# Rubber Soul & Revolver



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Two fantastic, if not the best, pop rock albums. I haven’t heard anything rival them.

I don’t love side b of Abbey or A Day in the Life from Peppers.

I do love the flaming lips version of Sgt Peppers though.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Revolver is superb.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Two fantastic, if not the best, pop rock albums. I haven’t heard anything rival them.


One should also consider the genius of George Martin as well as the boys.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The White Album without the fillers I believe is better.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

neoshredder said:


> The White Album without the fillers I believe is better.



Emphasis on without fillers. Has some great ones though.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Emphasis on without fillers. Has some great ones though.


Wouldn’t you want everything they ever recorded?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

MAS said:


> Wouldn’t you want everything they ever recorded?



Nah, I rarely feel that way about any artist anymore, picking from their catalogue, my favorites.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I have the North American Rubber Soul on vinyl, as well as Revolver.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Nah, I rarely feel that way about any artist anymore, picking from their catalogue, my favorites.


I enjoy the experience of listening to an album in full. But I realize this is lost on many people today.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

These two albums elevated Pop Rock music to an entirely different level.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

starthrower said:


> I enjoy the experience of listening to an album in full. But I realize this is lost on many people today.



Oh, I collect complete albums, just not full discographies.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I've always like the Beatles albums, I think Sgt Pepper is a masterpiece.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

neoshredder said:


> The White Album without the fillers I believe is better.


There are no fillers. It's a complete work. (IMO of course  )


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Forster said:


> There are no fillers. It's a complete work. (IMO of course  )


I agree. The "weak", or "filler" tracks on *The White Album* contribute to the overall album. 
The whole of the album is greater than the sum of the collection of individual tracks.


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## Ulalume!Ulalume! (6 mo ago)

Rubber Soul marked the end of The Beatles' astounding run of pop albums. There's some fantastic tunes on there, Drive My Car belongs on any Beatles top 10 but nevertheless Help! as a totality towers over it and all subsequent efforts, only marred by the deeply unfortunate Yesterday but thanks to mp3s we can simply delete it and pretend it never existed. The only Beatles album that comes close to matching its consistency is A Hard Day's Night. Who would have thought that a group capable of writing pop songs like I Should Have Known Better and You Can't Do That would go on to write howlers as unforgivably schmaltzy as All You Need Is Love. Revolver has Taxman, a ripping tune containing an important social message, but afterwards the listener is soon drowned in soppy grannypop. Sgt Pepper's is entirely irreedeemable, a real music critic's album, but the White Album, once the novelty crap is removed, is a very solid effort indeed. Yer Blues -> Sexy Sadie -> Helter Skelter... what a run! And there's enough individual tunes on Abbey Road and Let It Be to make a solid mixtape. Get Back in particular is a late career masterpiece worthy of their past brilliance.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

_Rubber Soul_ was the first rock album to really grab my attention and I like basically all it's songs. To me, classic rock begins with it. Together with _Revolver_, an album that's even more progressive, I think that it's one of the Beatles first masterpieces.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

starthrower said:


> I enjoy the experience of listening to an album in full. But I realize this is lost on many people today.




absolutely. There are certain "Sides" that just aren't the same as having all the tunes on a CD.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Nate Miller said:


> absolutely. There are certain "Sides" that just aren't the same as having all the tunes on a CD.


I listen on CD. I mentioned the "album experience" as opposed to streaming playlists. Why would anyone want side two of Abbey Road sliced up on shuffle play? But I realize most people under 40 probably never owned a record.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

starthrower said:


> I listen on CD. I mentioned the "album experience" as opposed to streaming playlists. Why would anyone want side two of Abbey Road sliced up on shuffle play? But I realize most people under 40 probably never owned a record.



