The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" - Putting together the proper tracklist

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by yesstiles, Dec 23, 2017.

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  1. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    I think my post provides balance and context. And moves away from demonizing the "suits" at Capitol. We just see things differently.
     
  2. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Well said. Although If I Needed Someone is a great Byrds inspired masterpiece. Great vibe and sound.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2019
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  3. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    This idea that the suits were attempting to make a concept album is hilarious. It's all about the dollars for those guys and nothing more. Nothing wrong with the older US fans preferring it for nostalgic reasons but in the end it's just another butchered Beatles album.
     
  4. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    "Pure" Apple never did anything to make money. Right.
    Simplistic demonizing is never convincing or fully informed. Easy but wrong.
     
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  5. Pizza

    Pizza With extra pepperoni

    Location:
    USA
    And many are happy with what the “suits” did with Rubber Soul. Purposely or happy accident, I’m glad to have both.
     
  6. Diamond Star Halo

    Diamond Star Halo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vancouver
    I don’t buy the theory that Capitol intentionally set out to create a folk rock concept album with the American version of Rubber Soul. Some of you are giving them way too much credit.

    If Capitol really wanted to create the ultimate folk rock album, then why did they remove two of the most folk rock-like tracks (Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone) from the final running order?

    The most likely scenario is that the track selections for American Rubber Soul were completely random, and that Dexter accidentally created a good track list. Even a broken clock is correct twice per day.
     
  7. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Not demonizing just making this simple point;
    One country's RS was put together by musicians (that happened to create it) the other country's wasn't.
     
  8. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    What you have to understand about the US Rubber Soul is this; late 1965 was a turbulent time. Vietnam, The Watts Riots, Lenny Bruce speaking truth to power. ‘She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah’ just wouldn’t cut it any more for the switched on set. The Times They Were Indeed A Changing! That’s why when artistic visionary Dave ‘Down With The Kids’ Dexter took the iconoclasticly groundbreaking decision to include Lennon’s searing political call to arms ‘It’s Only Love’ on the album in spite of silly old George ‘The Man’ Martin’s protestations (In what I personally consider a transatlantic rebel yell of equal historical magnitude to The Boston Tea Party) it was like a Neutron Bomb had hit the college campuses of the USA. ‘My-I-I inside just flies, butterflies’. Those words still hit me like a ton of brick walled waveforms. It just felt like a gigantic cosmic relief to hear the real world portrayed in lyrics without artifice for once. I mean, we all felt it, Yes, it was pretty heavy stuff, but the truth often is.
     
  9. Zapruder

    Zapruder Just zis guy, you know?

    Location:
    Ames, IA
    Sorry if this is a silly question, but has anyone actually confirmed that the Beatles themselves were responsible for the UK tracklisting?
     
  10. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    I think I remember reading that Martin was the main one to sequence the albums, but of course, even if that was the case, it would have had the band's blessings.
     
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  11. Tommyboy

    Tommyboy Senior Member

    Location:
    New York
    Not this American.
     
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  12. spencer1

    spencer1 Great Western Forum Resident

    Always thought The Stones “Aftermath”
    was a candidate for this treatment.
    Maybe a 2 LP set also gathering up period correct stray tracks.

    For me growing up with the sadly shorter American version of the album “Paint it Black” absolutely belongs there.

    Now back to breakfast with The Beatles ...
     
  13. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Yes. This is from a press conference promoting Help!:

    GEORGE: "The thing is, Capitol issue all sort of mad stuff, you know. It's nothing to do with us. We take 14 tracks to be put out, but they keep a couple and put them out later."

    PAUL: "But it's a drag, because the album-- We make an album to be like an album, and to be a complete thing."

    JOHN: "We plan it, and they wreck it."

    Beatles Press Conference: Los Angeles 8/29/1965 - Beatles Interviews Database
     
  14. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Sorry, it's hard for me to believe you don't realize how outlandish they are.


    That's not what a concept album is. The Byrds' first albums were folk-rock albums, but they were not concept albums.

    And the US Rubber Soul is not a folk album either, it has several straight rock songs. And it's not an acoustic album either, it has a few acoustic numbers. Just like the UK version by the way.


    As someone has already explained, there's nothing 1963 about Drive My Car, either lyrically or musically.



    They way you worded it, you seem to suggest the UK album was created after the US album. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is.


    Derek Taylor worked for both The Beatles and the Beach Boys, and he took an advance copy to them. One of the songs Wilson singled out was Nowhere Man, so obviously it's the original album the one he listened.


    More trolling.


    -The idea that Capitol wanted to make the album less commercial or Beatle-like is laughable.

    -The idea that to get the college-aged fans the plan was to cut out the most lyrically sophisticated song is laughable.

