Детали релиза : The Beatles - Rubber Soul (Super Deluxe) (1965/2026) [FLAC (tracks)]

Album Review: The Beatles - Rubber Soul (Super Deluxe)

Rubber Soul was a turning point for the Beatles—the moment they began to really experiment in the studio and became an album band. Almost filler-free ("Run for Your Life" remains a weak point), it didn't include a single single. It also came about when they were under new influences—marijuana, LSD (at least for John Lennon and George Harrison) and music by the likes of Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan and the Byrds.

The sixth album in the Beatles' canon to be remixed by Giles Martin, son of producer George, this edition of Rubber Soul is like a spotlight, providing clarity and focus on the most beautiful elements. The set also includes the original mono mix as well as the stateside stereo version, which omitted "Drive My Car," "Nowhere Man" and others and opened with "I've Just Seen a Face." And, yes, it delivers a previously-unheard Lennon song (more on that later).

Paul McCartney's deliciously groovy bass on "Drive My Car"—influenced by Otis Redding's "Respect" and with Harrison playing a dual riff on his Stratocaster—bounces right to the front, while instrumental backing tracks show off just how cool the Memphis-heavy line is. Sugar-spun "You Won't See Me," meanwhile, was inspired by the Four Tops' "It's the Same Old Song." Giles Martin's remix plays up the glorious vocal overdubs—which apparently blew Brian Wilson's mind, pushing him to create Pet Sounds.

It's one of a few songs about McCartney's rocky relationship with girlfriend Jane Asher, along with "I'm Looking Through You." Coming after the swoon of A Hard Day's Night's "And I Love Her," those lyrics are biting. "Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight," McCartney sings—and he practically snarls the line "I'm looking through you/ You're not the same," before Ringo Starr's organ vamp pushes the song from folk to garage rock.

The extras disc offers a few rough takes of "I'm Looking Through You," different still from the one on Anthology 2. We get a version missing the "Why?/ Tell me why" part but with a wilder ending, and another with McCartney trying out a more mannered "Yes" than the "Yeah"s that made the final. And it's fun hearing the band find their way to the song's eventual rhythm.

We get a remixed vocal pan of "Nowhere Man" that plays up the richness of the three-part harmonies and finally adds the vibrancy the band famously wanted—and, when the studio couldn't accommodate, tried to reach by turning up treble on faders.

"In My Life" is particularly luminous, and there's a 39-second extract of George Martin playing a Baroque organ solo for the song—which Giles recently characterized as "too soft." (In the end, that part was recorded with the tape running half-speed then sped up to create a higher, harpsichord-esque sound.)

Rubber Soul marked the early days of Harrison's Indian-influenced writing, with "If I Needed Someone"—which also borrows a riff from the Byrds' version of "The Bells of Rhymney"—and his first use of sitar, on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)." An alternate take opens with that instrument playing the bridge melody rather than the familiar vocal melody, and Giles Martin has pointed out how a "half-time sitar version proves they were smoking a lot of pot."

As for "Little Girl," the demo of a never-before-heard Lennon song, it's really a work in progress: a sweet, poppy trifle that's tantalizing to imagine spinning off in a psychedelic direction for Revolver or Sgt. Pepper's.

© Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz