Talk:Rubber Soul

Orphaned references in Rubber Soul

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Rubber Soul's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "DeRogatis":

• From Revolver (album): J. DeRogatis, Milk it!: collected musings on the alternative music explosion of the 90s, ISBN 0-306-81271-1
• From Strawberry Fields Forever: J. DeRogatis, Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (Milwaukie, Michigan: Hal Leonard, 2003), ISBN 0-634-05548-8, p. 160.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 11:15, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

no more cover songs (and can someone find a remark about this album not being as sharp a change as depicted by Capitol?)

Today, I added a remark about that. We already have the comment (see the British Help! album) that "Act Naturally" was the last cover recorded by the Beatles until that "Maggie Mae" excerpt on the Let It Be album. There were a couple of later albums which had cover songs: 1966 Yesterday and Today (in the U.S.) had the already-mentioned "Act Naturally", and the British Oldies album (released later in 1966 when it was known the Beatles would not have a new album out then) had "Bad Boy", but both of those [songs] had been recorded before Rubber Soul.

There is a remark I cannot currently place. I don't know if it was by George Martin. It was that Rubber Soul was not that great a change in the Beatles' sound. (However, the Capitol packaging of the Beatles does make it appear as such. Remember that the U.S. is a big country, and that means many people were not familiar with the original British packaging of the Help! and Rubber Soul albums.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.45 (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

And continuing with "Rubber Soul not that great a change" remark: That's referring to the British version, and it is saying in the article that Brian Wilson (who would "answer" with the Pet Sounds album, for which he had already done some work when Rubber Soul became available) had the U.S. version. (By the way, there was a [TV?] movie about the Beach Boys which showed a living room with a Christmas tree, with Brian Wilson [as played by an actor] walking into the room carrying a Rubber Soul album cover.) <-- That might be "The Beach Boys: An American Family" in 2000.

So basically, you find that the American Rubber Soul made a stronger impact in the US than the British Rubber Soul did in the UK, and that this has remained largely unacknowledged for the last forty-nine years? I think the remark you're speaking of is George Harrison's comment about Rubber Soul and Revolver in The Beatles Anthology where he considers them "volume 1 and volume 2". Whether or not the US/UK Rubber Soul had a markedly different reception can probably never be determined, and I'm not sure anybody has ever weighed in on it.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

(My reply: OK, George Harrison referred to "volume 1 and volume 2", but I was writing about going from Help! album to Rubber Soul album. -- written Dec. 3, 2015) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.102.56.94 (talk) 01:41, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about "largely unacknowledged for the last forty-nine years", but notice this on Wikipedia about the preceding Beatles' album, Help!: "The record contained two cover versions and a few tracks more closely related to the group's previous pop output, yet still marked a decisive step forward." Remember that people in the United States didn't have that non-soundtrack side of the Help! album at the time of that album's release, except for 3 songs which had already been on Beatles VI; "Yesterday" b/w "Act Naturally" would soon be released in the U.S. as a single, and that left 2 songs which nobody in the U.S. knew about unless a British Help! album leaked into the U.S. (Those 2 songs would serve in the U.S. as the lead songs on sides 1 and 2 of Rubber Soul, where you had "Drive My Car" and "What Goes On" in the U.K.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, both versions of Rubber Soul are using only original songs (no cover songs). Carlm0404 (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

One previous British Beatles album had originals only: A Hard Day's Night, which had 13 songs, all attributed to Lennon-McCartney.

Today, I didn't see running order for U.S. Rubber Soul, which per previous discussion is apparently the version Brian Wilson had when he was greatly influenced by Rubber Soul en route to Pet Sounds. Carlm0404 (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Needed: Separate track listing and artwork for Parlophone and Capitol differing releases 1964 - 1966

As only hardcore Beatles fans know UK and US first vinyl releases differed markedly from 1964 thru Revolver album 1966, The track llstings were completely different even if some US albums had identical titles as their original UK counterparts. This was due to very different release and compilation strategy for the North American market. So for this reason it is required that alternate artwork and track listing are edited in for albums ONLY with IDENTICAL titles in UK (Parlophone) and US (Capitol) for releases from 1964 thru 1966. This way Wikipedia can keep single article for those albums, expanding only their contents where needed to show differences I mentioned.

