Disco de The Beatles: “Rubber Soul [US]”

RUBBER SOUL is the Beatles first masterpiece, and the original UK version is far better than the American LP. This is how the Beatles themselves intended it, not some hack from Capitol Records.

DRIVE MY CAR is an excellent opening track. It was chopped off of the original American record and was replaced by It's Only Love.

NORWEGIAN WOOD is about one of John's real-life affairs, and it is my favorite song on the album. It is probably the first time the sitar was used in popular music.

YOU WON'T SEE ME, great pop from Paul, and has some fine drumming from Ringo.

NOWHERE MAN, one the best tracks on the entire album, and it was cut off the American record.

THINK FOR YOURSELF, good track from George, not his best but still very good. Nice fuzz bass.

THE WORD, very much in the same vein as ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, but this track is much better.

MICHELLE, classic Paul. Beautiful melody.

WHAT GOES ON, country song co-written and sung by Ringo. Neither bad nor great.

GIRL, more classic Lennon. He dominates this album.

I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU, great Paul track, features Ringo on Hammond organ.

IN MY LIFE is possibly the Beatles' best song, and may be the greatest song ever written. Excellent keyboard solo.

WAIT, more classic stuff.

IF I NEEDED SOMEONE, George's best song up to this point. Great lyrics and a hypnotic guitar intro.

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE is Lennon at his most jealous. One of the weaker songs on this CD, but it features some great guitar work.

Rubber Soul is essential to everyone's music collection.

By the time they recorded "Rubber Soul," The Beatles were an unstoppable sensation with classics like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," and "A Hard Day's Night" under their belt. "Rubber Soul," however, marked the band's first foray into the arty pop that would make up the bulk of their later efforts.

"Drive My Car" and the brilliant, lesser-heard "You Won't See Me" are certainly of the pure pop ilk, ditto for "What Goes On" and "I'm Looking Through You." And while these songs are all among rock's finest compositions, a more mature, forward-thinking spirit inhabits the likes of "Nowhere Man," "I'm Looking Through You," and "Wait." Three of the Beatles' finest ballads are featured as well (in fact, they're two of rock music's finest ballads), "Michelle," a country-tinged gem; the bluesy "Girl"; and the stately "In My Life," a masterpiece that gave the first true glance of the lyrical depth Lennon & McCartney were capable of.

A minor slip-up can certainly be forgiven in the face of such brilliance, which is fortunate for "Run for Your Life," a deceivingly-happy sounding pop number that offers a glimpse of the Fab Four's ability to occasionally shock ("I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than with another man"). Unlike some of their other dark lyrics this one doesn't register on the fun scale. Luckily the same can't be said for the rest of the album..."Rubber Soul" is one of the brightest moments in rock history, and with The Beatles' growing taste for experiment, one of the most important as well.

By 1965, The Beatles had already conquered the world with their music, always highly-qualified, as they always tried to be innovative and fresh-sounding with their early work. But at some point they had to demonstrate that they were not only the band that had broken all the best-selling records, but also a new and never-before-seen musical structure that would eventually break down all the conventions and create a social phenomenon that would change the world foverer.

"Rubber Soul" is an album where The Beatles, always guided by the hands and ears of Sir George Martin, intented to be innovative and creative, not abandoning the traditional pop music structures, but changing them to give them the shape they wanted them to have... So here we can appreciate notable instrumental superation which, in many cases, is close to perfection. We hear impressive works on guitars ("Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "Girl", the 12-string guitar on "If I Needed Someone"), bass guitar ("You Won't See Me", "Nowhere Man"), keyboards (Paul's piano on "You Won't See Me" and "The Word", and George Martin's solo on "In My Life"), drums and percussion (Ringo's drumming on "You Won't See Me", "The Word", "What Goes On" and "In My Life" is amazing, as is the percussion amongst the album). They present us special innovations in the recording: a sitar playing the lead role as a popular music instrument ("Norwegian Wood"), a fuzz bass guitar that has a more starring role that the lead guitar ("Think For Yourself"), and the most trebley acoustic guitars ever heard on record ("Nowhere Man", according to Paul McCartney).