    -The idea that to get those people on board the plan was to include the teeny love song It's Only Love is laughable.



    That's your opinion (which I'm sure very few fans share). But the fact remains it's the more folk-rock song, and it was cut out in the supposed Capitol "folk-rock album", proving it to be a myth.


    So now Dexter was also clairboyant. This is getting better and better.


    It's not a theory. It's the simple fact that the most folk-rock inspired song was cut out of the album.


    You are entitled to prefer the US version, of course. But your theories are crazy and you know it.
    It's crazy to say that Capitol didn't want a commercial album. It's crazy to say it's a concept album. It's crazy to say they intended to make a folk rock album when they cut out the most clear examples of that style. It's crazy to say they went for a more mature audience when they cut out Nowhere Man and included It's Olny Love.
     
  15. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Let me clarify: I love Drive My Car. I think it's a really fun and bouncy tune, it's pretty much the very last remnant of the Beatles moptop period.

    My beef with Drive My Car is that its old-school Beatles nostalgic vibe is anti-Rubber Soul, that's all. Put it on any other album- Help, Beatles For Sale, even the White Album, and it would be a great tune. Doesn't work on folk/acoustic/plaintive Rubber Soul.

    This song is dreadful. Bad enough it wasn't put in the EMI rubbish bin with If You've Got Troubles. The fact that Parolophone let it ruin Rubber Soul is unfathomable, the worst decision in Beatles history bar none.
     
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  16. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    I don't dispute that Brian Wilson was blown away by Rubber Soul. I dispute that he was blown away by the UK version and not the US version. The songs he cites in the book you linked are on both versions.
     
  17. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Yes. Outside of this niche enthusiasts forum, that is the view held by billions of Beatles fans since 1965.
     
  18. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Quote from our host, Steve Hoffman, a good friend of Dave Dexter:

    “Dave also said it was his idea to make RUBBER SOUL into a folk album by programming it to start with I'VE JUST SEEN A FACE and by putting IT'S ONLY LOVE on there and removing an uptempo number or two. It worked for me; the American programming of Rubber Soul is the only time I'll take the American version over the British, even though it lost three songs in the process.”

    Source:

    Dave Dexter, Jr. Capitol Records BEATLES questions (and some answers)
     
  19. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    You know the US version was only released in the US, Canada and Venezuela, while the original album was released in every other country in the world, right?

    You also know from 1987, the official version in the US was the original album.
     
  20. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Of course he wanted to take credit for it, but if that was true, he would have never cut out Nowhere Man and IINS. He also said that he padded the Help! soundtrack with incidental music because George Martin told him that The Beatles would not record a whole album, and that's a lie.
     
  21. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Replace what you know today to be "folk" with the word "acoustic" and you have your answer.

    See post above, Steve Hoffman knew Dave Dexter Jr. and feels otherwise.
     
  22. Diego Lucas

    Diego Lucas Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil
    Funny that in Mexico, when the band was Capitol, it was release the UK VERSION, with the package in style of the US version.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  23. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Exactly right. And none of this was going on the UK, over there Beatlemania could just continue indefinitely, all the happy happy post-WWII glam vibes going on over there.

    In the US, it was a different time and a very different audience. A mature Beatles album heading into 1966 was a prerequisite, another Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! moptop disc wasn't going to cut it for the Lenny Bruce Simon & Garfunkel crowd. A tailored Rubber Soul aimed not at the 16 Magazine teen girl crowd but rather the 20 year old collegiate crowd was genius.
     
  24. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    It's not a silly question at all. The Beatles were a touring machine in 1965, took a scant month off to bang out their next Christmas album, IMO this time period the Beatles had the least amount of creative input on anything other than the paisley shirts and mod pants they would wear at their endless array of gigs. And I'd have to believe that with Beatlemania feeling played out after 2 years the suits at Parlophone took no chances and made another formulaic Moptop long player sure to satisfy young and old, Beep! Beep! Yeah!
     
  25. schnitzerphilip

    schnitzerphilip "Modern Dad" Unlocked Award

    Location:
    NJ USA
    [​IMG]

    I believe that John was just jealous of the fact that the US arm of his record company had professionals who knew how to build albums to satisfy their significantly larger audiences whereas the UK branch was strictly amateur hour.

    Epstein may be a genius for discovering the band and Martin may be a genius for his studio magic, but as marketers they were just awful and pros like Dave Dexter Jr. did a better job than the boys and their overmatched UK team ever could. Meet The Beatles, Beatles Second Album, and Rubber Soul are three of the most important and influential albums ever released in the United States and it wasn't by accident; Capitol Records were the apex of the record sales and promotion industry. Parlophone was the luckiest comedy label in the history of recorded music.
     
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