There is already some job done in the descriptions of said albums, but nothing regarding the track listings and the artwork (where sleeve fronts may differ in colour and layout).

Examples:

Parlophone - A Hard Day's Night http://www.beatlesbible.com/wp/media/hard-days-night-200x200.jpg

Capitol - A Hard Day's Night [actually, the US album of this name was on the United Artists label] http://www.beatlesbible.com/wp/media/usa_hard-days-night-200x200.jpg

Parlophone - Help http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/help-2/

Capitol - Help http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/usa_help/

Parlophone - Rubber Soul http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/rubber_soul/

Capitol - Rubber Soul http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/usa_rubber_soul/

Parlophone - Revolver http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/revolver-2/

Capitol - Revolver http://www.beatlesbible.com/gallery/releases/usa_revolver/

After the aforementioned revisions are implemented, all the other Beatles-related websites can rely on Wikipedia as their reference, as they do today mirroring Wikipedia's errors. I refer to BeatlesBible.com and AllRecords.com to name just the 2 I visited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirek Goldberg (talk • contribs) 07:53, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

22 Jan. 2015: I made a couple of fixes above. Note in brackets about the U.S. "A Hard Day's Night" album actually being on United Artists label, and supply a missing "b" in the link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.47 (talk) 15:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

when were some songs composed?

I find: "Virtually all of the songs for this album were composed immediately after the band's return to London following their North American tour."

The Beatles Bible site says that John Lennon STARTED composing Norwegian Wood early in 1965; I don't know how far he got with it before that North American tour. Also, "Wait" was recorded in June 1965 as the Beatles were providing the rest of the songs for the British "Help!" album, but then was shelved (then, when the Beatles were a song short for "Rubber Soul" album, it was resurrected and, according to what I read, given some overdubs).

We're considering the UK (not US) version of "Rubber Soul". The U.S. version has "I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love", which were also recorded in June 1965 and then saw their 1st release on the British "Help!" album. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.47 (talk) 19:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Tribute album should be mentioned - but where?

I would like to add a sentence or two about the 2005 tribute album This Bird Has Flown – A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul, but the present article does not have a section along the lines of "Legacy," which is where I normally would place an item about tributes, later uses and references, monuments, and so on. Obviously, I'm not about to add such a section merely to place a single sentence! Do other editors see a place in the article where this item naturally fits? The album in question includes notables such as The Donnas, Sufjan Stevens, Ben Harper and Cowboy Junkies and it does have its own WP article. Lawikitejana (talk) 21:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Genres (sigh)

After this recent edit, I'd like to get consensus regarding genres based on Scott Plagenhoef's description in his Pitchfork Media review. Specifically: "To modern ears, Rubber Soul and its pre-psychedelic era mix of 1960s pop, soul, and folk could seem tame, even quaint on a cursory listen."

I read this as saying that the album is or contains pop, soul and folk music, as distinct from the album being a mixture or fusion of these genres into something else. (After all, there are songs that are clearly in one of the three genres, but nothing that combines all three.) On those grounds, I'd recently added "pop, soul, folk" to "folk rock" in the infobox. Apart from this being my interpretation of what Plagenhoef's saying, I'm mindful of statements we have in the main text, from Ian MacDonald, saying that the album's folk rock identity is somewhat inaccurate (it's very much a pop record in its full, UK format). What do others think?

