Customer Reviews

Rubber Soul

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This fabulous, fourteen track CD, with twelve tracks by the Lennon/McCartney songwriting duo, one track by Lennon/McCartney/Starkey (Ringo), and one by George Harrison, is a significant departure from their earlier works. Here, the music is lusher, darker, and more complex. With the release of this album, The Beatles bid goodbye to their "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" days and established themselves as a musical force of note, more talented than anyone had imagined.

With vivid imagery and themes, they sang about life and all its turbulent emotions, a virtual social commentary. From the rock and roll refrains of "Drive My Car" to the sitar laden "Norwegian Wood", followed up by the existential "Nowhere Man", The Beatles had a lot to say, and they did so with a vengeance.

Love was still an important theme, however, to which Paul paid homage with the romantic ballad, "Michelle", as did John in "Girl", a song so filled with yearning it is almost palpable. As if this weren't enough, add the lament of love lost in "I'm Looking Through You", as well as the achingly poignant "In My Life", and you have a musical experience so complete, that no music collector should be without this CD.

When Rubber Soul was originally released in the U.S. on Capitol Records, "Drive My Car" was missing from it. It was thought not to fit with the rest of the album, and so it was replaced. In its place came John Lennon's "It's Only Love" and Paul McCartney's "I've Just Seen a Face," two songs which made the American version superior to the current UK import. While "Drive My Car" can be easily found on the '62-'66 best-of collection, "It's Only Love" and "I've Just Seen a Face" cannot be found (Yes, "It's Only Love" is in the Beatles Anthology, but its an alternate version of the far superior original song that appeared on the American release. If ever it should be released, I'm sure Beatles fans would love to hear the American version of "Rubber Soul."

"Rubber Soul" was some of the same and something different. "Rubber Soul" yielded the first Beatles hit song that had nothing to do with love or girls ("Nowhere Man"). "Rubber Soul" marked a transition from The Beatles early boy band love songs to a mature sound that could cover any subject well.
The songs on this album are classic mid-60s. "You Won't See Me," "Norwegian Wood," and "Drive My Car" are each classic Beatles songs that are staples of classic rock stations. "You Won't See Me" in particular has been covered numerous times by other groups.

"Nowhere Man" is excellent. A song about everyman, and a commentary on everyman. This song with its political overtones perhaps expressed some of the frustration the youth of the 60s had with the desire to change the world, and yet could not get oldsters to understand what they were about; and changes that happened were too slow. It's funny looking back, because now we are the oldsters, and the wheel has turned once again. The most incredible thing about this song is that it has nothing to do with love, and ranks as one of the best Beatles songs of all time. The only flaw with this song is that it, like so many other songs of the era, was a paltry 2:44 long, which was LONG by the standards of those days. Think of what The Beatles could have done had they had CDs to work with!

I think "Michelle," "Girl," and "In My Life" are excellent Beatles ballads, with outstanding harmonies on "Girl" and "In My Life;" classics in a different vein from the other songs on this album.

Of the remaining songs, "Think for Yourself," "I'm Looking Through You," "Wait," and "If I Needed Someone" offer quality Beatles music. Each of these are harbingers of The Beatles that would see one more transition album, "Revolver," followed by the revolution in rock music, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

"The Word" is very 60s pop music, with little to distinguish it other than it is a Beatles song. "What Goes On" is an interesting song for The Beatles in that it has a country flavor with Ringo taking the lead vocal. Clearly the idea of a concept album was yet to come. "Run for Your Life" finishes off the CD with some novelty. The "end" in the song is pronounced "end-uh", matching the music well. Note that in written lyrics this is written as "end-a".

The album is a little uneven in a couple of places. Following "Think for Yourself" with "The Word" is not a smooth transition. Similarly, following "Michelle" with "What Goes On" causes "What Goes On" to grate somewhat. The songs could have been changed to have some flow to the style and mood of the songs. However, as I noted earlier, the concept album was two years away.

The flaws in this CD are minor. The music proved once again that even with small bumps in quality, the Beatles were consistently able to fill an album with good to great songs. This album is a must have for any fan of mid-60s rock, and definitely for any fan of The Beatles.

Note that there are several versions of this album available. Because of varying availability and price you may want to see which version best meets your needs before buying.

George said: "Rubber Soul was my favourite album, even at that time. I think that it was the best one we made; we certainly knew we were making a good album. We did spend a bit 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. Also, we were being more influenced by other people's music and everything was blossoming at that time; including us, because we were still growing."

