use of new sounds, in addition to the band's improved musicianship and songwriting. He says that Rubber Soul usually trails the Beatles' next four albums in critics' assessments of their work, yet "it's undoubtedly their pre-acid, pre-antagonism masterpiece: beat music as high art".Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Influence and legacyEdit

Rivals' responseEdit

Template:See also Template:Quote box

Music historian Bill Martin says that the release of Rubber Soul was a "turning point" for pop music, in that for the first time "the album rather than the song became the basic unit of artistic production."Template:Sfn In author David Howard's description, "pop's stakes had been raised into the stratosphere" by Rubber Soul, resulting in a shift in focus from singles to creating albums without the usual filler tracks.Template:Sfn The release marked the start of a period when other artists, in an attempt to emulate the Beatles' achievement, sought to create albums as works of artistic meritTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn and with increasingly novel sounds.Template:Sfn According to Steve Turner, by galvanising the Beatles' most ambitious rivals in Britain and America, Rubber Soul launched "the pop equivalent of an arms race".Template:Sfn

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys described Rubber Soul as "the first album I listened to where every song was a gas" and planned his band's next project, Pet Sounds, as an attempt to surpass it.Template:Sfn Rubber Soul similarly inspired Pete Townshend of the Who and the Kinks' Ray Davies,Template:Sfn as well as Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, who issued their first album of all-original material, Aftermath, in April 1966.Template:Sfn The album was also an influence on Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder<ref name="Myers/WSJ" /> and the Byrds.Template:Sfn John Cale recalled that Rubber Soul was an inspiration as he and Lou Reed developed their band the Velvet Underground. He said it was the first time "you were forced to deal with them as something other than a flash in the pan" and especially admired Harrison's introduction of Indian sounds.<ref name="Alexander/Mojo">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In his chapter on Rubber Soul in the Cambridge Companion to Music's volume on the Beatles, James Decker credits the album with effecting the "transformation" of 1960s pop.Template:Sfn In addition to citing it as the precedent for early experimental works by bands including the Kinks, Love and Jefferson Airplane, Decker writes that Rubber Soul presented "a variety of techniques hitherto unexplored in popular music" while encouraging listeners "to be cognizant of more flexible dimensions of pop music and to desire and expect them as well".Template:Sfn Music historian Simon Philo also sees it as heralding the experimentation that characterised late-1960s rock. He describes it as an album-length confirmation of the "transformation of pop's range and reach" that the Beatles had first achieved when "Yesterday", McCartney's introspective and classically orchestrated ballad, topped US singles charts in late 1965.Template:Sfn In a 1968 article on the Beach Boys, Gene Sculatti of Jazz & Pop recognised Rubber Soul as the model for Pet Sounds and Aftermath, as well as "the necessary prototype that no major rock group has been able to ignore".<ref name="Sculatti">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Refn

Cultural legitimisation of pop musicEdit

Rubber Soul is widely viewed as the first pop album to make an artistic statement through the quality of its songs,Template:Sfn a point that was reinforced by its artsy cover photo.Template:Sfn The belated acceptance of the Beatles by the editors of Newsweek was indicative of the magazine's recognition of the band's popularity among American intellectuals and the cultural elite.Template:Sfn This in turn was reflected in The Village VoiceTemplate:'s appointment of Richard Goldstein, a recent graduate and New Journalism writer, to the new position of rock critic, in June 1966,Template:Sfn and the Beatles' central role in achieving cultural legitimisation for pop music over 1966–67.Template:Sfn Template:Refn Referring to the praise afforded the band, particularly the Lennon–McCartney partnership, by Newsweek in early 1966, Michael Frontani writes: "The Beatles had a foothold in the world of art; in the months that followed, their efforts would lead to the full acceptance and legitimization of rock and roll as an art form."Template:Sfn

Paul Williams launched Crawdaddy! in February 1966 with the aim of reflecting the sophistication brought to the genre by Rubber Soul and Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home – the two albums that, in music journalist Barney Hoskyns' description, "arguably gave birth to 'rock' as a more solid concept than 'popTemplate:'".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to Sculatti, Rubber Soul was "the definitive 'rock as art' album, revolutionary in that it was a completely successful creative endeavor integrating with precision all aspects of the creative (rock) process – composition of individual tracks done with extreme care, each track arranged appropriately to fit beside each other track, the symmetrical rock 'n' roll album".<ref name="Sculatti" /> Christopher Bray describes it as "the album that proved that rock and roll could be suitable for adult audiences", "the first long-playing pop record to really merit the term 'albumTemplate:'" and the LP that "turned pop music into high art".Template:Sfn Historian Marc Myers similarly credits it with "mark[ing] rock's shift from formulaic pop to studio experimentation and high art".<ref name="Myers/WSJ" />

According to Du Noyer, through Rubber SoulTemplate:'s blurring of the traditionally distinct dividing line between pop and high culture, and the perceived inferiority of singles, "a rift occurred [in the UK] between pop and rock". He quotes writer Nik Cohn's complaints that the "danger signs" for pop music's loss of innocence were apparent on Rubber Soul, and poet Philip Larkin's comment that "[The Beatles'] fans stayed with them, and the nuttier intelligentsia, but they lost the typists in the Cavern." Du Noyer says the album started a process that grew to become a "gulf between albums and singles, between rock or pop" that "shape[d] British music for decades".Template:Sfn

Development of subgenresEdit

File:KFRC Fantasy Fair Dryden Balin Kantner.png

Jefferson Airplane performing in June 1967. Rubber Soul especially resonated with musicians in the emerging San Francisco scene.

