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Rubber Soul

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This article is about the 1965 album. For other uses, see Rubber Soul (disambiguation).

Untitled

Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by English rock band the Beatles. It was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market, and was released on 3 December 1965. It was produced by George Martin. Unlike the five albums that preceded it, Rubber Soul was recorded during a continuous period, whereas the group had previously recorded albums during breaks in between tour dates or other projects.[3] After this, Beatles albums would be made without the burden of other commitments, except for the production of short promotional films.

Rubber Soul incorporates R&B, pop, soul, folk rock, and psychedelic music styles.[2][4][5] The album is regarded by musicologists as a major artistic achievement that continued the Beatles' artistic maturation while attaining widespread critical and commercial success.[6] The album's name comes from the term plastic soul, which popular African American soul musicians coined to describe Mick Jagger, a white musician singing soul music. It was the second Beatles album – after the British version of A Hard Day's Night – to contain only original material; the Beatles would record no more cover songs for their records until 1969, with the "Maggie Mae" excerpt appearing on Let It Be.

Rubber Soul is regarded by fans and critics alike as one of the greatest albums in popular music history.[7][8][9][10] In 2012, Rubber Soul was ranked number five on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[11] In 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed their sales award rules, the album was declared as having gone platinum.[12]

Composition

Music

"Michelle"
The Beatles's "Michelle" from Rubber Soul
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Virtually all of the album's songs were composed immediately after the Beatles' return to London following their North American tour.[13] The Beatles expanded their sound on the album, with influences drawn from wide-ranging sources, such as African American soul music, the contemporary folk-rock of Bob Dylan and The Byrds,[9][14] and the vocal harmony pop of The Beach Boys.[15] The album also saw the Beatles expanding rock and roll's instrumental resources, most notably on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" through George Harrison's use of the Indian sitar. He had been introduced to it via the instrumental score for their 1965 film Help!. Although The Kinks had incorporated droning guitars to mimic the sitar after a visit to India on "See My Friends",[16] "Norwegian Wood" is generally credited as sparking off a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-1960s – a trend which would later branch out into the raga rock and Indian rock genres.[17][9] The song is now acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of what is now usually called "world music" and it was a major landmark in the trend towards incorporating non-Western musical influences into Western popular music. Harrison's interest was fuelled by fellow Indian music fans Roger McGuinn David Crosby of the Byrds, whom Harrison met and befriended in August 1965.[18] Harrison would eventually be transfixed by all things Indian, taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar.[19]

French-like guitar lines on "Michelle" and Greek-influenced ones on "Girl", fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself," and a piano made to sound like a baroque harpsichord on the instrumental bridge of "In My Life" added to the exotic brushstrokes on the album.[20] Ringo Starr had frequently augmented Beatles tracks with non-standard percussion instruments such as maracas or tambourine, but on the track "I'm Looking Through You" unusually used taps on a box of matches, perhaps influenced by a similar trick as done by Gene Krupa in the 1941 film Ball of Fire.[citation needed]

Lyrics

Lyrically, the album represents a major progression in the Beatles' music. Though a smattering of earlier Beatles songs had expressed romantic doubt and negativity, the songs on Rubber Soul represented a pronounced development in sophistication, thoughtfulness and ambiguity.[20] In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced and negative portrayals. "Norwegian Wood" sketches a failed relationship between the singer and a mysterious girl, where she goes to bed and he sleeps in the bath.[21] and songs like "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me", and "Girl" express more emotionally complex, bitter and downbeat portrayals of romance. John Lennon's "In My Life" depicts nostalgic reverie for younger days, while "The Word" looks at love as an abstract term, arguably the first time a Lennon-McCartney song strayed from their usual 'boy/girl' notion of romantic love, and songs such as "Nowhere Man" and Harrison's "Think for Yourself" explored subject matter that had nothing to do with romance at all.