I couldn't agree more. Rubber Soul has everything I look for in an album: 3 John's masterpieces which in my opinion are among the best 10 songs the Beatles ever recorded ("Norwegian Wood"; "Nowhere Man"; "In My Life"), beautiful ballads ("Michelle"; "Girl"), a great rocker ("Drive My Car"), Paul's 'nasty' anti-love songs ("You Won't See Me"; "I'm Looking Through You"), the first 2 essential George's tunes ("Think For Yourself"; "If I Needed Someone") and the funky, first 'flower power' song ever ("The Word").

I love this album so much that I even did a whole web site about it:

www.geocities.com/rubbersoul40years

Honestly, I think that Rubber Soul fans will enjoy this site.

The legend goes that Brian Wilson tried to top RUBBER SOUL by writing PET SOUNDS. Then in a bit of a panic, John and Paul one-upped him with REVOLVER. But really-- how much truth is there to legends?

RUBBER SOUL is introspective, experimental, and demonstrates a maturing that wasn't possible during the hectic 18 month insanity of "Beatlemania." Many of these songs were too complexly overdubbed to be performed in concert. This was one of several factors in the group's choice to stop touring and concentrate on studio work. Perhaps the creation of REVOLVER owes more to that decision than to any song-writing competition with someone 8,000 miles distant. But, legends have a way of living on, don't they?

Points off for no liner notes, a redundant song list (three places, counting twice in the booklet), no track lengths, and a couple of sub-par tunes.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME -- 35:39

The problem with saying which is your favourite Beatle album,is that there is so many good ones to choose from.This is a definite master piece.
I wont bother going through the songs and saying which ones are good and which ones are bad.There is no bad songs here.This album is consistent from start to finish.
It often amazes me that with all the modern tech,they can't better what The Beatles did.
What you have here is realy good tunes,something alot of modern singers struggle to do.How often do you get a few good songs from some singers,a couple of mayby alright's and some boring ones.But not this band.Songs like Girl,Michelle,Wait,oh i might as well name every song.There is nobody to compare to this band.
If its value for money you are looking for,get this.

Is this Toshiba CD a remaster? Or just a Japanese print of the UK album? I wish Amazon would specify. Anyone know? Thanks.

If you were between the ages of 16 to 22 when this album was released you would probably feel this was their best album ever. I was 18. It was a coming of age album. Most of the people that i grew up with felt the same way ( and the ones i am still in touch with still do). My only criticism is that the album had such meaning for me that I can never completely get used to the British version. After so many times on the turntable, the order of the songs from the American version is forever engraved in my brain. I miss the songs that are left out (I'm A Loser), though i do not dislike the ones that have been added ( especially Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone). I agree with most reviewers who find the song Girl to be a masterpiece. All in all, most boomers would give it a 5.

Before the release of "Rubber Soul" Rock and Roll was considered just a simply temporal consume product, when artists released singles for the season and this singles were available in little vinyl formats that after the season were just thrown away and never played or even remembered again , was not untill the Beatles created this awesome album that Rock and Roll entered into the contemporary popular culture , then albums became subject of cult and years later adopted several forms like conceptuall albums (Beatles were the first on this also) double albums (again the Beatles were the first) and many other concepts that were developed after , albums have been apreciated as complete masterpieces since then and not just singles, Beatles became more mature persons, musicians and song writters , influenced by introspection as in "think for yourself", groovy rithms like in "drive my car" american country sounds as in "what goes on" , indian sitar as in "norwegan wood" (wich contained the elements of Bob Dylan style by the way), ballads were also improved like "michelle", and folk rithms are also a part of this production , Beatles showed all the environments that sorrounded them , indian philosophy , american styles etc, the escence of 60s started to be evident in that days , Rubber Soul is a basic album to understand the path that music choosed by this influence in the decades that came after this release.
HM

'Rubber Soul' is an important album, because it marked the first step towards the more mature, reflective Beatles. But compared to 'Revolver', 'Sgt.Pepper's' and 'White Album' - the quality of the songs on Rubber Soul are not as good. Of course songs like 'The Word', 'Michelle' or 'Norwegian Wood' are superb but the rest is simply boring and sometimes really embarrasing ('Nowhere Man' or 'What goes on'). Don't get me wrong, the Beatles are the best but 'Rubber Soul' was just the beginning of something much bigger to come up...