The album coincided with rock 'n' roll's development into a variety of new styles, a process in which the Beatles' influence ensured them a pre-eminent role.Template:Sfn Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager and producer at the time, has described Rubber Soul as "the album that changed the musical world we lived in then to the one we still live in today".<ref name="Kubernik/RBP" />Template:Refn "Norwegian Wood" launched what Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar called "the great sitar explosion",Template:Sfn as the Indian string instrument became a popular feature in raga rock Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and for many pop artists seeking to add an exotic quality to their music.Template:Sfn The harpsichord-like solo on "In My Life" led to a wave of baroque rock recordings.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rubber Soul was also the release that encouraged many folk-music aficionados to embrace pop.Template:Sfn Folk singer Roy Harper recalled: "They'd come onto my turf, got there before me, and they were kings of it, overnight. We'd all been outflankedTemplate:Nbsp..."<ref name="Alexander/Mojo" />Template:Refn

Author George Case, writing in his book Out of Our Heads, identifies Rubber Soul as "the authentic beginning of the psychedelic era".Template:Sfn Music journalist Mark Ellen similarly credits the album with having "sow[ed] the seeds of psychedelia",<ref name="Kubernik/RBP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> while Christgau says that "psychedelia starts here."Template:Sfn Template:Refn Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald in July 1966, Lillian Roxon reported on the new trend for psychedelia-themed clubs and events in the US and said that Rubber Soul was "the classic psychedelic album now played at all the psychedelic discotheques". She attributed pop's recent embrace of psychedelia and "many of the strange new sounds now in records" to the LP's influence.<ref>Template:Cite news Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).</ref>

In Myers' view, the Capitol release "changed the direction of American rock".<ref name="Mochari/Inc">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the ongoing process of reciprocal influence between the band and US folk rock acts, the Beatles went on to inspire the San Francisco music scene.Template:Sfn Recalling the album's popularity in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, where Jefferson Airplane were based,Template:Sfn journalist Charles Perry said: "You could party hop all night and hear nothing but Rubber Soul."Template:Sfn Perry also wrote that "More than ever the Beatles were the soundtrack of the Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley and the whole circuit", where pre-hippie students suspected that the album was inspired by drugs.Template:Sfn

Citing a quantitative study of tempos in music from the 1960s, Walter Everett identifies Rubber Soul as a work that was "made more to be thought about than danced to", and an album that "began a far-reaching trend" in its slowing-down of the tempos typically used in pop and rock music.Template:Sfn While music historians typically credit Sgt. Pepper as the birth of progressive rock,Template:Sfn Everett and Bill Martin recognise Rubber Soul as the inspiration for many of the bands working in that genre from the early 1970s.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Appearances on best-album lists and further recognitionEdit

Rubber Soul was voted fifth in Paul Gambaccini's 1978 book Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> based on submissions from a panel of 47 critics and broadcasters including Richard Williams,Template:Sfn Christgau and Marcus.<ref>Leopold, Todd (7 March 2007). "A really infuriating top 200 list" Template:Webarchive. The Marquee at CNN.com. Retrieved 5 June 2017.</ref> In the first edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums, in 1994, it was ranked at number 10,Template:Sfn and in 1998 it was voted the 39th greatest album of all time in the first "Music of the Millennium" poll,<ref>"The music of the millennium". BBC News. 24 January 1998. Archived from the original on 2 September 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2017.</ref> conducted by HMV and Channel 4.Template:Sfn It was listed at number 34 in the third edition of Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, published in 2000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn

Since 2001, Rubber Soul has appeared in critics' best-albums-of-all-time lists compiled by VH1 (at number 6),Template:Sfn Mojo (number 27) and Rolling Stone (number 5).Template:Sfn It was among Time magazine's selection of the "All-Time 100 Albums" in 2006<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and was favoured over Revolver in Chris Smith's book 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music three years later.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn In 2012, Rolling Stone again placed it at number 5 on the magazine's revised list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".<ref name="RS500 2012" /> In September 2020, Rubber Soul was ranked at number 35 on the same publication's new list.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Rubber Soul appeared in Rolling StoneTemplate:'s 2014 list of the "40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time", where the editors concluded: "You can say this represents 'maturity,' call it 'art' or credit it for moving rock away from singles to album-length statements – but regardless Rubber Soul accelerated popular music's creative arms race, driving competitors like the Stones, the Beach Boys and Dylan to dismantle expectations and create new ones."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Three years later, Pitchfork ranked it at number 46 on the website's "200 Best Albums of the 1960s". In his commentary with the entry, Ian Cohen wrote: "Every Beatles album fundamentally shaped how pop music is understood, so Rubber Soul is one of the most important records ever made, by defaultTemplate:Nbsp... Even in 2017, whenever a pop singer makes a serious turn, or an anointed serious band says they've learned to embrace pop, Rubber Soul can't help but enter the conversation."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2000, Rubber Soul was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame,Template:Sfn an award bestowed by the American Recording Academy "to honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The album has been the subject of multi-artist tribute albums such as This Bird Has Flown and Rubber Folk.Template:Sfn Writing in December 2015, Ilan Mochari of Inc. magazine commented on the unusual aspect of a pop album's 50th anniversary being celebrated, and added: "Over the next several years, you can bet you'll read about the 50th anniversary of many other albums – thematic volumes composed by bands or songwriters in the tradition Rubber Soul established. All of which is to say: Rubber Soul, the Beatles' sixth studio album, was the record that launched a thousand ships."<ref name="Mochari/Inc" />

Compact disc reissuesEdit

Rubber Soul was first released on compact disc on 30 April 1987,Template:Sfn with the fourteen-song UK track line-up now the international standard.Template:Sfn As with Help!, the album features a contemporary stereo digital remix prepared by George Martin.Template:Sfn Martin had expressed concern to EMI over the original 1965 stereo mix, claiming it sounded "very woolly, and not at all what I thought should be a good issue". He went back to the original four-track tapes and remixed them for stereo.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A newly remastered version of Rubber Soul, again using the 1987 Martin remix, was released worldwide as part of the reissue of the entire Beatles catalogue on 9 September 2009. The album is available both as an individual CD release and as part of the Beatles (The Original Studio Recordings) box set. The accompanying Beatles in Mono box set contains two versions of the album: the original mono mix and the 1965 stereo mix.<ref name="2009pressrelease">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Capitol version was re-released in 2006, first as part of the Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set,Template:Sfn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> using original mixes of the Capitol album, and then in 2014, individually and in the box set The U.S. Albums.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Track listingEdit

In all markets except North AmericaEdit

Template:Track listing Template:Track listing

Original North American releaseEdit

Compared to the UK/worldwide release, the original North American release of Rubber Soul dropped four tracks ("Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone") and added two others ("I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love"). In addition, the mixes (supervised by Dave Dexter Jr.) are in some cases slightly different from the UK/worldwide versions. Notably, the North American stereo version of "I'm Looking Through You" contains two false guitar starts not heard elsewhere, while "The Word" also differs from the UK version, with several different and additional vocal parts, and the panning treatment given to one of the percussion parts.Template:Sfn

Template:Track listing Template:Track listing

PersonnelEdit

According to Mark Lewisohn Template:Sfn and Ian MacDonald,Template:Sfn except where noted:

The Beatles

John Lennon – lead, harmony and backing vocals; rhythm, acoustic and leadTemplate:Sfn guitars; organ on "Think for Yourself"; tambourine Template:Sfn
Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and backing vocals; bass, acoustic and lead guitars; piano; maracas Template:Sfn
George Harrison – lead, harmony and backing vocals; lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars; sitar on "Norwegian Wood"; maracas,Template:Sfn tambourineTemplate:Sfn
Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine, maracas, cowbell, bells, cymbals; Hammond organ on "I'm Looking Through You"; lead vocals on "What Goes On"

Production and additional personnel

George Martin – production, mixing; piano on "In My Life", harmonium on "The Word" and "If I Needed Someone"
Mal Evans – Hammond organ on "You Won't See Me"
Norman Smith – engineering, mixing
Robert Freeman – photography
Charles Front – illustrationTemplate:Sfn

ChartsEdit

Weekly chartsEdit

Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2

Original release
Chart (1965–66)	Peak position
Australian Kent Music Report<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	1
Canadian CHUM's Album Index<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	1
Finnish Albums Chart<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	1
Swedish Kvällstoppen Chart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }} Note: Kvällstoppen combined sales for albums and singles in the one chart.</ref>	20
UK Record Retailer LPs Chart<ref name="UK chart">{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	1
US Billboard Top LPs<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	1
US Cash Box Top 100 Albums<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	1
US Record World 100 Top LP's<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	1
West German Musikmarkt LP Hit-Parade<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	1

1987 reissue
Chart	Position
Dutch MegaChart Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	53
UK Albums Chart<ref name="ukchart87">{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	60
US Billboard Top Compact Disks<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	2

Template:Col-2

2009 reissue
Chart	Position
Australian ARIA Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	41
Austrian Ö3 Top 40 Longplay (Albums)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	53
Belgian Ultratop 200 Albums (Flanders)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	26
Belgian Ultratop 200 Albums (Walloonia)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	49
Danish Tracklisten Album Top-40<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	31
Dutch MegaChart Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	87
Finnish Official Albums Chart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	17
Italian FIMI Albums Chart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	36
Japanese Oricon Albums Chart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	24
New Zealand RIANZ Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	25
Portuguese AFP Top 50 Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	14
Spanish PROMUSICAE Top 100 Albums<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	59
Swedish Sverigetopplistan Albums Top 60<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	17
Swiss Hitparade Albums Top 100<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	51
UK Albums Chart<ref name="ukchart87" />	10