Released: 1965
Tracks: Drive My Car; Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown); You Won’t See Me; Nowhere Man; Think For Yourself; The Word; Michelle; What Goes On; Girl; I’m Looking Through You; In My Life; Wait; If I Needed Someone; Run For Your Life
Best track: In My Life
Tracks to skip: Run For Your Life, What Goes On
I’m gonna get seriously flamed for this review. OK, so I’m not too terribly fond of this album. There, it’s out. Even now, not having listened to this in 7 months or so, I still haven’t grown to love it. It seems like everyone else in the world thinks of this as one of the greatest albums ever. I don’t. I can’t call something ‘great’ when half of it isn’t. Seriously, at least 6 of these songs are throwaways with two (Run For Your Life and What Goes On) being horrible.
I do always feel torn when thinking about this album because for all the not-so-hot songs, there are some absolute masterpieces. The first four songs are perfect and In My Life is one of the greatest songs ever written. On the one hand, you have those 5 great songs, and then you have the 2 awful ones. I just can’t give this a good grade for 5 songs.
OK, let me clarify. There aren’t only 5 good songs on here, there are only 5 excellent songs. Most of this album absolutely qualifies as ‘good’. It’s just that the bad stuff lessens it a bit. OK, the good stuff about Rubber Soul: besides the 5 songs I mentioned, I just love the vocals on this album. They really all sound great and the background vocals are exceptional. John, Paul and George sound fantastic on the whole thing (well, not really on Girl or What Goes On). Paul plays some great bass lines and the lyrics on here are a lot more mature (not just the typical love songs). And of course, In My Life gives me chills. I can at least be happy that this is the last Beatles album to have a clunker as the last track, as all the albums after this have incredible songs at the ends. Run For Your Life is terrible and it fries my brain to think how they could put it on the same album as In My Life and Nowhere Man. Yes, of course this album is essential, just don’t think it’s perfect.
Rating: 80
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