I'm inviting Dan56 here – and not because he and I have ever agreed on genres in the past, please note(!). But Dan: is this not the opposite of the situation we had at Led Zep IV or Physical Graffiti, a couple of years back? There, I seem to remember some toing-and-froing over a description in which a few genres were said to be mixed, and you maintained that the writer was saying they were merely ingredients (so to speak) that were fused together to create something new. So is Plagenhoef's statement the same as that, do you think, or is it a straight description that the music on Rubber Soul is pop, soul and folk? JG66 (talk) 06:54, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't remember those discussions and I didn't object to your addition here at first, but that's mostly because the article doesn't do an adequate job at summarizing all available perspectives on this album's music; the Pitchfork review discussing "soul" and "pop" is limited to that one line, and if the critic said more it would be more useful. This source that's citing "...influences drawn from African American soul music..." in the article mentions a review by Ink Blot, which writes, "though 'Drive My Car' and 'The Word' parade a fat, Stax-like bottom end, it wasn't really a soul album either", before describing the former song as "R&B". Take that for what it's worth. I don't see where McDonald says "folk rock" was inaccurate; both the AllMusic review of this album and the site's bio of the Beatles view otherwise in what they say. John Kruth, who wrote a book on the album, said that replacing "Drive My Car" with "I've Just Seen a Face" made the album's U.S. version "more of a folk-rock than a detour into soul music" ([1]), so I guess take all that for what it's worth lol. I don't know what would be appropriate in this case. Multiple sources sharing a viewpoint would be helpful in determining what genres should be given what amount of weight (WP:3PARTY). Dan56 (talk) 07:33, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Well sure, the article's inadequate in that regard currently (in pretty much every regard, I'd say), but I'm talking about what that statement actually says. I believe it can and should be used to support the additional genres.

The MacDonald statement appears in the section "North American Capitol release", btw. He says that Capitol pulled "I've Just Seen a Face" off Help! "and turned it into the opening track of the American version of Rubber Soul, so conspiring to give the US public the impression that the latter was 'The Beatles' folk-rock album'". He also talks about Harrison bringing the soul/Otis Redding element to "Drive My Car" and how that song's omission from Rubber Soul US was also misleading. Other commentators echo this point: Kenneth Womack says Capitol's merging of acoustic tracks from Help! and Rubber Soul gave the album "a decidedly folk-ish orientation", and he describes the US LP as having "a folk-rock veneer".

Anyway, thanks for those links; I know the Kruth book, might just have to buy it. I've got a Mojo Beatles special edition covering 1965–67, with a Rubber Soul review/essay by Richard WIlliams – could be something in that. JG66 (talk) 09:11, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Is its genre really folk rock?

Would you really file Rubber Soul away with the folk rock albums? Does it sit with Dylan and the Byrds? Some tracks have a folk rock style, but equally some don't, eg Drive my Car which is more of an R&B track. The All Music source does NOT point blank say the album is folk rock. It lists several *styles*. But for *genre*, which is the word in our infobox, remember, is says *pop/rock*. See this link: A P Monblat (talk) 15:03, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't the article, as it is currently, mix up the terms "genre" and "style". Overall, it is an album in the pop rock genre. Folk rock is merely one of the styles deployed on the album. Unterberger in AllMusic did not in terms say the *genre* was folk rock. The Beatles were never part of the folk rock scene as, say, Dylan was. They merely did a few tracks on Rubber Soul in that approximate *style*. They did not operate within that *genre*. There will be plenty of sources to back up my point. Here is one - from Rolling Stone. This Guardian article does not use the word folk once. A P Monblat (talk) 17:23, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Norman Smith's recollections

I really don't think it was appropriate for Norman Smith to insinuate that Paul was critical of George's playing, since I very much doubt that there was very serious band infighting at this stage in their careers and there was no real band discord until the recording of The White Album or Let it Be, as acknowledged by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves. 203.221.138.95 (talk) 05:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Kickstarting the studio years

