50 Years Of “Rubber Soul”

The Beatles released “Rubber Soul” 50 years ago next week on December 3, 1965.  It was their sixth studio release and represented a new direction for the band.  Pitchfork Media has described the album as “the most important artistic leap in the Beatles’ career—the signpost that signaled a shift away from Beatlemania and the heavy demands of teen pop, toward more introspective, adult subject matter”.  Richie Unterberger writing at Allmusic.com said “the lyrics represented a quantum leap in terms of thoughtfulness, maturity, and complex ambiguities.”                                                                                                                 Amazingly, the album was recorded in a little over a month, from October 12, 1965 to November 15, 1965.  It’s 14 songs clock in at a bit under 35 minutes, with all songs less than three minutes long except “You Won’t See Me”, which runs 3:19.  “Rubber Soul” was really the first album that allowed the group to devote time to recording an album in the studio, uninterrupted by touring demands.  With producer George Martin, they were able to create new, more sophisticated music than they had previously.  From Wikipedia: “To achieve the mimicry of a harpsichord by the piano on “In My Life”, George Martin played the piano 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.[23][24]Processing used included heavily compressed and equalised piano sound on “The Word“, an effect soon extremely popular in the genre of psychedelic music. Prior to the recording sessions, McCartney was given a new bass, a Rickenbacker 4001, which had a much beefier bass sound than the Hofner. All of the songs on the album, except for “Drive My Car”, were recorded using the new bass. McCartney also experiments with a fuzz box on Harrison’s composition “Think For Yourself”.”  In 2012, Rubber Soul was ranked number five on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.   That first week of December 50 years ago was quite a week for English band releases.  Released on the same day as “Rubber Soul” was The Who’s debut, “The Who Sings My Generation” and one day later, The Rolling Stones’ “December’s Children (And Everybody’s).  I will be featuring all three albums on my show Monday, 12-4 PM CST at http://uicradio.org/ .  I hope you can join me!                                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5CjaqZb5nM