This is real soulful stuff. (Rubber Soul - The Beatles)

Member Name: RussellsReviews

Product:	Rubber Soul - The Beatles
Date:	11/04/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great songs, showed musical progression and new creativity previously unseen.

Disadvantages: I'm not really a fan of the earlier poppier Beatles.

It's incredible to think such an astoundingly successful and influential album was recorded within four weeks in order for a pre-christmas release. This album marked the first beginnings of The Beatles showing real musical progress and maturity incorporating instruments from different cultures and musical genres. But theres still a very strong pop Beatles sound with strong melodies and pop sensibilities.

Drive My Car
Opening with, for the time, quite distorted guitar which showed grit and a harder sound for the Beatles. The vocal harmonies are still very much the Beatles though and lyrics are stereotypical 60s pop, corny and about love and women.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
Bob Dylan/ The Byrds influence number featuring most unusually for the time and the genre, a sitar. Giving the track a very unique and dreamy sound. The song is a masterpiece and is one of my favourites on the album. The simple melody and guitar is reminiscent of Dylan and shows the effect that he had on them, and influence that would soon lead to musical experimentalism that they couldn't dream of.

Girl
Acoustic ballad unsurprisingly about a girl. The fragile Lennon vocal really demonstrates emotion and breathing between lines and Paul's scat backing vocals show experimentation in a genre they had become very familiar with.

In My Life
The Beatles classic featuring a brilliantly simple guitar riff and emotional vocal from Lennon and Paul. The track saw recording innovation in that the piano solo in the middle was recorded at half speed then sped up to create a harpsichord kind of sound. Such innovation would never have been dreamt of by other fellow producers of the time, something which set the Beatles ahead of the rest.

Rubber Soul is a really great album and is often seen up there in Greatest Albums lists and such and quite rightly it is good but I was never a big fan of the earlier work by the Beatles finding the more experimental, later sounds of the Beatles much more appealing. Roll on Revolver.

Summary: A great album which I think is important to appreciate the progression The Beatles had made.