They were also looking for lyrical perfection. "Drive My Car" is a collaboration between Paul and John, and a nice opener with a funny story (and it SO belongs here. The original album was the UK version!); "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is a very weird story about an affair John was having at the time, which finishes with a fire!; "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You" are Paul McCartney's love/argument songs to Jane Asher. They are both outstanding for their lyrics (Paul shines here as a lyricist. Yes, he wrote lyrics too) and their charming melodies; "Nowhere Man" is one of the best John's songs, about isolation and sharing the world with all the people who live in it, and also contains a three-part vocal harmony that will be present on the entire album; "Think For Yourself" is a great song by George Harrison ("probably about the government", he says), with a deep meaning (it's up to you to decide what it is: I think it's about not believing all the things that you hear). It also features three-part harmonies. "The Word" is a John Lennon song (also sung by three of the four Beatles) that has a great meaning even today, as the world still needs "The Word" to survive. I mean, those were other times and I didn't live there (I'm only 18), but how we need this kind of songs now! "Michelle" is the typical McCartney ballad, with lovely touches of french arrangements and a sweet guitar solo and background vocal harmonies; "What Goes On" is, in my opinion (and even considering all the love I have for Ringo Starr as a drummer, as a band member, and even as a singer and a solo artist!), the low point of the album. But it's not Ringo's fault, as he sings pretty well and his drumming does not contain any mistakes: is the guitar work that doesn't work here. I don't know what happened with John and George, but that guitars aren't right. Still a good song. "Girl" is a deep and melancholy lament by John, about a man losing his faith in love because of a particular girl who treated him badly. He would later take the revenge, as "Run For Your Life", the closing track for the album, is a very anti-feminist although humoristic song. They both have the precise arrangements that make them strong. "Wait" is quite a filler, but a good one, as its lyrics are good, and the guitar is very well-played. "If I Needed Someone" is another three-part harmony, this time on a nice George's song about love.

"In My Life" is a whole other chapter. One of my favourite songs of all-time, its sincere lyrics are just very emotional, and can mean a lot to everyone who hears them. I can't think about any song as charming, nice and sweet as this one. Also, "In My Life" can mean "In Our Lives", as John is talking about the places he remembered, the old memories, the old friends, that can only have meaning when love is "something new", when the loved person appears and makes the world go round again. It's so lovely that can make us cry. And not many songs can do that... Sweet, deep, meaningful, outstanding, delightful... A gem.

No matter how old are you, wherever you are, The Beatles music can have a deep impact "In Your Life". "Rubber Soul" was, I think, only the starting of the Beatles' brilliance. Musically and lirically, they were starting to grow, and the world was witnessing that process. And the new fans can now appreciate it as an whole, which makes this album, if you don't already own it, an essential addition to your CD collection. Wherever you are, no matter how old are you.

'Rubber Soul', 'Revolver' and 'Sgt. Pepper' -- these are the Beatles' big three ('Abbey Road' is wonderful but flawed). This album features what arguably ranks as the best overall work on a Beatles album from John Lennon. "Norwegian Wood", "Nowhere Man", "Girl" and "In My Life" are some of the finest compositions that he ever offered to the group. If you could take John Lennon's work from 'Rubber Soul' and combine it with Paul McCartney's work on 'Revolver' onto one album, you would easily have the greatest album ever made. The lyrics to the songs on 'Rubber Soul', as it stands, are some of the most introspective and deeply moving that the group members ever came up with.

The album was made during a time when the Beatles were still united as a performing unit, maturing in their abilities but still tied to the group as a whole and not pursuing their own individual interests and avenues. They were still THE Beatles --- touring, performing, recording, hugely influential and the best damn rock 'n roll band on the planet. They were also incorporating folk-rock and Dylan-inspired influence into their music , which of course lead 'Rubber Soul' to inspire the Beach Boys' masterpiece 'Pet Sounds'. This album, in terms of the quality of its individual songs, has to be recognized as one of the band's greatest achievements.

Rubber Soul is an album with vast historical implications - both for the band and for rock music as a whole - that are myriad and need not be gotten into. It is often mentioned as the album where The Beatles "got serious" - inspired by Dylan and the American folk-rock movement - and moved beyond "silly love songs" and began tackling more complex territory, as well as incorporating diverse new musical instruments and using the studio itself as a tool. This is all very well and good - and, no doubt, extremely important - but the unfortunate thing, to me, is the fact that this is actually quite an excellent album in its own right - aside from all of that - often gets overlooked. Rubber Soul is superior, in my opinion, to the subsequent Revolver, which is quite often touted as the Greatest Album of All-Time. The lyrics show a level of maturity and deceptive cleverness that was absolutely unheard of in rock music at the time. Although not poetry, and by no means equaling the lyrics of Dylan, they still stand up very well today, and are vastly better than the tripe put out by most rocks bands before and since. A fact that often goes unmentioned is that, as always with The Beatles, the gorgeous, sweeping melodies and beautiful, perfect vocal harmonies remained, this is, lyrically, a very dark album. Practically every song - Paul's, too, not just John's - deals with the darker side of love: broken hearts, infidelity, and the like. (The hilarously misogynistic closer Run For Your Life being the album's one unfortunate blemish - carichature to the point of embarrassment.) Musically, the album was also more complex than its predecessors, and still sounds fresh and vibrant today. Highlights include the very fun Drive My Car; Norwegian Wood, with its haunting melody and enigmatic lyric (many, including Lennon himself, declared Dylan's Fourth Time Around to be a parody of this song); John's interesting Nowhere Man; the sweet and simple Michelle; and In My Life, one of the great Beatles masterpieces. To this day, an essential rock and roll record.