Rubber Soul
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| Rubber Soul | ||
 |
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| Studio album by the Beatles | ||
| Released | 3 December 1965 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 17 June, 12 October – 11 November 1965 |
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| Genre | Rock / Folk rock | |
| Length | 35:50 (UK) 29:59 (US) |
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| Label | Parlophone, Capitol, EMI | |
| Producer(s) | George Martin | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| the Beatles chronology | ||
| Help! (UK-1965) |
Rubber Soul (UK-1965) |
Revolver (UK-1966) |
Rubber Soul is the sixth album by the Beatles, which was first released in December 1965. It was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market, and was a major achievement, with reviewers taking note of the Beatles' developing musical vision. Like most Beatles albums, the record was produced by George Martin and achieved widespread commercial success.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The album was a major artistic leap for the group, and is often cited by critics, as well as members of the band, as the point at which the Beatles' earlier Merseybeat sound began to be transformed into the eclectic, sophisticated pop/rock of their later career. 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.
Rubber Soul is often cited as one of the greatest albums in pop music history. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted it the 40th greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 21 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 6. In 2003, the album was ranked number 5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album had a 42-week run in the British charts starting on December 11, 1965, and on Christmas Day took over from Help!, The Beatles' previous album, at the top position in the charts, a position the album would hold for eight weeks. The album became a classic — on May 9, 1987, it returned to the album charts for three weeks, and ten years later made another comeback to the charts.
The album was released on CD in 1987, using the 14-song UK track lineup. As with the CD release of the 1965 Help! album, the Rubber Soul CD featured a contemporary stereo digital remix of the album prepared by George Martin. This remix is somewhat controversial among Beatle fans — many purists prefer the 1965 mix. Strangely, a few Canadian-origin CD editions of Rubber Soul and Help! accidentally use the original mix of the album, presumably due to a mix-up as to which tapes were sent to the pressing plant. As of 2006, these "mistakes" sell for a fair amount in the second-hand market when properly identified.
Musically, the Beatles broadened their sound, most notably with influences drawn from the contemporary folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan. The album also saw the Beatles broadening rock n' roll's instrumental resources, most notably on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use the sitar, an exotic Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-Sixties. 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 had recently been introduced to Indian classical music and the sitar by David Crosby of the Byrds. He soon became fanatically interested in the genre and began taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar.
Recording innovations were also made during the recording of the album — for instance, the keyboard solo in the middle of "In My Life" sounds like a harpsichord, but was actually played on a piano. George Martin found he could not match the tempo of the song while playing in this baroque style, so he tried recording with the tape running at half-speed. When played back at normal speed during the mixdown, the speeded-up sound gave the illusion of a harpsichord. Other production innovations included the use of electronic sound processing on many instruments, notably the heavily compressed and equalised piano sound on Lennon's "The Word"; this distinctive effect soon became extremely popular in the genre of psychedelic music.
Lyrically, the album was a major progression. 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. In particular, the relationships between the sexes moved from simpler boy-girl love songs to more nuanced, even negative portrayals. "Norwegian Wood", one of the most famous examples and often cited as the Beatles' first conscious assimilation of the lyrical innovations of Bob Dylan, sketches a poetically ambiguous extra-marital affair between the singer and a mysterious girl. "Drive My Car" serves as a satirical piece of reverse sexism. Songs like "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me", and "Girl" express more emotionally complex, even bitter and downbeat portrayals of romance, and "Nowhere Man" was the first Beatles song to move beyond a romantic subject.
After completing the album and the accompanying single "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper", the Beatles were exhausted from years of virtually non-stop recording, touring, and film work. They subsequently took a three-month break during the first part of 1966, and used this down time exploring new directions that would colour their subsequent musical work. These became immediately apparent in the next album, Revolver.
Until very late in their career, the "primary" version of the Beatles' albums was always the monophonic mix. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, the group, producer George Martin, and the Abbey Road engineers devoted most of their time and attention to the mono mixdowns, and the band were usually all present throughout these sessions and actively participated in them. 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 than the mono mixdown.
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 center and instruments on both sides, as evidenced in their prior albums Beatles for Sale and Help!. But Martin was looking for a way to easily produce a stereo album which sounded good on a monaural record player. In what he admits was some experimentation, he mixed down the four-track master tape to stereo with vocals on the right, instruments on the left, and nothing in the middle.
The song "Wait" was initially recorded for, and then left off, the album "Help!". The Beatles chose not to include it on Help because they thought the song was dull[citation needed]. The reason the song was released on Rubber Soul was that that album was one song short, and with the Christmas deadline looming, the Beatles chose to release "Wait" instead of recording a new composition.
Alternate takes of the album appear on Anthology 2 of The Beatles Anthology.
[edit] Tributes
In 2005, the entire album was covered under the title Rubber Folk for the Mike Harding show on BBC Radio 2. Each song was arranged and performed by a different folk musician or group. While originally developed for radio, the venture proved popular with listeners and a CD release is forthcoming, although Amazon UK do not currently list a release date. Another tribute, entitled This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul, was released in 2005. It featured a variety of artists, including the The Fiery Furnaces, Ben Kweller, and Yonder Mountain String Band, covering tracks from the album. It was produced by Jim Sampas and released by Razor & Tie Records.