Recording

Recording for Rubber Soul began on 12 October 1965, at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, with final production and mix down taking place on 15 November.[22] 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.[23] Produced by George Martin, the album was one of the first projects he undertook after leaving EMI's staff and co-founding Associated Independent Recording (AIR).[24]

The song "Wait" was revisited after initially being recorded for but rejected from Help! "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper" were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions, but the band chose to leave them off the album, releasing them instead as their first double A-sided single.

For "In My Life", Martin was left to create the instrumental bridge himself. Feeling that his piano playing skill wasn't sufficient for what he envisioned, so he played the piano an octave lower than desired, with the tape running at half-speed. When played back at normal speed during the mixdown, the sped-up sound was not only technically what he was looking for, it also gave the illusion of a harpsichord.[25][26] Processing used included heavily compressed and equalised piano sound on "The Word", an effect that soon became widespread in the genre of psychedelic music. Before the recording sessions, McCartney was given a new bass, a Rickenbacker 4001, which had a fuller bass sound than the Hofner. All of the songs on the album, except for "Drive My Car", were recorded using the new bass.

Until very late in their career, the "primary" version of the Beatles' albums was always the monophonic mix. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, Martin and the Abbey Road engineers devoted most of their time and attention to the mono mixdowns, and the band were not usually present for the stereo mixing sessions. Even with their landmark Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, the stereo mixdowns were considered less important than the mono version and were completed in far less time.

While the stereo version of the original release of Rubber Soul was similar to that of their earliest albums, featuring mainly vocals on the right channel and instruments on the left, it was not produced in the same manner. The early albums were recorded on twin-track tape, and they were intended only for production of monaural records, so they kept vocals and instruments separated allowing the two parts to later be mixed in proper proportion. By this time, however, the Beatles were recording on four-track tape, which allowed a stereo master to be produced with vocals in the centre and instruments on both sides, as evidenced in their prior albums Beatles for Sale and Help!. Looking for a way to easily produce a stereo album which sounded good on a monaural record player, Martin mixed down the four-track master tape to stereo with vocals on the right, instruments on the left, and nothing in the middle, even though in "What Goes On", Starr's vocal is mixed on the left instead of the right, with Lennon and McCartney's harmony vocals on the right, while on "Think for Yourself" Harrison's double-tracked lead vocal is split between the two channels.

This was the final Beatle album that recording engineer Norman Smith worked on before he was promoted by EMI to record producer.[27]

Packaging and artwork

Rubber Soul was the group's first release not to feature their name on the cover, an uncommon tactic in 1965. The 'stretched' effect of the cover photo came about after photographer Bob Freeman had taken some pictures of the group wearing suede leather jackets at Lennon's house. Freeman showed the photos by projecting them onto an album-sized piece of cardboard to simulate how they would appear on an album cover. The unusual Rubber Soul album cover came to be when the slide card fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image of the photograph and stretching it. Excited by the effect, they shouted, "Ah! Can we have that? Can you do it like that?", to which Freeman said he could.[28] The distinctive lettering was created by Charles Front (father of actress Rebecca Front), and the original artwork was later auctioned at Bonhams, accompanied by an authenticating letter from Robert Freeman.[29]

Capitol Records used a different colour saturation for the US version, causing the orange lettering used by Parlophone Records to show up as different colours. On some Capitol LPs, the title looks rich chocolate brown; others, more like gold. On the 1987 compact disc reissue, the letters appear a distinct green, and the 2009 reissue uses the original cover design with the Parlophone Records logo.

