The Beatles – Rubber Soul Review

Seen as a monumental change in their sound and tone, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul is rightly regarded as extraordinary. A pioneering achievement at a time when pop rock was nothing more than the flash faces of men with pearly white teeth and similar styled haircuts. There was a clean-cut image to The Beatles, which they had slowly broken from, more so on Rubber Soul in one go than on any of their preceding works. Suggestions of a style outside conventional chart pop, heard in bulk for the first time for the Fab Four, is the difference maker. What Rubber Soul would lead into is greater than the sum of all its parts, but the impact it had on both the band and the contemporary charts, of what it means to fall in with the perception of pop, is monumental.  

Even the ready-made car insurance advert pop of Drive My Car has soul to it. A nice enough opener, a song which does well to set the scene of pop sentimentality as an afterthought for The Beatles. There is an exploration of their sound, from the instrumental charms and inspired production of Norwegian Wood to the beauty and often fiery encounter detailed in the lyrics. A faux invitation to make yourself comfortable, the lack of a chair to do so, it all comes off as a wonderful next step for The Beatles’ work. Even the Fab Four sounded fed up with their pop-rock sound. Their desire for their audience and the band to act their age, as expressed on You Won’t See Me, is as brilliant a severing of those lighter tones as it gets. Returning to Rubber Soul after years of mainlining Abbey Road and the post-Beatles works of Paul McCartney is a real thrill. You can hear the group taking form, slowly but surely, piecing together those tones which would define generations of music. Rubber Soul is a true watershed moment.  

Nearly every song is an influential masterclass, or close enough to that lofty importance. Even album tracks like The Word have an opportune, overarching coolness which cements the quality of Rubber Soul. Instrumentally slick, lyrically sound, and all of it comes together, time and again, with the quality The Beatles were expected to provide every year. There are still a few duds within Rubber Soul, though nothing of the Please Please Me or With The Beatles dreck. Girl may feel like a standard but is elevated by the harmonies and acoustic gentleness, though the sniffing is as off-putting as expected. Backed by instant classics I’m Looking Through You and In My Life, and the lows of Girl does not derail Rubber Soul. It would have on previous releases, but crucial to the success of this album is the closeness of the four-piece, how tremendous the overlap of their talent sounds.  

What makes Rubber Soul so outstanding is the remains of their pop identity. The image was not cast aside, just matured and reflected on. If I Needed Someone is the icing on the cake. Those carved numbers on romantic interludes were not absent, just tinged with doubt, a directional change. It was a welcome change, and it would come to define The Beatles as they shifted focus once more on Revolver just a year later. All the wrong songs are highlighted by the everyday Beatles fan. Rubber Soul’s best moments are its understated thrills, the mid-section run of tracks a formidable piece of work and far superior to the cheesy opener and flat, repetitive-sounding closer. A beautiful achievement nonetheless, and almost free of its conventional pop charting qualities. A monumental piece of work from a band that would offer a series of increasingly better, benchmark-setting albums.