Rubber Soul

Rubber Soul is the sixth UK studio album and the eleventh US release by the British rock band The Beatles. Released in December 1965, and produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul was recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market. Showcasing a sound influenced by the folk rock of The Byrds and Bob Dylan, the album was seen as a major artistic achievement for the band, attaining widespread critical and commercial success, with reviewers taking note of The Beatles' developing musical vision. McCartney claims to have conceived the album's title after overhearing a black musician's de    scription 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."Wenner, Jann S. Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970. Da Capo Press; New edition (October 2000). McCartney said a similar phrase, "Plastic soul, man. Plastic soul...", at the end of "I'm Down" take 1, on Anthology 2.

Music

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)". Although both the Yardbirds and the Kinks had used Indian influences in their music, this track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use an actual sitar, an Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-1960s. 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. George Harrison had recently been introduced to Indian classical music and the sitar by David Crosby of the Byrds. Harrison soon became fanatically interested in the genre and began taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. A broadening use of percussive arrangements, led by Ringo Starr's backbeats and frequently augmented by maracas and tambourine, can also be heard throughout the album, showcased in tracks such as "Wait" and "Think for Yourself." Perhaps Ringo's most unusual percussion source on the album, which was revealed by him to Barry Tashian of The Remains in the book "Ticket To Ride", is created by his tapping a pack of matches with his finger. This "tapping" sound can be heard in the background of "I'm Looking Through You". Recording innovations were also made during the recording of the album—for instance, the keyboard solo in "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 sped-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 John Lennon's "The Word"; this distinctive effect soon became extremely popular in the genre of psychedelic music. Also on Rubber Soul, the Beatles were seen heading into psychedelic rock. They introduced a genuine sitar on "Norwegian Wood," and on the "The Word," they voiced the drug-influenced peace-and-love sentiments that would color many psychedelic lyrics. Allmusic British Psychedelic Richie Unterberger The song "Wait" was initially recorded for, and then left off, the album Help!. The reason the song was released on Rubber Soul was that the album was one song short, and with the Christmas deadline looming, the Beatles chose to release "Wait" instead of recording a new composition.

Recording

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 centre 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. 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 free time exploring new directions that would colour their subsequent musical work. These became immediately apparent in the next album, Revolver.

US release

Rubber Soul, the ninth Capitol Records album and eleventh official U.S. release (ST-2442), 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 8 January 1966, before dropping back. The album sold 1.2 million copies within nine days of its release, and to date has sold over six million copies in America. Like other pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles albums, Rubber Soul differed markedly in its US and UK configurations; indeed, through peculiarities of sequencing, the US Rubber Soul was deliberately reconfigured to appear a "folk rock" album to angle the Beatles into that emerging and lucrative American genre 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 US 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 stereo mix sent to the US from England has what are commonly called "false starts" at the beginning of "I'm Looking Through You." The track is also slightly shorter at the end. The false starts are on every American stereo copy of the album from 1965 to 1990 and are also on the CD boxed set, The Capitol Albums Vol. 2. The US version of "The Word" is also recognizably different because it has John's double-tracking vocals, extra falsetto harmonies on the left channel and fades a little longer. Also on the USA Mono LP of this album, the mono version of "Michelle" is different because it has louder percussion and fades a little longer. The Canadian LP shares the false start on "I'm Looking Through You."