The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

In this case I agree.

 

No kidding. But your point that it works as a 'precursor' because of Hide Your Love Away is nonsensical. The UK version has that song, as well. What's special about the Capitol version?

 

I agree, and The Beatles were aware they were creating a special album... while making the original Rubber Soul.

I see, it's just a little confusing when the reason for the supposed superiority of the US version keeps changing the whole time. You guys should keep your record straight (no pun intended).

 

It's just a movie soundtrack. No one is claiming that it is their best album or anything. At least not anybody here.

 

My argument is still the same. It was an accident that had cultural effect, and enhanced the beatles worldwide fame and burnished their artistic success.

Yesterday was the most played song of the 20th century. I can't make any rhetorical argument around that fact. It's a different thing in the universe. I'd hate it on RS though.

I might be agreeing with you that the lectures didn't start til now. But there's the word, tomorrow never knows, georges stuff, hell, mccartney did it a lot. Maybe the lecture genre was my least favorite.

To me the songs dropped were average to below average "commercial" beatles tunes. But RS went down in history, as transcending that very thing. I can't reconcile the importaance of the LP with the cavalier way you think those merely average melodies fit into it. They all seemed to be novelties of a sort, and not a themed feel.

 

Meet the Beatles sold 4 million copies in 1964. Rubber Soul sold 1.8 million in 1965. So if Rubber Soul was bought by substantially more adults than the previous Beatles albums, that would mean that not only did a significant amount of adults start buying Beatles albums, but a significant amount of teenagers stopped buying them. Does that seem likely to you? I mean, if we theorize that all the buyers of Meet were teenagers and half the buyers of Rubber Soul were adults, that would mean that less than 25% of the teenagers who bought Meet bought Rubber Soul. Why would so many teenagers suddenly lose interest in the band? If anything (given the vast difference in sales) the more likely scenario is that a lot of adults bought Meet out of curiosity/hype, but didn't buy any of the subsequent albums including Rubber Soul.

At any rate, it doesn't matter what either of us think is likely. It doesn't make sense to speculate about factual issues. In general, the fanbase for an artist doesn't turn over dramatically in the span of one album. Such a thing would be very unusual. If you are claiming that such an unusual thing happened, the burden of proof is upon you to provide some evidence supporting that claim. You have not done that. You can't just make up something and assert it as fact without evidence.

 

"What they apparently did this time was replace this track for "I've Just Seen A Face", and added "It's Only Love" here, in place of this track. And some of these others they missed altogether. Either way, I'm leading off both albums. Life is good fellas. It's not like anyone is going to be arguing over this stuff 50 years from now ya know. Anyway, I gave Jane the Capitol copy they sent. She's digging it, I guess".

 

Do you really 2 million copies sold weren't to large extent due to a loyal, committed fan base?

It's true the 'mid-period' would start to shake out the teeny-bopper fans from the more committed, thoughtful fans, but 1965 wasn't a time when it was easy to hear much of the LP first before buying or get trustworthy reviews that told you anything more than "A Fantastic New Beatles LP In Stores Now With 12 New Tunes In That Fantastic Beatles Style That Only The Beatles Can Make! Now On Capitol!" -- My guess is that many of the same teenage girls who bought Meet The Beatles also bought Rubber Soul because quite simply, it was the new Beatles album, though it's a guess along with all the other guesses being made here.

I find it instructive to read people's recollections in cases like this -- to get a sense of who the buyers were or weren't in absence of real, quantifiable data -- rather than project back an algorithm 50 years into the past.

Based on this you can see that in the US their 'mid-period' records saw some new fans made, some old fans wavering, and some staying the course (though it should be remembered that all of these recollections below are fan recollections):

...


From “We’re Going To See The Beatles – An Oral History Of Beatlemania As Told By The Fans Who Were There” by Garry Berman, 2008, pp 218 ~ 223

"Looking strictly at the Beatlesʼ studio output, the period beginning with the release of Rubber Soul through Revolver is commonly referred to as the Beatlesʼ “middle period,” which in turn evolved into their “psychedelic period,” which would run through the remainder of 1966 and for the entire year of 1967.

***

Cathy McCoy-Morgan: I do love those songs, “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” “The Night Before” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” [from Help!]. And they started experimenting a little bit. I enjoyed that evolution of their music. I thought it was really wonderful. And they were so prolific, they just wrote song after song after song. I don’t think there was a bad song.

David Rauh: A Hard Day’s Night was a definite step forward from what they were doing on their two previous albums. Help! was kind of a downer because their writing abilities improved faster than their musical abilities. They were writing deeper-thought songs by the time of Help!, but their musicianship hadn’t improved yet. With Rubber Soul and Revolver their musicianship really blossomed, and then it went even further.

Maggie Welch: When I heard the song “You Can’t Do That,” and it was in a minor key, I thought, “Oh! This is interesting. They’re already trying something different.” Especially with such an excellent producer— a classically trained oboist who could write musical scores for them, because they couldn’t read a word of music. A perfect marriage!

