Asking me to choose my favorite Beatles album would be like asking me to choose my favorite limb. It just doesn't make sense to me, because if I were to be deprived of even part of one of them, I would consider it a tragedy.
But if you told me that you were going to destroy all copies of every Beatles album but one, and asked me which one I would save...
It might have to be Rubber Soul.
Rubber Soul is the Beatles album I grew up listening to. My dad had one of those 6 CD changers in the trunk of his car for YEARS, and from the time I was, oh, I don't know, 11, until the time I moved out of my parent's house, Rubber Soul was one of those 6. If it hadn't been for this album, I might never have known the Beatles as anything more than another band on Oldies 95.5.
Rubber Soul stands as the perfect intermediate piece between the Beatles that were and the Beatles that were to come, and it combines the best of both worlds.
While the albums before this were all masterpieces in their own way, today they seem like almost too straightforward rock and roll albums. They're good, but definitely sound dated, and occasionally rely on musical devices that were cliche even in those days (The Beatles always pulled it off better than anyone else, but let's face it, there was still a cliche or two in there).
The albums that came later made monumental leaps and bounds forward in creativity, changing the face of music as we knew it, but like all explorers of the unknown, they'd occasionally go too far. Come on, who among us has really listened to all 8 minutes and 22 seconds of "Revolution 9" more than once? And surely no one listened because it rocked, I only ever listened to the whole thing to make sure there wasn't an actual song buried in there somewhere. Experimentation is important, but even in the hands of The Beatles, it can still produce things that are more interesting than good.
Rubber Soul expanded the creative range of the band a great deal, but kept it in a pure rock and roll context. The edges are a little rougher, the album rocks a little harder, and the songs are among the tightest the band would ever record. "Drive My Car" still gets me head-banging; "Norwegian Wood" cracks me up every time I hear that ending line; "You Won't See Me" is piano-led pop at it's very best; "Nowhere Man" is one of John's finest and most thought provoking moments ever; "Think for Yourself" rocks my socks and features some of the best harmonies the band ever sang; I love singing along to "The Word"; "Michelle" will always and forever remind me of my dad (its his favorite Beatles song); the country-inflected rock of "What Goes On" beats the pants off of anything all those country-esque woodstock era American bands ever came up with; "Girl" is probably the most hear-wrenching ballad I've ever heard; "I'm Looking Through You" rocks hard; "In My Life" is one of the best and most-adored love songs ever written; "Wait" rocks and reatures som more excellent harmonies; "If I Needed Someone" foreshadows the band's future psychedelic direction; and "Run For Your Life" is probably the hardest rocking song they had recorded to that point (except maybe the proto-punk rendition of "Twist & Shout").
Shoot, that's every song on the album. I set out to say something about my favorites, and look what happened. I might not have a dissertation on each one, but I tried to pick my favorite songs on the album and came up with every song on the album.
Rubber Soul kicks ass, and if there had never been a Beatles and some other band released this album today, no one would say "That music sounds old." It's as fresh and interesting today as it was in 1965.
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