Rubber Soul is 50: Is it the UK or US version for you?

UK mono or UK stereo (original 1965 mix is a must.)

 

I grew up with both of them. I love them both for different reasons.

I think it is essentially a tie, but the UK version is marred by the horrible transition from "Michelle" into "What Goes On." Not a complete disaster on LP, but a major fail on CD. It is not quite as bad as hearing the sublime "Within You, Without You" going into the dreaded "When I'm 64."

 

Can you provide some kind of source to me for this.

 

Looking at all the praise for it in this discussion, it just occurred to me I have never heard the UK mono version. Methinks I need to rectify that...we're going to the mall later to get our kid's picture taken with Santa, maybe I should see if I can find the 2014 mono LP at HMV just to hear what all the hullabaloo is about...

 

You'll have to buy the mono box to get it. But, if you do, you will be happy you did. Consider it your X-mas present to yourself.

 

Stands to reason he had both versions. He was on Capitol, after all, himself.

 

Simple, UK with all my heart, US version is just another butcher job. I understand there is more money in releasing more albums as well as I believe the album could be even better by omitting a few weakest songs, but to justify the US version as folk-rock album with much better flow is beyond me. Making Rubber Soul more folk-rock by omitting Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone while keeping The Word and Think for Yourself? Making it better by adding It's Only Love instead of Yesterday, Day Tripper or We Can Work It Out - and keeping Wait (or I'm Looking Through You)? That Dexter guy definitely hated them if you ask me. But people still love it - so what do I know?

 

Both. Hey, it's the Beatles.

 

Really?

"Next, he dropped the alienating “Nowhere Man” and mystical “If I Needed Someone” from “Rubber Soul.”

Good article? The "...mystical If I Needed Someone" ? The buffoon can't even keep his albums straight -- he's thinking of Love You Too.
Never, ever heard nor read anyone refer to If I Needed Someone as 'mystical.'

 

I'm not disagreeing. But, this is a typical example of how a cd reissue simply doesn't replicate a vinyl album. The album had/has two distinct sides.
On the album the is no transition from Michelle into What Goes On. Michelle is the conclusion of side one. What Goes On is the introduction to side two.
Even if you simply turn the record over immediately and move on to side two after completing side one, there is a sense of one thing ending and a new thing beginning.
I never noticed the "horrible transition" you refer to until I heard the cd (and I agree it is not good) even though I had owned and listened to the album since 1965.
For me not an issue because whenever this is an issue with a cd reissue of an older vinyl l.p. , and this is quite often, I simply take the added step of either creating
a large (about 15 seconds) break of silence to denote the distinct sides, or in cases where that doesn't seem to be sufficient, I actually make a pair of cds, one for each side.
A notable example of this in the Beatles' catalogue, I think, is Beatles For Sale as the sides are quite distinct entities. As an album, a coin with two sides, it works brilliantly I think, but run together as a single 14 song sequence it doesn't cohere to me. I find it downright confusing. this is in fact one of the very cases that motivated me to actually
start doing something about it as described above because personally I just can't enjoy that record as a single 14 song sequence.

 

I agree, I never really noticed this until I heard the CD. although I always thought "What Goes On" was an odd choice to start a side.

The way to fix the CD is by placing "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work it Out" between side 1 and side 1.

 

I grew up here in Canada with the US version. I agree that it's a hatchet-job, that old North American money grab to make more Beatle album product, and yet...

When the album starts with I've Just Seen a Face, it just feels better. That acoustic number compliments the rest of the album. It's Only Love fits , too. I venture to say that the US version may be an inspired hatchet-job!

I recognize it's more than likely just nostalgia at work here, and I love my UK mono from the box set very much-I think it's also the best sounding of the lps, save Michelle. But I like the song selection on my old stereo version...

 

US Stereo...

 

UK stereo.

 

It's %100 nostalgia and there's nothing wrong with that. Objectively speaking the UK version is superior but nostalgia and childhood memories trump a superior song list.

The only blight on the UK is "What Goes On" - if only they'd included "We Can Work It Out" in it's place

 

The U.K version certainly & clearly gets my vote, but... the U.S. butchered version is the best thing from the hodge podge U.S. catalog. The U.S. version really highlights just how amazing & underrated/overlooked/misunderstood an album the brilliant "Help" really is (note- "Wait" was originally tried & almost ended up on "Help").

When I make my own CD-R, it's U.K. version plus "Day Tripper", "We Can Work It Out", "I've Just Seen A Face", "It's Only Love"...and... "12-Bar Original" (aka "Rubber Soul") from "Anthology 2"

 

UK

 

I'll Follow the Sun is among my favorite Beatles' tracks, and I do like the focus on folk rock that the U.S. version presents, but it's a distortion of where they really were at the time. I'd prefer to forego a contrivance that creates a genre-consistent LP in favor of having a document that represents a clear and accurate piece in the band's evolution. Therefore, while I grew up with the U.S. version, I prefer the UK stereo.

 

The east coast extra-reverb US stereo version for me.

 

?

 

I don't get caught up in that because I've Just Seen a Face and It's Only Love are only a few months old and are from the same sessions the Beatles pulled Wait from for the album.
So it is the same era.

 

But "Wait" from the same sessions and album as "I've Just Seen a Face" fits Rubber Soul better?

 

Clearly the different perceptions of I've Just Seen a Face and It's Only Love are based on one's experiences with them.
IJSAF was always an album opener to me so when I hear it on Help! it sound like decent filler as does It's Only Love.
Not bad filler but quality filler, thrown together quickly but still good.
When I hear them on the US Rubber Soul, they sound like art.

 

Side 1 of the UK Help! LP makes sense, since it's essentially the Help! movie songs.

Side 2 is as disjointed sounding as any side of any Beatles album, including Hey Jude.

 

UK Stereo - the 1987 remix is how I first heard this album about dozen years ago. The 2009 stereo CD is my go-to version now with the 2009 Mono coming second. I've configured the US Stereo on my iPod (part of 50 years campaign last year) but never got around to playing it.

50 years later, how about finally giving us the stereo remix that this album truly deserves?