[edit] Track listing (UK release)
All tracks written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
[edit] Side one
- "Drive My Car" SAMPLE (123k) – 2:30
- "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" SAMPLE (136k) – 2:05
- Featuring George Harrison on sitar
- "You Won't See Me" – 3:22
- Featuring Mal Evans on Hammond organ
- "Nowhere Man" SAMPLE (144k) – 2:44
- "Think for Yourself" (Harrison) – 2:19
- Featuring Paul McCartney on fuzz bass
- "The Word" – 2:43
- Featuring George Martin on harmonium
- "Michelle" – 2:42
[edit] Side two
- "What Goes On" (Lennon-McCartney-Starkey) – 2:50
- "Girl" – 2:33
- "I'm Looking Through You" – 2:27
- "In My Life" SAMPLE (217k) – 2:27
- Featuring George Martin on piano
- "Wait" – 2:16
- "If I Needed Someone" (Harrison) – 2:23
- "Run for Your Life" – 2:18
[edit] Cover
The photo of the Beatles on the Rubber Soul cover appears stretched. McCartney relates the story behind this in Volume 5 of the documentary film Anthology. Photographer Bob Freeman had taken some pictures of the Beatles at Lennon's house. Freeman showed the photos to the Beatles 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?" Freeman said he could.
Rubber Soul was the first U.S. Beatles album to share its cover art with its UK counterpart; however, Capitol Records used a different colour saturation, causing the orange lettering used by Parlophone Records to look like gold lettering.
Coincidentally, if the album is held upside-down in front of a mirror, the title reads "ROAD ABBEY".
[edit] American release
| Rubber Soul | ||
 |
||
| Studio album by the Beatles | ||
| Released | December 6, 1965 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 14 June - 17 June, 12 October – 11 November 1965 |
|
| Genre | Folk rock | |
| Length | 29:59 | |
| Label | Capitol | |
| Producer(s) | George Martin | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| the Beatles chronology | ||
| Help! (US-1965) |
Rubber Soul (US-1965) |
Yesterday . . . and Today (US-1966) |
Rubber Soul came out in the United States three days after the British release, and began its 59-week long chart run on Christmas Day. It topped the charts for six weeks from January 8, 1966, before dropping back. The album sold 1.2 million copies within nine days of its release, and to date has sold over four million copies in America.
Like other pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles albums, Rubber Soul differed markedly in its U.S. and UK configurations; indeed, through peculiarities of sequencing, the U.S. Rubber Soul was deliberately reconfigured to appear a "folk rock" album to angle the Beatles into that nascent and lucrative American idiom during 1965, thanks to the addition of "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love" (leftovers from the UK Help!) and the deletion of some of the more upbeat tracks ("Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "If I Needed Someone", and "What Goes On"). The tracks missing on the U.S. version would later surface on the Yesterday . . . and Today collection. The track variation resulted in a shorter album length, clocking in at 29:59. In addition, the U.S. stereo version has a "false start" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You."
The American version of the album also greatly influenced the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who "answered" the album by releasing Pet Sounds in 1966. In turn, Pet Sounds greatly impressed the Beatles and served as inspiration for both Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
There were two different stereo versions released on vinyl in the U.S.: the standard U.S. stereo mix, and the "Dexter Stereo" version (a.k.a. the "East Coast" version), which has a layer of reverb added to the entire album. The standard U.S. stereo mix and the original mono mix are available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set.
[edit] Track listing (US release)
All tracks written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
[edit] Side one
- "I've Just Seen a Face" – 2:04
- "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" – 2:00
- "You Won't See Me" – 3:19
- "Think for Yourself" (Harrison) – 2:16
- "The Word" – 2:42
- "Michelle" – 2:42
[edit] Side two
- "It's Only Love" – 1:53
- "Girl" – 2:26
- "I'm Looking Through You" – 2:20
- "In My Life" – 2:23
- "Wait" – 2:13
- "Run for Your Life" – 2:21
[edit] Release history
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | December 3, 1965 | Parlophone | mono LP | PMC 1267 |
| stereo LP | PCS 3075 | |||
| United States | December 6, 1965 | Capitol Records | mono LP | T 2442 |
| stereo LP | ST 2442 | |||
| Australia | Unknown | EMI | Stereo 8-track cartridge | 8X-PCSO-3075 |
| Worldwide reissue | April 15, 1987 | Apple, Parlophone, EMI | CD | CDP 7 46440 2 |
| Japan | March 11, 1998 | Toshiba-EMI | CD | TOCP 51116 |
| Japan | January 21, 2004 | Toshiba-EMI | Remastered LP | TOJP 60136 |
| Worldwide Release | April 11, 2006 | Apple/Capitol/EMI | CD reissue of U.S. LP | CDP 0946 3 57501 2 6 |
[edit] Personnel
- John Lennon - vocals, rhythm guitar
- Paul McCartney - vocals, bass guitar, piano on "Drive My Car", "You Won't See Me" and "The Word", fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself"
- George Harrison - lead guitar, vocals, sitar on "Norwegian Wood (this Bird has Flown)
- Ringo Starr - drums, vocal on "What Goes On", organ on "I'm Looking through you"
with
- George Martin - producer, piano on "In My Life", harmonium on "The Word"
- Mal Evans - organ on "You Won't See Me"
