Pete Gooch
19 de marzo de 2009
Maturity & Mastery - the Absolute Center of the 1960s
Appearing at the end of 1965, Rubber Soul was a beautiful, gleaming revelation. After three years of continually expanding, ground-breaking pop/rock music, the Beatles had suddenly reached a position of unquestionable sophistication and maturity. From this moment on, no one could truly seriously question the group's talent, integrity or power to make good on what seemed the endless promise of their phenomenal mass success. Here was a masterpiece, beyond question, and it gave occasion for every loyalist to turn to the still-doubting holdouts and confidently say, "I told you so."Of course, virtually all of the Beatles' music up until this point was more than perfectly valid as an aesthetic/cultural expression of the highest order. Still, this was something different. The songs on Rubber Soul were more grown up, more refined and reached deeper into the heart of both what the lyrics expressed and the music implied. It was also their most beautiful-sounding record ever, with detailed textural nuances and subtle, yet exciting, arrangements. No group had ever sounded this good, this cohesive. Paul McCartney's extraordinary inventive, yet non-intrusive bass playing and Ringo Starr's tasteful, intelligent drum patterns laid a solid foundation for McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison to weave their most exquisite and heart-felt tapestries of song craft yet.It's not as though this developed in a vacuum, however. The musical revolution that the Beatles had inaugurated had by now grown into a fertile, bubbling sea of creative activity. Most artists fell well short, but extraordinary efforts by the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Kinks, for example - had kept plenty of pressure on the group to stay on top, or rather just ahead of the pack.The one artist that challenged them, however, for complete artistic domination was Bob Dylan. The Beatles had known about Dylan since 1963, but as great a songwriter as the young man was, he posed no real threat to the Beatles' firmly established position as the biggest act on the planet. That was simply because Dylan was a folk singer, and the Beatles were rock. But in the course of 1965, the cocky American genius casually plugged in an electric guitar, and on two increasingly powerhouse albums, completely rewrote all the rules. Next to electric Dylan, the Beatles suddenly seemed to some to look old fashioned, quaint - perhaps even a little silly.Ingeniously, and practically, the Beatles responded by pulling out the lyrical and attitudinal perspectives of Dylan's work just enough to apply it intelligently to their own unique style of music. The result - this album - was one of the great "fusions" in the history of music. The Beatles remained a pop/rock band - indeed, remained the Beatles - but with a new focus and clarity of vision that matured not only themselves, but their audience, literally overnight.If the Beatles weren't capable of doing out-doing Dylan, the music on Rubber Soul was something that even Dylan couldn't touch - heart-rending, perfectly pop-crafted art that revealed the inner sentiments of their creators directly in a way to which their audience could understand and feel. It was a mind-blowing combination of technical perfection and vulnerable honesty that kicked up the stakes in mid-sixties rock yet another notch. And god, it sounded beautiful.The same day that Rubber Soul came out, the Beatles also released a two-sided hit single. One can only imagine if the group had decided to jettison the two weakest songs on the album and replace them with "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper," just how much MORE impact it would have had. How much perfection can one handle, anyway?Ver másVer menos
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