Charles Pfeiffer: I kind of enjoyed it when they kind of got off the A Hard Day’s Night stuff and I really loved the year when they went in and did Rubber Soul and Revolver. To me, that combination of songs is when they really evolved as musicians and I was like wow, they lead everybody into things, and of course Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road are great, but I just love Revolver and Rubber Soul.

Carol Cox: My favorite Beatles era is the Hard Day’s Night era. Rubber Soul will always be the quintessential album for me. I hated “Eleanor Rigby” at first. I was like, “What’s happened to my Beatles? Why are they doing it?” And at that point I was also into other groups like the Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and some other bands. I did turn away for a while, but then I turned back. I don’t think they ever really left me per se. There’s something that always pulls you back.

Wendi Tisland: You know what? I was upset at first. I didn’t really care for it. They were changing from the Beatles we knew, their appearances were changing, the music was changing, but I never wrote them off. I still listened. And now that I’m older I know they had to do that, and that’s where their best music came from, in their later days.

Janet Lessard: I got as far as Revolver with them, then they started getting a little bit funny. And then they got into this mysticism and all this Maharishi business, and that’s when we parted ways. I just didn’t like that. I liked the simple, early Beatles and to this day I still do.

Barbara Allen: Although I kept up with it a number of years, the music did change a lot, and I started to. Whereas in the beginning we’d play Meet the Beatles 24 hours a day, now you would buy the album and you would listen to it a few times, but you weren’t obsessing.

And also, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper took the music to another level. By then they had started to do studio work, they brought in orchestras, that kind of drug- influence thing, I think the music had expanded. It had a whole different sound to it. The early stuff was part and parcel of the early days that were I guess I would say very pure.

***

The End of Touring and the Middle Period 221

Then there were other Beatles fans who, upon hearing the newer, more varied, and increasingly sophisticated songs emerging from Abbey Road studios, felt an exciting new era just beginning.

***

Linda Andriot: The earlier stuff I’m not really into ’cause I guess it’s just a little bit before me, because I was young. But when I got into them in ’66, we were doing Rubber Soul and Revolver. I got more into the Sgt. Pepper stuff when that came along.

David Rauh: They weren’t touring anymore, but what they were doing in the studio was much better than what they had done previously. Every year a new album would come out and be even better than the previous one. I know they lost a lot of fans then, especially the female ga-ga girls who wanted little mop-tops. I know people who said, “As soon as they grew the moustaches I stopped following them.” Isn’t that odd! I know people who thought the Beatles were great, but didn’t follow their solo careers after- wards. How is that possible?

Betty Taucher: I think what amazed us was how much their music grew with them, how much every album was different, how the music got better, more developed. They didn’t stay in the same-old, same-old. There were tons of British bands that came out in ’64, a lot of whom I liked, but by ’66 most of them were gone.

Paul Chasman: They did so many things with harmonies and chord progressions and instrumentation that just had not been done or put together in that way before. And I can still listen to a whole lot of their stuff and go, “My God, that is just so clever.”

Barbara Boggiano: I liked what they were doing and what they were getting into. I’ve always been a poet, and their songwriting at the time really influenced my poetry. Their whole way of looking at things really made me think that there was more to this than this rhyming thing. I actually enjoyed their progression. Some stuff, of course, I just never could figure out.

Art Murray: The first time the Beatles whacked me in the head, where I began to really change totally about them, was right at the beginning of my college career, which was ’66. Up to that point to me they were still a pop group, they still didn’t have any real credibility as serious musicians. I knew Rubber Soul and Revolver backwards. I had listened to them intently and by the time I was listening to them I was around people who took that music seriously.

Paul Chasman: I got more and more into them as they progressed, because musically they were getting more and more out on the cutting edge. As a musician I progressed along with them. I couldn’t care less about the hype and hoopla, in fact it was years before I was able to distinguish which was a Paul McCartney song, which was a John Lennon song, that kind of thing. I was just interested in the music.

Maggie Welch: I knew it was inevitable that they were going to change, and that it would happen fast. When Revolver happened, and then nothing happened for months, I thought, wow, something’s cooking."

***

 

To the contrary, you have the burden of proof if you're going to claim that Dexter gave any great amount of thought to the sequencing of the album. As I noted, the fact that he did not bother to rearrange any of the ten songs he retained from the UK album suggests he did not. For that matter, you also have the burden of proof if you want to claim Dexter attached any great import to the first song on side two. Let's look at some of the songs he stuck in that "pole position" on other albums: Don't Bother Me, What You're Doing, Another Girl, Honey Don't, And Your Bird Can Sing, Tell Me Why. Are any of these songs regarded as standout tracks (ie, among the very best) on their respective albums?