Isn't it also a fact notable enough for the article lead that Rubber Soul pretty much kicked off their studio years, with the notable difference in level of sophistication in writing (both chords and lyrics), studio mastery where the studio first became pretty much a significant instrument in its own right for pretty much every single song of the album, drug influences, and overall psychedelic sound, compared to Help!? Before Rubber Soul, The Beatles were only the most popular band in the world, but with Rubber Soul, they became renowned "higher" artists and started using the studio like no-one had ever before, for a much higher level of sophistication in studio production, where pretty much everybody else, be they bands or record producers, in the fields of rock and pop music went, "Woah, how are they *DOING* this? How do they create all those many new, otherworldly [soon to be called psychedelic] sounds on pretty much every single song?", beyond only writing chords or performing so much better than most other popular acts as they had on their previous albums already. Rubber Soul was their first album to be definitely not a collection of simple(r) songs written mainly for live performances anymore, as much as this first, early, most light-heartedly innocently-sounding phase of their psychedelia (that mainly encompasses Rubber Soul and Revolver) still owed a lot to the folksy Jangle pop they themselves had been doing since their 1964 soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night (of which The Bryds's 1965 Hey Mr. Tambourine Man was only an offshoot).

Of course, there's a notable step-up in this direction of studio sophistication with Pepper, where the most innovative height of their psychedelic phase pretty much lasted for the two albums of Pepper and MMT, with the A side of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack being a lesser, but still overall psychedelic album in overall concept, and only minor traces of psychedelia showing in their songs from the White Album onwards as they're getting back to more "realistic", "earthier" roots pretty much as "The Beatles as nature intended", with a now heavily matured version of down-to-earth rock and pop compared to their moptop days, now produced with an absolute mastery in technical craftmanship and creative freedom over the use of the studio in recording, arrangements, production, mixing, and mastering which they first to began dabbling in on a studio technical level in earnest with Rubber Soul. --46.93.154.151 (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Arson in Norwegian Wood?

I am surprised to see this interpretation offered here without any qualification. It is not a literal meaning I've ever taken from the last line in the song, nor have I ever heard anyone suggest it was the meaning. Indeed, the song's dedicated page does not mention this analysis. Why would a listener assume this line is literal when so much of the song is clearly not? DulcetTone (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to go from British to American version

This can stay on talk page if it would burden the article: Drive My Car and What Goes On are replaced respectively by I`ve Just Seen A Face and It's Only Love, iwith those 2 songs from the British "Help!" album setting the folk-music feel of the American "Rubber Soul" album. Other songs stay in the same place in the same order, except for skipping over Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone.

"Revolver" album was also affected by American repackaging. That article already states, not in these exact words, that the American version uses the British playing order EXCEPT that if we reach one of the 3 omitted songs, we skip to the next song. Carlm0404 (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, but I do think your addition to the article is a bit clumsy. I'll have a go at incorporating part of it in the text we already had there, but not so detailed. I just don't believe it's necessary to mention, eg, that ten (or whatever it is) songs stay in the same place on the Capitol LP – readers can jump to the Track listing section for that. JG66 (talk) 05:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Simultaneous No.1 Record.

I think the fact that this album and the 'We Can Work It Out' single released at the same time were the first to achieve the very rare feat of topping both the singles and albums chart simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom should be included in this article. Only Simon & Garfunkel, Rod Stewart, Men at Work and Beyonce have repeated this since. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phil6875 (talk • contribs) 15:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

So do I – if there's a source to support it. I've read up about this album no end but can't recall ever reading anyone state this "first". JG66 (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

GAN

JG66 How close do you think this is before possibly GA? – zmbro _(talk) 16:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Blimey, you're so darn keen! ... No, it's top of my list. There's a few things I need to fix – eg, I've got a note somewhere with a better source to tie some of the early points together and improve the focus. Just waiting for RL to be a little less crazy in my world – a couple of weeks, I hope – then there are 10 or more articles I plan to nominate. JG66 (talk) 16:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