One of the thing I always liked about vinyl is the "side". Bands would put together their records and each side of the record was put together thoughtfully. The side was an organic whole. This was more particular to the 70s, I think, but its why I always liked spinning "sides"


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The 70s and early 80s was the last time I played vinyl. I get the side thing but for me CDs are just more convenient.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Ulalume!Ulalume! said:


> Rubber Soul marked the end of The Beatles' astounding run of pop albums. There's some fantastic tunes on there, Drive My Car belongs on any Beatles top 10 but nevertheless Help! as a totality towers over it and all subsequent efforts, only marred by the deeply unfortunate Yesterday but thanks to mp3s we can simply delete it and pretend it never existed. The only Beatles album that comes close to matching its consistency is A Hard Day's Night. Who would have thought that a group capable of writing pop songs like I Should Have Known Better and You Can't Do That would go on to write howlers as unforgivably schmaltzy as All You Need Is Love. Revolver has Taxman, a ripping tune containing an important social message, but afterwards the listener is soon drowned in soppy grannypop. Sgt Pepper's is entirely irreedeemable, a real music critic's album, but the White Album, once the novelty crap is removed, is a very solid effort indeed. Yer Blues -> Sexy Sadie -> Helter Skelter... what a run! And there's enough individual tunes on Abbey Road and Let It Be to make a solid mixtape. Get Back in particular is a late career masterpiece worthy of their past brilliance.


You have some rather unusual observations and opinions on the *Beatles*' catalog. 

*Rubber Soul* was, IMO, a 'transitional' album, bridging a gap between the mostly Pop material to a more experimental diverse studio band.

*Help!* was a rather unusual album (half soundtrack, half non-soundtrack); I like it bunches, but there are actually some 'weaker' tracks one could rag on, like *Act Naturally, You Like Me Too Much, Tell Me What You See*, and *Dizzy Miss Lizzy.* 

To hate on *Yesterday* this deeply ("marred by the deeply unfortunate *Yesterday* but thanks to mp3s we can simply delete it and pretend it never existed") is pretty odd. *Yesterday* was an international hit song, and is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. In 2012, the BBC reported that "Yesterday" remained the fourth most successful song of all time in terms of royalties paid, having amassed a total of £19.5 million in payments.

Your one word slam of *Sgt. Pepper's* as being "irredeemable", while citing its critical acclaim is just plain silly. From a technical aspect alone it's astounding, utilizing (or inventing) innovations such as double tracking, synchronized tracking, signal processing, dynamic range compression, vari-speed pitch control, ADT, Direct Injection, and ambiophonics. You are free to question the critics' high praise of the album, but the public wholeheartedly agreed with that assessment. It's influence on music, culture, fashion, album artwork, album packaging, even the printing of lyrics on the album testify to the album's legacy. Hell, ten years later the album even inspired an awful film with some of biggest musical celebrities of 1975.

It's predecessor, *Revolver*, is far more than *Taxman* followed by grannypop. *Revolver* is one of the most highly acclaimed albums EVER.

Your criticism of *All You Need Is Love* as being "a howler" belies your inability to understand context. In this case the song was written as an international anthem to celebrate the first intercontinental video simulcast, written in a style that bridged the generation gap.

Curiously, you seem to hold the *Let It Be* album in very high regard (_"a late career masterpiece worthy of their past brilliance"_), while it's legacy has had its ups and downs for the last fifty years.

Well, glad you've found some of their releases acceptable.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Opinions are like digestive exit ports: everyone has one. Nobody wants to hear somebody else's.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Both masterpieces, but like most of The Beatles' catalog I have very different and unique relationships with both. Rubber Soul is Beatles at their peak as pop songwriters, a bridge between their earlier more "pure pop" material and their later, much more adventurous and progressive music. It's an album I think I could listen to endlessly and never tire of. Revolver is almost the opposite: The Beatles at their most adventurous and experimental, but punctuated by a handful of more accessible pop numbers. My issue with Revolver (and it's really nit-picking since it's still a 10/10 for me) is that I never liked its pop songs as well as Rubber Soul, nor its adventurous/quasi-progressive songs as well as Sgt. Pepper's or Abbey Road's (or maybe even MMT). I've always thought that much of Revolver's reputation lies in the fact that it was really the first of The Beatles' "artistic statement" albums, but I really think they'd refine that style to better effects on the subsequent albums. Still, the presence of the magnificent Eleanor Rigby, the sublime Here, There and Everywhere, the funky and acerbic Taxman, and the rocking Got To Get You Into My Life more than make up for the filler and sub-standard tracks.


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