Rubber Soul, Part I | Suite101.com

Rubber Soul was the inspiration for Pet Sounds. Although it may not seem to be that much of a concept album, it was what no other pop album had really been before. For the most part, albums were showcases for the group's newest song. The Beach Boys' albums are a classic example of this, as their record label would release single after single and, once Brian Wilson had worked out enough filler, would release an album. They saw the Beach Boys as a Top Ten-riding, profit-making machine, while underneath it all, Brian Wilson was developing into one of the best songwriters of that era. Brian had been experimenting with producing his own songs, and his songs were growing in complexity. What he lacked was a vision, an example of what rock could be. The Beatles, having just performed to 55, 600 fans at Shea Stadium, were growing tired of rehashing their old hits every third night to a group of people who couldn't even hear them over the din. Shea Stadium was at the height of Beatlemania, and the unreasonably large amount of fans present just showed how taxing it all must have been on the four. They, too, were growing into different people, and their work, as we saw in Help!, was reflecting it. Shea Stadium made them realize that they couldn't develop if they didn't either cut back on tours or cut them out all together.

Aside from that, they had to release an album by Christmas. Their label had been strict with them before on meeting deadlines (and we all know how annoying people insisting on rushed deadlines and causing stifled creativity can be), and the Beatles couldn't cope with the pressures of trying to produce new songs while moving across the world every week to perform. To compensate for their lack of time and ability to write more of the same old songs, the Beatles turned to new ideas. Lennon was openly taking acid, both for inspiration for music and for recreation. Whereas Help! was laced with the lighter drug marijuana, LSD is a much more potent halluceneogenic. Its effects are longer lasting, and generally much more, well, effective. The Beatles had been turned on to drugs by West Coast hippie bands, such as the gratefull dead. While the others stuck with marijuana, Lennon felt that more could be achieved with LSD. The Beatles music took a very sinister turn, going from simple love songs on Help! to acid rock on Revolver. But let's stay with Rubber Soul for now. It wasn't quite as inspirational, and certainly not comparable with Pet Sounds or Revolver, let alone Sgt. Pepper's. If you analyze it in terms of musical and lyrical quality, even though it's still superiour to Hard Day's of Beatles For Sale, and very much so, it still isn't anything like what followed. Rubber Soul is important because it revealed what was to be for the Beatles, with a new look and a new way of approaching the industry. Gone were the simple love songs of before, and here to stay was the idea of an album written as an album, a collection of songs and themes, rather than loosely strung hits and covers.