Album Review of The Beatles' Rubber Soul

The Rubber Soul album is a major artistic achievement by a band with an experimental

style and influence that reaches beyond the musical realm. The Beatles, a British quartet, were

arguably the most influential and often imitated band. John Lennon played acoustic guitar,

George Harrison played electric lead guitar, Paul McCartney played bass guitar, and Ringo Starr

played percussion. From 1960­1963, the Beatles worked hard building their reputation by playing

in clubs in Liverpool, England before becoming international stars in 1963. Not only were did

they become big stars, they captivated the attention of the world during the mid­60's. Screaming

fans followed the band's every move in what became known as "Beatlemania". Today,

according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the Beatles are the best­selling

music artists of all time in United States.

Rubber Soul, The Beatles sixth album, was a shift in direction from their previous work. In

1965, they were touring most of the year. They managed to record it in about four weeks in the

studio. It was released on December 3, 1965. The album separates itself from the commercial

style of music during the Beatlemania craze, and moves toward introspective, thoughtful and

sophisticated lyrics. The album has a more polished and cohesive studio sound than before

what the band had released previously. It is entirely original material­­no cover songs. It mixes

the genres of soul, folk, and even spices of Indian, French and Classical music into a basis of

rock, and pop. Harrison called Rubber Soul "the best one we made," because "we were

suddenly hearing sounds that we weren't able to hear before." Beatles' producer George Martin

said of Rubber Soul, "For the first time we began to think of albums as art on their own, as

complete entities," he said (Lewisohn...