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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All in the best possible taste, 25 Oct 2006
'Rubber Soul' is the first Beatles album that works its magic without yelling at you. It sounds much more like a carefully-crafted gem than the representation of a live set. The band sound confident that they're taking rock music to a new level and from here on they don't need outside material. It serves partly as a wind-up for 'Revolver', the album it most resembles, but is a classic in its own right. You can admire the diversity and ingenuity here, but you can't allege gimmickry.
The stylistic progression includes the more solid rock approach of 'Drive My Car', subtle but intricate vocal arrangements as on 'You Won't See Me', the laughing effect of the fuzz guitar on 'Think For Yourself' and the smouldering, impassioned delivery of 'Girl'. There are many great songs too, as indicated by the extent to which other artists picked this album over. The Overlanders took 'Michelle' to number one and disappeared; The Truth put 'Girl' in the charts and followed suit; The Hollies made 'If I Needed Someone' another top ten hit; and Judy Collins brought out the full poignancy of 'In My Life'. Then of course there's John Lennon's legendary 'Norwegian Wood', a tale of the unexpected, as well as the instant 'Nowhere Man'.
The only false notes are perhaps 'What Goes On' on which Ringo reminds you that he drums better than he sings, while Lennon himself is on record as saying that he hated 'Run For Your Life'. Even so, it isn't a bad song. File 'Rubber Soul' under the usual - peerless.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The first great Beatles album, 26 May 2007
1965 was the year that The Beatles began to be considered not just likeable entertainers, but something far more substantial. Geniuses in fact. The album 'Rubber Soul' was the start of a succession of brilliant Beatles albums.
'Rubber Soul', in fact, begins in unspectacular style, with 'Drive My Car', then 'Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)' takes the breath away, with John Lennon singing a, legend has it, autobiographical song. It's a beautiful Eastern/Western mix, helped by George Harrison's sitar. 'You Won't See Me' is a poignant love song sung by Paul McCartney, and with 'Nowhere Man' following, we are already well into a classic Beatles album. The latter has John in sensitive, insightful mood. A beautiful song.
'Think For Yourself' and 'The Word' are uptempo, the former being a George Harrison song. The latter has a John vocal, and marvellous harmonies from John, Paul, and George. Both pretty good. Better still is 'Michelle', which underlines a rapid maturing of The Beatles. They are becoming accomplished at this time in creating songs in various styles. In this instance, Paul sings in French, with accompanying music that makes it sound like a French folk song.
Beginning side 2 is 'What Goes On', which suits Ringo Starr's plaintive voice, and 'Girl' is in a similar style to 'Norwegian Wood', with John again supplying a moving vocal. 'I'm Looking Through You' is unusual in that it's Paul and not John delivering a barbed vocal. John then sings 'In My Life', which is the stand-out track on the album. Lyrically it's even deeper when reading the lyrics only, and the music, especially George Martin's baroque piano, is enchanting, and it was a song which had 1960s intellectuals drooling! George Harrison's 'If I Needed Someone' is pleasant, with a Byrds style ringing guitar sound (The Byrds were influencing The Beatles at this time, and vice versa). The catchy 'Run For Your Life' sees John end things, using that sometimes spiteful tongue to good effect.
'Rubber Soul' was the first Beatles album to really take popular music to another level, and there were a few more outstanding Beatles albums to follow!
- Paul Rance/booksmusicfilmstv.com.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Turning Point, 15 Sep 2009
Whilst I was always a fan of the Beatles from Love Me Do onwards, this was the album that really put them in a completely different league to any of the other groups (Mersey or otherwise) that were there at that time.
While we must acknowledge the huge part George Martin played in adding his magic touch to the finished products of the Beatle's creative genius. Surely, as the man in overall charge, could he not understand that Mono was now dead in the recording studios of the sixties. So why produce such a very basic Stereo version?
I was hoping that the remaster might have lessened the incohesive left/right sound channels. The sound quality is amazing, a much more detailed and warmer sound, but couldn't the sound stage have been rebalanced or would that be step too far for the Beatle aficionados.
So a great album, lovingly restored and very well presented, but ultimately flawed by that terrible "two channel mono". It' a shame EMI haven't released the remastered mono mix version independently,'fraid the box set is way out reach for me!
PS I've just been reading reviews of the Mono box set and apparently the copy of Rubber Soul in that collection contains both the mono and stereo versions. Surely that would have been the fairer way to release this and the Revolver albums. It has been done many times before e.g John Mayall's Blues Breakers remastered.
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