Beatles – Rubber Soul (1965)

I thought I knew you

What did I know?

Oy vey!  Who knew that I would have to listen to so much kvetching when I didn’t include a Beatles album in my list of the greatest albums of rock music’s “Golden Decade”?  

(Like I don’t have enough tsuris in my life already!)

Some of you nudniks have a real mishegas when it comes to the Beatles.  So I’m going to give in and add a Beatles album to my list.  

But which Beatles album?

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Some of you think that Sgt. Pepper should have been on my list.  

Are you kidding me?  When it has dreck like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “She’s Leaving Home,” “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” and especially “When I’m Sixty-Four,” which may be Paul McCartney’s worst song ever?  

Others of you have nominated Abbey Road.  

Side two of that album is pretty great.  But side one has “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Oh! Darling,” and “Octopus’s Garden” – all of which are horrible!  (And let’s be honest: “Something” kind of blows as well.)

How about The Beatles – a/k/a/ “The White Album”?  

I’m willing to cut the Beatles some slack on this one because it’s a double album.  But there are sooooo many bad tracks on The Beatles.  “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” “Rocky Raccoon,” “Don’t Pass Me By,” “Yer Blues,” “Mother Nature’s Son,” “Honey Pie” . . . need I go on?

Let It Be?  Spare me!  Other than “Get Back,” Let It Be reminds me of one of those collections of B-sides and unreleased tracks that record companies put out to squeeze every last dollar out of a group’s fans. 

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That leaves Rubber Soul and Revolver.  (The earlier Beatles albums aren’t really albums – they’re just agglomerations containing a few hit singles and some filler  . . . which is what most LPs were back in the day.) 

If I absolutely have to include a Beatles album in my list, I could live with either of those.

Unfortunately, Rubber Soul is marred by the truly execrable “Michelle.”  But otherwise the album represents the Beatles when they were at the height of their greatest-boy-band-ever powers – it’s chock full of perfect little two-minute-plus pop songs like “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Think for Yourself,” and “Run for Your Life.”

I’m surprised that the longest song on Revolver is barely three minutes long.  The arrangements on that album are much more layered and complex than those on Rubber Soul, but most of the songs on Revolver have relatively simple and straightforward structures.  (There’s nothing comparable to “A Day in the Life.”)

Revolver marks George Harrison’s coming of age – “I Want to Tell You” and especially “Taxman” are exceptional songs.  

Lennon and McCartney contributed some winners – e.g., John’s “She Said She Said” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” and Paul’s “Got to Get You Into My Life” – but also a few losers.  (“Here, There, and Everywhere” is a waste of time, and my life would have been better if I had never had to listen to “Yellow Submarine.”)

I think Rubber Soul represents the high point of the Beatles’ existence as a group.  Things started to get complicated for the Beatles after the release of Rubber Soul.  They stopped functioning as  a cohesive unit – John and Paul became rivals instead of partners, and George sort of went his own way.  Drug use began to be a real problem.  

Revolver may have higher highs but it also has lower lows – and it’s less of a Beatles album than it is a Lennon-McCartney-Harrison album. 

If I could pick and choose individual tracks, I’d go with Revolver.  But if I had to listen to one of those albums straight through, I’d choose Rubber Soul.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Since the concept behind this year’s 28 Posts in 28 Days is albums in their entirety – we’re looking at the whole, not the sum of the parts – that means Rubber Soul gets the nod.

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Click here to listen to Rubber Soul.

Click here to buy the UK version of the album from Amazon.  (For some reason, Amazon doesn’t sell the U.S. version of the album in digital form.)