JG66, Haha you got me xD. Likewise, I'm almost done with all of Bowie's 70s records, Just nominated Pin Ups now I just need to get my mind set on finishing Young Americans since I've neglected that for almost a year it seems. After Low is copy-edited that'll be ready. But then there's Ziggy... – zmbro _(talk) 16:56, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

So have you done what you needed to do? Because I think this is pretty much ready for a GA nomination. Speatle (talk) 11:59, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Speatle, you might like to ping editors if you want their attention. I'll give the article a thorough read through over the next day or two, make any additions/changes I was planning to do, and then nominate. I'm currently separated from all my books and magazines – they're being shipped back to the UK – but perhaps that's not such a bad thing. If you could close the peer review, that would be great, because it seems a bit redundant (and in my experience, it's unusual approach to take before GAN). JG66 (talk) 15:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

How do you close them? Speatle (talk) 16:30, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Speatle Install this script – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 16:39, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok. It’s closed. Speatle (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Kenneth Allsop comment, 1964 or 1965?

At the moment, the page says the following:

John Lennon was encouraged to address wider-ranging issues than before in his songwriting through Dylan's example. A further impetus was a discussion he had with BBC journalist Kenneth Allsop about whether, as in Lennon's 1965 book A Spaniard in the Works, his lyrics were conceived as merely "another form of nonsense rhyming".

and in the "In My Life" subsection:

Lennon credited Allsop's rebuke about A Spaniard in the Works as the catalyst for "In My Life", ...

I'm unclear on which interview with Allsop served as the impetus (1964 being In His Own Write and 1965 being A Spaniard in the Works). Sources are somewhat discordant here. Here is a summary from my library:

Source	Direct quotation	Ref
Golson (1981), pp. 163–164, quoted in Everett (2001), p. 329	John Lennon: "I think 'In My Life' was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life, and it was sparked by a remark a journalist and writer in England [Kenneth Alsopf] made after In His Own Write came out. ... But he said to me, 'Why don't you put some of the way you write in the book, as it were, in the songs? Or why don't you put something about your childhood into the songs?'"
Doggett (2005), pp. 47–48, 73	On the evening of publication [of In His Own Write, 23 March 1964], Lennon appeared on BBC TV's Tonight, where he was interviewed by the critic and commentator Kenneth Allsop. During the course of a conversation in which Lennon mumbled some extracts from the book, Allsop wondered why none of John's fantasy and word-play had figured in his songs. Lennon had never considered the possibility; and though he shrugged off the query with his usual sarcasm, Allsop's remark sank deep. ... In its original form, however 'In My Life' was far less universal in its appeal. Back in mid-1964, you'll remember, interviewer Kenneth Allsop had suggested to Lennon that he should combine his literary imagination with his musical skill. A year later, under the influence of Bob Dylan and soft drugs, Lennon was ready to take the suggestion to heart."
MacDonald (2007), p. 169	Around the same time [as the planning stage of Rubber Soul], the eminent journalist Kenneth Allsop, whom Lennon admired, challenged him as to why his songs didn't employ the acerbic word-play of his books In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.
Winn (2008), p. 327	One last bit of promotion before the tour, as John appeared live on the British TV show Tonight to discuss A Spaniard in the Works. He had appeared on this series a year earlier when his first book was published, and at the time, presenter Kenneth Allsop had encouraged John to employ some of the imagination he used in writing poems when writing song lyrics. Thus John was more than happy to chat with Allsop once again, having composed weightier songs such as "I'm a Loser," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," and "Help!" in the interim.
Turner (2016), p. 49	An important artistic transition had taken place during the previous year [1965]. After John published A Spaniard in the Works, he had been interviewed for BBC TV by reporter Kenneth Allsop. On camera Allsop asked him, "When you write a song for the group, is your approach completely different [from the way you write your books] or do you look on Beatle lyrics as really another form of nonsense rhyming?" According to Allsop's biographer Mark Andresen, the interviewer pushed the question further with John at the bar of the BBC studio after the show. "He suggested that ... he could afford a broader and more ambiguous range in his song lyrics than those on teenage love currently in vogue."

