The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

I've never in my life heard the UK version of Rubber Soul labeled 'inconsistent'! Wow...haven grown up with the North American version I consider the UK perfect. I enjoy both versions.

 

Er... I think the foreign language recordings were actually in German...

That's ok though, it's all that other part of 'the world' anyway.

 

And weren't the German songs recorded after The Beatles got to number 1 in the US?

They were very successful in many countries already. The world wasn't waiting for the US' verdict on them, it's more like the US got late to the party.

 

I think they got the news about being #1 in America whilst they were in Paris recording the German songs.

 

The VeeJay album, first released in January 1964 and firmly at number 2 in the charts when Meet the Beatles was at number one 'failed' did it? Tough standards, man.

laughably, demonstrably untrue.
America lagged behind most of the world in discovering The Beatles. I know some cannot bear to be told that.

 

I just want to put it out there that Odeon Venezuela actually first released the UK configuration of Rubber Soul.

The US configuration wasn't released there until 1970, along with the other US albums, coinciding with EMI changing local licensee from Musitron to Los Ruices.

 

Thanks. So we're down to just the US and Canada for the US tracklist.

Kind of strange that Mexico had the UK version. They had the US Help! and Y&T, but the UK Rubber Soul.

Which meant they didn't get I've Just Seen A Face and It's Only Love on any LP (they came out on an EP).

 

Well, it seems The Beatles put a lot of pressure to make sure most countries got the real deal. After all, it was their first album statement, according to George Martin and the boys themselves.

We even have those 1965 documents that prove they pressured Capitol. They knew this one shouldn't be tinkered with.

 

For me the biggest revelation in this thread has been that Brian Wilson's other favorite Beatles album was Let It Be. Can we at least agree that it would have been the US version of that one? I bet he still gets confused when there's a "Beatles A to Z" on. "Why are they playing I Dig A Pony after Devil In Her Heart??!!"

 

Those Venezuelan fans got the best of both worlds, and probably concurrently for a few years.

I wonder what the reaction there was.

'Venezuelan response to the US Capitol albums'.

 

A 1970 Venezuelan release still counts, albeit after the great Rubber Soul sales rush of 1965-1966.

1970 is still the last Beatle year, technically.

 

When did the US Rubber Soul gets its first official UK release?

Was it ever released on vinyl in the UK?

 

No. The Capitol Albums CD was the first in 2006.

 

Didn't someone - some eccentric record store owner - import the Capitol albums in the UK at some point before 1987?

When did people 'find out' about the Capitol albums, in general? I guess that's a multi-part answer, depending on people's age.

 

Drive My Car is not an acoustic folk track and doesn't belong on the album, especially poor as an opener. What Goes On is garbage, and as the opener of Side 2 it may be the worst sequencing decision in band history, ruins any argument that the UK version is a great work of artistic merit. If I Needed Someone works. So does Nowhere Man, I have added them both to my Capitol Rubber Soul playlist which I listen to weekly.

I've Just Seen A Face has the greatest impact, great move by Capitol to save it for Rubber Soul and to make it the disc opener. It completely sets the tone for the work that is to follow. Same, albeit in a lesser way, for It's Only Love to lead off Side 2. Two great Lennon McCartney acoustic songs that are an essential part of this folk collection.

"Inconsistent" is Drive My Car and What Goes On, they don't belong on Rubber Soul. Replacing those misfits with I've Just Seen A Face and It's Only Love is what elevates this disc from just the next Beatles LP to their second masterpiece, the other being Meet The Beatles.

 

Let’s get a few facts straight here. The much-discussed Djibouti Rubber Soul is a myth.

At the time the album was released, Djibouti was known as French Somaliland; it didn’t gain its independence - or its name - until 1977 (just in time, incidentally, for the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl album).

I speak from bitter experience. I recently bought an ‘original Djibouti 1965 pressing’ of Rubber Soul on eB*y to complete my collection, only to discover that it was actually a UK copy with the words ‘Made in England’ crossed out and 'Made in Djibouti’ written in in crayon...

 

I bought Magical Mystery Tour LP (mono) in January 1968 as an import. That was the first one that was worth getting, it was very popular at school. In 1971/2 the Apple label pressings of most Capitol LPs by The Beatles were imported, and I got Meet, Second, Something New, Yesterday & Today and a stereo MMT then. I don't remember either Rubber Soul or Revolver being imported, presumably because 'we already had them'.

 

Of course they were in German, what, like I haven't listened to Something's New or Past Masters 1500 times in my life?

The point is that the Beatles certainly were not the biggest band in the world and it is obviously desperate to set up a 3 week engagement at a Parisian movie theater to try to break a small market like France. And their other big strategy at that juncture? Setting up time to record novelty records in a foreign language to make them more accessible to Germany? Two tiny, inconsequential markets. "Hello boys, in order to gain ground in France we need to spend three weeks playing two-a-day's in a movie theater and then record two of our hits in mock German to succeed in the Rhineland. It's the Toppermost you always wished for lads!"

Breaking into the US is what changed the Beatles from a Helen Shapiro support act and a marginal headlining band in middling European countries into the sensation that they became.

 

Capitol didn't 'save it' as such. Releasing a truncated Help! LP left them with four tracks needing a home. I've Just Seen A Face and It's Only Love were the last two to find a home (not really being single material) on the next US LP.

 

I respect your opinion. But to say 'Drive My Car' and 'What Goes On' does not belong on Rubber Soul? That's exactly where GM and The Beatles intended those songs to be.

 

Ah, that was you. Thanks for the positive feedback. The crayon writing is actually a good way to check for authenticity; the counterfeits have that printed.

 

That's ironic, in that one (Revolver) is completely redundant in an abridged fashion.

While the other (Rubber Soul) is a 'different' album, in lots of respects, and could be deemed essential to understanding the history of the 'Rubber Soul' album (particularly its place in American culture after its 1965 release).

Was Help! - the soundtrack - made available in '71-'72 as well?

 

The UK went nuts over the Beatles in October '63 when Beatlemania was in full swing. Yet here the Beatles were, a scant 3 months later, living in a dingy hotel and toiling away at an EMI owned movie theater in Paris doing two-a-day's just to get some traction across the channel and planning novelty records to conquer Germany. If you ask me, without the US explosion in January, that was going to be it for the Beatles, just another UK boy band sensation that fizzled out in greater Europe, the next Cliff Richard and The Shadows.

Hate the US all you like good sir, but give us credit for giving the Beatles the necessary push, funding, credibility, and staying power to lead them to greater works like Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles, and Abbey Road. Those don't happen without Capitol Records massive push in Spring '64. There were just so many EMI owned European movie theaters left to conquer, you see.

 

I don't know. I was only going on what you said:

I don't think those 'novelty' records did that well in France. In fact, they probably did better in America!

 

Once again with the "folk album" nonsense. What about Think For Yourself then? The Word? Run For Your Life?

Oh, yes. Isn't it great that the Capitol guys knew how Rubber Soul was going to be like months before it was recorded? Not only were they musical geniuses that fixed the incoherent mess those hacks George Martin and The Beatles created, they also had psychich powers!!

Man, you have to stop embarrassing yourself with these oautlandish remarks that have no base on any fact.

The Beatles didn't play in France to break in that market (and not a small market by any means). They played there because they were already succesful there. By the time they got there, they already had two succesful albums and three EPs in the French market. Please check your facts.

The same way they toured Sweden in October 1963 because there was demand for them.

As for the "Helen Shapiro support act"... that's plain ignorance. By summer 1963 they were the biggest act in the country. They closed the Royal Variety Show in front of the Queen in November.