Paul McCartney conceived the album's title after overhearing a musician's description of Mick Jagger's singing style as "plastic soul". Lennon confirmed this in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, stating, "That was Paul's title, meaning English soul. Just a pun."[30] McCartney uses a similar phrase, "plastic soul, man, plastic soul …", heard at the end of "I'm Down" as released on Anthology 2.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[31]
The A.V. ClubA–[32]
Consequence of SoundA+[33]
The Daily Telegraph[34]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[35]
MusicHound4/5[36]
Paste97/100[37]
Pitchfork Media10/10[5]
Q[38]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[39]

Rubber Soul was commercially successful, beginning a 42-week run in the British charts on 12 December 1965. The following week it replaced The Sound of Music soundtrack at the top of the charts, and held the top spot eight weeks. On 9 May 1987, Rubber Soul returned to the album charts for three weeks,[40] and ten years later made another comeback to the charts.[41]

Critical response to the album was also positive. In a 1967 article for Esquire, 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".[42] He later cited it as "when the Beatles began to go arty".[43] Rolling Stone magazine commented "they achieved a new musical sophistication and a greater thematic depth without sacrificing a whit of pop appeal." Pitchfork Media described 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". Since 2001, Rubber Soul has been included in several media-sponsored "best" album lists.[7][8][9][10]

Walter Everett, author of The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology, calls Rubber Soul an "important album", referring to its rich multi-part vocals brimming with expressive dissonance vocals, a deep exploration of guitars and the different capos that produced different colours from familiar finger patterns, surprising new timbres and electronic effects, a more soulful pentatonic approach to vocal and instrumental melody tinged by twelve-bar jams that accompanied the more serious recording and a fairly consistent search for meaningful ideas in lyrics".[44]

The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[45]

In 2012, Rubber Soul was voted #5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[11]

The US version of the album greatly influenced Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wilson believed it was the first time in pop music that the focus had shifted from just making popular singles to making an actual album, without the usual filler tracks. He "answered" the album by releasing Pet Sounds in 1966.[46]

"What Goes On" was the first song which has a Richard Starkey writing credit, as co-composer beside Lennon and McCartney. Lennon later said this was the first album on which the Beatles were in complete creative control during recording, with enough studio time to develop and refine new sound ideas. Exhausted from five years of virtually non-stop touring, recording, and film work, the group subsequently took a three-month break during the first part of 1966 and used this free time exploring new directions that would colour their subsequent musical work. These became immediately apparent in the next (UK) album, Revolver.[47]

Compact disc reissues

Rubber Soul was released on compact disc 30 April 1987, with the 14-song UK track line-up now the international standard. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the 14-track UK version of the album was issued on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. As with the Help! album, Rubber Soul featured a contemporary stereo digital remix of the album prepared by George Martin. Martin expressed concern to EMI over the original 1965 stereo remix, claiming it sounded "very woolly, and not at all what I thought should be a good issue". He went back to the original four-tracks tapes and remixed them for stereo.[48]

When the album was originally released on CD in Canada, pressings were imported from other countries, and used the 1987 remix. However, when the Disque Améric and Cinram plants in Canada started pressing the album, the original 1965 stereo mix was used by mistake. This was the only source for the 1965 stereo mix in its entirety until the release of the Beatles mono box set in 2009.[49]

A newly remastered version of the album, again using the 1987 George Martin remix, was released worldwide with the reissue of the entire catalogue on 9 September 2009. The original 1965 stereo and mono mixes were reissued on that date as part of the mono box set.[50]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney except where noted

Side one
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."Drive My Car"McCartney with Lennon2:25
2."Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"Lennon with McCartney2:01
3."You Won't See Me"McCartney3:18
4."Nowhere Man"Lennon with McCartney and Harrison2:40
5."Think for Yourself" (George Harrison)Harrison2:16
6."The Word"Lennon and McCartney with Harrison2:41
7."Michelle"McCartney2:33
Side two
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."What Goes On" (Lennon–McCartney–Richard Starkey)Starr2:47
2."Girl"Lennon2:30
3."I'm Looking Through You"McCartney2:23
4."In My Life"Lennon2:24
5."Wait"Lennon and McCartney2:12
6."If I Needed Someone" (Harrison)Harrison2:20
7."Run for Your Life"Lennon2:18

North American Capitol release

Rubber Soul was the tenth album by the group in the US, released three days after the British LP by Capitol Records in both the mono and stereo formats. It began its 59-week chart run on Christmas Day, topping the Billboard Album chart for six weeks starting on 8 January 1966. The album sold 1.2 million copies within nine days of its release, 1,800,376 copies by 31 December 1965 and 2,766,862 by the end of the decade.[51] To date it has sold over six million copies in America.