References

Winn has an entry for the 18 June 1965 appearance on Tonight but nothing for the one on 23 March 1964, probably because the tape no longer survives. Tkbrett (✉) 12:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the situation's confusing. There are enough sources (eg, Turner, MacDonald) to support the statement that Allsop's comments around the time of Spaniard's publication influenced Lennon's songwriting on Rubber Soul. Lennon did say the "spark" for "In My Life" came from Allsop's 1964 interview, though ... Must admit, I assumed he must've been mistaken about which book of his it was (just as he and Harrison would often get confused about which song was on which Beatles album). We have to reflect what the source gives, of course, so if it's Everett p 319, In His Own Write should be mentioned, not Spaniard.

John Winn's comments appear to contradict Turner and MacDonald's entirely (especially Turner's). But then Winn is primarily reporting on audio and film footage circulating among collectors, perhaps this four-minute clip, where there's an interesting discussion but no "rebuke" towards Lennon. Which doesn't necessarily mean Allsop did not say anything along those lines to Lennon in 1965 (just that the available footage shows no signs of it).

I'd need to really put my Rubber Soul hat back on. As far as this article goes, it's about how simply we can make the point, whereas the "In My Life" article would be more concerned about discrepancies across the sources. With that in mind, I concede I probably went for the most convenient version of events: under Background, we're focusing on aspects that inspired the band and just show where they're at, so to speak, in mid/late 1965 (meaning, Oh, that other version just complicates things ... Move along, move along.) This is the sort of thing that's so exhausting about Beatles album articles, I've found. It's important to use a wide range of sources, because they're so widely written about, but then the more you do that, the more you find almost every single detail might merit some sort of aside or minor debate. JG66 (talk) 06:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I've noticed Winn sometimes gets minor details wrong (like dates and such), but the fact that Doggett pegs it as In His Own Write struck me, since I know Doggett is usually pretty good with his research methodology (per Torkelson Weber). While Turner is generally a good secondary source, for the Allsop stuff he cites Mark Andresen's 2005 book Field of Vision: The Broadcast Life of Kenneth Allsop, which as far as I can tell is a self-published source (Trafford Publishing, according to Turner 2005, p. 440). It's definitely easy to get lost in the details on a lot of these issues, but I do find this one particularly important since it's at the root of something as important as John's move to deeper songwriting. You're probably right that this ought to be moved over to "In My Life", an article that's in desperate need of expansion ... Maybe I'll work on it next. I've got about thirty song articles I want to expand, and the hardest part seems to be picking which one is next. I'm assuming you'll have your hands full with updating many of the ATMP related articles, given all that great stuff that came with the new release. Tkbrett (✉) 13:47, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Section merge proposition

Hey. Maybe the release and commercial performance sections can be merged somehow? They seem to go hand-in-hand to begin with (Marketing --> sales), but the thing that stuck out to me was how tepid the performance prose reads; just an onslaught of figures and such that could be accentuated with interspersing or complementary commentary that's located in the release section. Or the commentary could be allocated to the impact section - a "popular impact" subsection. Piotr Jr. (talk) 22:31, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I think the sections are very different in focus and need to be kept separate. It's inevitable that a performance section will have lots of figures; chart performance is an objective measurement and requires those details. The release section goes well beyond those figures and gives us lots of details about what was going on with the band at the time and the reaction of others' to the album. Those two things don't need to be mixed together. It would weaken what's presented in each section. Keep them separate. Sundayclose (talk) 01:16, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