 

In what way is it controversial that Rubber Soul was the LP where the adult world started to listen? It was the first LP that wasn't "cute." It was just post Dylan-onset (Dylan thought they were the future and they idolized him back. Dylan was the adult pop artiste au courant) and they were high the whole time. I don't know if I would put it as sales or box office. I think it's the musical dialogue happening in the world that they were a part of that had a sort of peak then. It was the emblem and mascot of a whole big population who were making the musical world in a dozen different directions. The Byrds, the stooges, the Velvets, the allmans, the Springfields, the rascals, Laura Nyro, JOni, Neil, probably Marvin Gaye and lots of black artists, you name it from here to the moon, were all high on this LP to make the next generation of classics. So far you UK people have cited in support of your UK RS, 5 or 6 guys from the same city, and Brian Wilson!!! That is a freakin joke. We give you the london boys. But be serious about US music.

Yes, many many people who passed on Meet the beatles bought rubber soul. Which means that the teenies weren't buying as many LPs, or something.

 

I'm still curious upon what basis you conclude "It's Only Love" was a "personal" song to John. Certainly nothing he ever said suggests that it was. To the contrary, his comments suggest the exact opposite.

 

I just don't agree with your argument. "Cards speak " is the rule. The US RS is a real beatles LP which implies intention in its design definitionally, because it was meant for an audience of 2 million (relatively well off) americans. You need to argue as to why that was not a legitimate decision, and what we should do about it in the future. I love the LP, so I think the sequencing went as well as it could have. Dexter might have made some good calls. It seems he was bowing to the thematic tendency in keeping those sequencings the same. Maybe he put them on there in the right spot because they were great deep underdog lennon mcartney songs that were fantastic as mood setters.

I dare you to put on IJSAF and not think that if you were an exec you'd ok that.

I dare you to put on IOL and tell me that if you were them you wouldn't think it was a beautiful tune.

Sometimes it's occams razor.

 

Musical values. The feel. The melody, The singing. The production. Every one of those superior to each of the 4 deleted tunes. It sounds much more modern to me than the 4. But you know I never had UK records and never knew it was an outlier til maybe 15 20 years ago.

I can't believe the dissing IOL gets here considering the vocals on it and the feel of it. Does anyone really think it sounds like a please please me era song? I don't get that.

 

Again, you are suggesting that not only did the adult world start listening, but that a significant portion the teenage world stopped listening. That seems unlikely, given the band's continued popularity among youth culture.

But really, this is silly. You are making a claim without any evidence, and asserting it as fact. If you cannot provide evidence, there is no reason we should take this claim seriously. You can't just make up facts.

 

I think the number for Rubber Soul is underestimated....I don’t think personally that more adults bought copies of Rubber Soul but they did start getting more critical respect and recognition from adults.

Absolutely right. Lennon more than once called the song crap and, as I recall, is one of those written on demand songs.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

Can’t we all just enjoy what we enjoy. The Parlophone album is awesome and so is the Capitol version, IMO. If you like both, listen to them both. If not, listen to the one you do like.

 

Yep.

 

I didn't say anyone stopped listening. I only saw people starting.

I had a long post with some things about music that you didn't quote. Did you read it?

 

Another possibility is that Dexter had a little of that "fear of the new" that execs get and thought the Help era material was a good engine to lead off and get the new material underway. It was during times of musical evolution and this is a perennial fear of music biz people.

 

Okay, at this point, you're just tossing out different explanations. There is one explanation for the UK version: the Beatles wanted it that way.

 

not just here, John never liked it much either apparently, however i always did like it but my only beef with it is that its short, sounds half finished and missing something, but its a great tune.

 

Yes, but it did not contain any evidence supporting your claim that a significantly larger amount of adults bought Rubber Soul than previous Beatles albums. All you did was list a bunch of bands/artists and make unsourced claims that they were influenced by Rubber Soul. Even if that is true, it doesn't prove that more adults bought the album. At least two of the artists you listed (Dylan and the Byrds) were listening to and being influenced by the Beatles long before Rubber Soul. Probably all of them were.

The mere existence of an album doesn't imply anything about design or intentionality. Albums can be thrown together haphazardly and without any thought. We know that there was no special intention behind the inclusion of "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love." That was pure chance, as they happened to be the two songs leftover that were available. And we know Dexter didn't bother to resequence the ten songs he kept on the album. And we know (based on previous releases) that he didn't seem to attach any special importance to the first song on side two of an album. All of these things argue against there being any great deal of thought behind the album's contents or sequence. They don't prove it of course, but they suggest its likelihood. On the flipside, what evidence is there that he did give a lot of thought to the sequencing? "I really like it" is not evidence.

 

Just so you know, The Byrds actually heard the UK version of Rubber Soul (through an advance copy of the album courtesy of Derek Taylor, as verified here and here) so I don't know why you're using them as an example against "you UK people" over which version of the album they heard when the exact opposite happened.

 

And given their close relationships with the Beatles themselves, Derek Taylor (in the Byrds' case), the pop music elite, etc., there's at least an even chance that someone provided Dylan and/or the Byrds heard the British version of the album. We know that McCartney played Dylan the UK Revolver and that Brian Wilson at some point in 65/66 heard the UK version, so it's not a stretch that Dylan/the Byrds heard it, too. They were in a somewhat unique position to have access.

EDIT: And see the post directly above mine.