The American edition differed markedly from its British counterpart. Four tracks were removed and set aside for the next American album, Yesterday and Today: "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone". These were replaced with two tracks from the UK Help! album: "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love". The total time was 28:55, nearly 7 minutes shorter than the British version. Through peculiarities of sequencing, by placing the Help! tracks at the beginning of each side, Rubber Soul was deliberately reconfigured to appear a "folk rock" album to angle the Beatles into that emergent lucrative American genre during 1965.[52]

First pressings of Rubber Soul on the black/colorband Capitol label does not show THE BEATLES between the album title and the group's individual names; this was later corrected to include the group name.

The stereo mix sent to the US from England has what are commonly called "false starts" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You" which are on every American stereo copy of the album from 1965 to 1987. The US version of "The Word" is also noticeably different because it has Lennon's double-tracked vocals, an extra falsetto harmony on the left channel during the last two refrains, with some percussion panning to the right and then the left channel during the instrumental break. The 1965 American stereo and mono mixes are available on compact disc as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 boxed set. In 2014, the Capitol edition of Rubber Soul was released on CD again, individually and included in the Beatles boxed set, The U.S. Albums.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney except where noted

Side one
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."I've Just Seen a Face"McCartney2:04
2."Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"Lennon with McCartney2:05
3."You Won't See Me"McCartney3:19
4."Think for Yourself" (Harrison)Harrison2:19
5."The Word"Lennon with McCartney and Harrison2:42
6."Michelle"McCartney2:42
Side two
No.TitleLead vocalsLength
1."It's Only Love"Lennon1:53
2."Girl"Lennon2:33
3."I'm Looking Through You"McCartney2:24
4."In My Life"Lennon2:24
5."Wait"Lennon and McCartney2:15
6."Run for Your Life"Lennon2:15

Personnel

According to Mark Lewisohn,[53] Ian MacDonald[54] and The Beatles Anthology.[55]

Production and additional personnel

Charts

Chart Year Peak
position
Australian Kent Music Report 1966 1
UK Albums Chart[57] 1965 1
UK Albums Chart[57] 1966 1
US Billboard Top LPs 1966 1