The release section doesn't have a lot of focus, as it takes information about pressing numbers, marketing tactics, and young-audience responses, and subsumes them under the vague banner of "release". (How exactly is "commercial performance" any less relevant to "release" under these standards?). If nothing else, it's poorly titled, and the impact on listeners would logically be sequenced to follow the album being bought, no? You also have reactions and immediate impact, but you have similar things in the influence section. What exactly is the difference there? Sgt. Pepper does a good job of subsuming all of these interelated items into a "release" section that allocates marketing strategies, public reaction, and sales. I think that would be a good template to follow. It would also make sense, since many of the same sources seem to be used, so the chronicling and method of information would naturally be the same. And if it worked at a featured article like that one, it would likely work here. Piotr Jr. (talk) 02:20, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Sundayclose on this. Aside from anything, it's the sheer length of Release and Commercial performance that demands they be separate sections. I think there is a logical thread to Release – in the main, it's dealing with the moment the album dropped and the public's reaction. Commercial performance focuses on an aspect that's a clear departure from this, just as Critical reception does.

I rewrote most of the Pepper FA too, as it happens. I think what works there works there, and it needn't dictate how things are handled here. The only thing I can see with Release is that perhaps Frontani's "By the time of the release of the album Rubber Soul in 1965, each new record was viewed as a progression in the band's artistic development ..." point could move down to Cultural legitimisation of pop music, and perhaps we could lose Christgau's "Rubber Soul smashed a lot of alienation ..." I'd rather not, but doing so would ensure that those paragraphs 2 and 3 under Release focus solely on the teenybopper-fan issue – ie, the type of fan who would have seen the Beatles on their December 1965 UK tour and would have been disappointed by the lack of a 1965–66 Christmas Show season. Both of those points are mentioned in para 1, and the quote boxes are relevant to this idea of the band outgrowing their fans' safe image of them. JG66 (talk) 02:57, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

There's really nothing in the first paragraph to make it clear that is the issue which is expanded on with the next paragraphs, which then offer conflicting ideas from different writers: "increased their bond with fans", to "unsettling [most American teens]". Theoretically, since the album's demand was based on their previous work and image up to that point, the sales debut would have preceded the impact those aforementioned paragraphs elaborate on. Piotr Jr. (talk) 05:37, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I mean, sure, you can keep it the way it is now. But there's just so much reflective text spanning from the release to the actual point of it selling, that it casts a daunting read to wade through by the time you get there. It just comes off as a block of text that, given its placement, I'd avoid. It's interesting to see an event happen or a feat accomplished, and then have it followed by some critical commentary. But those two paragraphs are all commentary. On something that hasn't been made possible yet because the purchase of the album hasn't been accounted yet. Piotr Jr. (talk) 05:42, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

My instinct as a reader was, what is this pretentious fluff? All this importance attached to an album which I don't even know yet how it's actually performed with consumers. When it hasn't been established yet by the prose. We're just left to assume it's been successful because they're the Beatles. Right? Piotr Jr. (talk) 06:04, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I know as an editor, it's easy to rest on all the work we've already put in and accustom to our vision that's been molded by the time and toll spent. But step outside of that, and you'll see that this isn't the best way to present the narrative here. Even Costello's quote is testimony to the fact that you're leading with a later development: the sales happened first; the album's connection with fans grew over time. Piotr Jr. (talk) 06:10, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Band dynamics

Norman Smith’s statements about Paul being critical of George’s guitar playing and John and Paul clashing should be deleted altogether (none of The Beatles themselves ever verified or corroborated his unconvincing claims).

The insinuation that Paul insisted that the others adhere to his arrangements that he decided in advance not to mention his alleged condescending attitudes towards George and Ringo should also be removed in case it’s potentially defamatory.

Just because these things are stated, it doesn’t make them true. 14.202.173.22 (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

This information is all attributed as coming directly from Norman Smith, an attendee of all of the sessions, so it seems an especially valuable addition. Tkbrett (✉) 11:18, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

What he said should be taken with a grain of salt, because memories are not always 100% correct.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the journalist put words into his mouth to sell stories. 14.202.173.22 (talk) 11:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)