Fifty Years Of Rubber Soul

Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album of the Beatles.It is one of the first albums[along with A Hard Day's Night] wherein the band didn't include any covers and thus considered to be at the certain point the band had started to have a sound of their own.

We all know that older rockers from the fifties particularly the Everly Brothers have influenced the fab four that was evident on the vocal harmonies on the early singles and the debut album.But as the Beatles started to grow as musicians,they began experimenting on their sound,band set up and drop D tunings even before they became a standard.

Rubber Soul is also a breakthrough album wherein the band had started experimenting with their sound by featuring exotic instruments like the sitar featured on the song "Norwegian Wood",played by George Harrison,the instrument added a lot of flavor to the song by blending perfectly with John's acoustic guitar and Paul's bass.It is also the LP wherein Harrison is starting to emerge as a songwriting rival to both Lennon and McCartney,though previous albums like With The Beatles and  Help!  already featured songs written by George,it is in this album wherein he started putting out his more finer output-a thing that will eventually start the rift between him and the Lennon-McCartney team.As John would later said post-breakup "George was a fine songwriter but Paul and I were tougher" referring to the rivalry that was in a way being pointed out as one of the reasons behind the band's dissolution-though one would argue that it is in fact done by so many people around bad business deals and bad management the band had to endure.

Released on December 3rd 1965,the album was recorded in merely a month between tour breaks.It is astonishing for a rock band to release an average of two to three albums a year-this is a feat which is undefeated and no other rock group has done such even today.The album's genre is primarily folk rock which was obviously influenced by Bob Dylan though there are fast and catchy pop rock tunes along with it like  "Drive My Car","The Word" and "You Won't See Me".

Vinyl back cover,1965

The album's fine contrasts became the subject of controversy and its also one of the seven albums altered by Capitol in the sixties-"Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man"."What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone" were removed and was instead compiled in a non-significant but often disputed album called Yesterday And Today which also featured songs taken from Help! and Revolver.The album became controversial over the fact that the Beatles had their photo taken in butcher suits and decapitated dolls expressing their feelings toward Capitol for 'butchering' their albums.The band's American label would alter one last album Revolver in which Target's  store website best describes the Capitol LPs as 'bastardized American albums'.

The original 14 track album was finally released in the US in 1987 with the unification effort made by EMI and deleted the US albums since.Though the 12 track US version with songs from side two of Help! was included in the Beatles US albums box set and was also reissued in 2014 as a separate album sold exclusively by Walmart.Oddly enough,Goldmine mag was praising the 12 track butchered version saying that no one would get used to "Drive My Car" as an opening track but "I've Just Seen A Face"-the said article was published in the early 2000s so I made a reply to it writing my own article challenging it by defending the standard albums which were the original 13 LPs.
The only significance the said periodical was praising was the 'false start' of the song "I'm Looking Through You" and a different mix of "The Word" wherein Lennon had double his vocals on the mix.But then,why would you want those versions on a butchered album that took other songs from an older album.A butchered album that didn't have the approval of the band themselves nor created according to their own artistic vision in which the way they conceived the original EMI releases.


Rubber Soul is dominated mostly by acoustic guitar songs and was branded among the best with the folk rock genre.It was succeeded with a more electric guitar themed album which is the total opposite of the former.The follow-up album was christened Revolver which became one of the biggest albums of 1966 and went on to be one of the most influential albums in rock music fusing hard rock and psychedelia.

TRACK LISTING

1.Drive My Car (Lennon-McCartney)
2.Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Lennon-McCartney)
3.You Won't See Me (Lennon-McCartney)
4.Nowhere Man (Lennon-McCartney)
5.Think For Yourself (Harrison)
6.The Word (Lennon-McCartney)
7.Michelle (Lennon-McCartney)
8.What Goes On (Lennon-McCartney-Starkey)
9.Girl (Lennon-McCartney)
10.I'm Looking Through You (Lennon-McCartney)
11.In My Life (Lennon-McCartney)
12.Wait (Lennon-McCartney)
13.If I Needed Someone (Harrison)
14.Run For Your Life (Lennon-McCartney)

With the album ranked number five by Rolling Stone magazine on its 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list[The Beatles' Sgt Pepper was actually ranked by the rock periodical at number 1],Rubber Soul remains one of the most enduring albums of rock music fifty years later and no other band has ever done like what the Beatles did in terms of release patterns and creativity.Thus,making the Beatles the greatest rock group of all time and space.


(c) 2015 Keith Vernon Adagio

credits: Rubber Soul album cover,EMI Parlophone

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