Certifications

Notes

  1. ^ Rubber Soul. beatlesbible.com Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  2. ^ a b Unterberger, Richie. "The Beatles". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  3. ^ Mark Lewisohn. The Complete Beatles Chronicle. London: Hamlyn, 2000, p. 202.
  4. ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/hello-goodbye-19691231
  5. ^ a b "The Beatles: Rubber Soul | Album Reviews". Pitchfork. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  6. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 35.
  7. ^ a b Q 2007.
  8. ^ a b VH1 2001.
  9. ^ a b c d Rolling Stone 2007.
  10. ^ a b Time 2007.
  11. ^ a b "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: The Beatles, 'Rubber Soul'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  12. ^ a b "Beatles albums finally go platinum". British Phonographic Industry. BBC News. 2 September 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  13. ^ Lewisohn, p. 202.
  14. ^ Groen 2008.
  15. ^ Cross, Craig (2005). The Beatles: Day-by-day, Song-by-song, Record-by-record. ISBN 0-595-34663-4.
  16. ^ Bellman 1998, p. 295.
  17. ^ Bellman 1998, p. 292.
  18. ^ Connors 2008.
  19. ^ Holmes 2008.
  20. ^ a b Unterberger 2009a.
  21. ^ Unterberger 2009c.
  22. ^ Lewisohn, pp. 202–206.
  23. ^ Unterberger 2006, p. 132.
  24. ^ Everett 2001, p. 308.
  25. ^ Spitz 2005.
  26. ^ Lewisohn 1990.
  27. ^ natas. "Norman Hurricane Smith "The Sound of The Beatles"". Earcandymag.com. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  28. ^ McCartney in discussion, The Beatles Anthology, volume five.
  29. ^ Bachelor 2007.
  30. ^ Wenner 2000.
  31. ^ Rubber Soul at AllMusic
  32. ^ Klosterman, Chuck (8 September 2009). "Chuck Klosterman Repeats The Beatles". The A.V. Club. Chicago. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2013. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  33. ^ Young, Alex (19 September 2009). "Album Review: The Beatles – Rubber Soul [Remastered]". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  34. ^ McCormick, Neil (7 September 2009). "The Beatles – Rubber Soul, review". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  35. ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 1. Muze. pp. 487–489. ISBN 0-19-531373-9.
  36. ^ Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds) (1999). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink Press. p. 88. ISBN 1-57859-061-2. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  37. ^ "The Beatles: The Long and Winding Repertoire". 8 September 2009. Retrieved 6 January 2013. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  38. ^ "Review: Rubber Soul". Q. London: 120. January 2000. Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  39. ^ The Beatles | Album Guide | Rolling Stone Music
  40. ^ Chart Stats 2009a.
  41. ^ Chart Stats 2009b.
  42. ^ Christgau, Robert (December 1967). "Columns". Esquire. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  43. ^ Christgau, Robert (September 1969). "Rock Critics". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  44. ^ Everett, Walter. The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. Oxford University Press, USA, 1999, p. 30.
  45. ^ ^ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.
  46. ^ Howard 2004, p. 64.
  47. ^ Marck 2008.
  48. ^ Kozinn 1987.
  49. ^ "Rubber Soul CD – Canadian Pressing Featuring Original UK Mixes?". Steve Hoffman Music Forums. 9 April 2006. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  50. ^ "The BEATLES Catalog Remastered for 9–09–09 Release !". Music News Net. 7 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  51. ^ "How Many Records did the Beatles actually sell?". Deconstructing Pop Culture by David Kronemyer. 29 April 2009. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
  52. ^ Johnson 2009.
  53. ^ Lewisohn 2000, pp. 202–208
  54. ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 174–175.
  55. ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 194.
  56. ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 174–175
  57. ^ a b "Chart Stats – The Beatles – Rubber Soul". chartstats.com. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  58. ^ "Discos de oro y platino" (in Spanish). Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
  59. ^ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2009 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  60. ^ "Brazilian album certifications – The Beatles – Rubber Soul" (in Portuguese). Pro-Música Brasil. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  61. ^ "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (The Beatles; 'Rubber Soul')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  62. ^ THE FIELD id (chart number) MUST BE PROVIDED for NEW ZEALAND CERTIFICATION.
  63. ^ "British album certifications – The Beatles – Rubber Soul". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 21 August 2012. Select albums in the Format field. Select Platinum in the Certification field. Type Rubber Soul in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.
  64. ^ "Canadian album certifications – The Beatles – Rubber Soul". Music Canada. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  65. ^ "American album certifications – The Beatles – Rubber Soul". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved 21 August 2012.

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Rubber Soul.
Preceded by Billboard 200 number-one album
8 January – 18 February 1966 		Succeeded by
Going Places
by Herb Alpert and His Tijuana Brass
Preceded by
Help! by the Beatles
 Australian Kent Music Report number-one album
26 February – 6 May 1966
14–20 May 1966 		Succeeded by
What Now My Love
by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
Preceded by
The Sound of Music by Original Soundtrack
 UK Albums Chart number-one album
25 December 1965 – 19 February 1966 		Succeeded by
The Sound of Music by Original Soundtrack
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