Pet_Sounds

Thanks for the recs, mythsofmetal, Briks, and Lisna. I'll check 'em out.

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Pet_Sounds

Asked a girl what she wanted to be
She said, "Baby, can't you see
I want to be famous, a star on the screen
But you can do something in between….



The Beatles - Rubber Soul

It's difficult to write a review of an album you already know the lyrics of by heart. That's how much I listened to this album about a year ago, when I was first getting into the Beatles. However, it never struck me as "great". Merely solid. There's not a song I dislike on it, which is more than I can say of almost any Beatles album, but there really are only two tracks I love - fewer than any other post-Help! album. I'm doing my best to look at Rubber Soul with fresh eyes, but this review will likely be short. (Large cheer!)*

The album opens with Drive My Car, a sing-along rocker that sounds very much like their early work musically. However, the lyrics are witty and somewhat risque at times, and the sound has a certain… edge to it. With this song and the album's accompanying single, Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out, they were making a statement which is apparent from even the album cover. This is different.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) is next. It was the first Beatles song I ever fell in love with, and possesses the most gorgeous melody John Lennon ever wrote. George Harrison's subtle sitar work throughout augments the lyrics about a failed love affair, which ends in the narrator sleeping in the bath (without the girl) and possibly burning down her apartment. All in just over two minutes.

Paul follows it up with You Won't See Me, which is a typical McCartney song - melodic, smooth, and cheerful, despite being about failed romance. Honestly, I think John would have sung this better, perhaps giving it an edge.

The first Beatles original written about a subject other than love is next in Nowhere Man. It's a nice little tune and has ethereal harmonies, but to me, the guitar playing sounds sloppy. Knowing absolutely nothing about guitar, I can't say whether this is true or not, but it's enough to lower it from very good to average for me.

Think For Yourself is George's first song on the album. This is one of my favourites on the album and one of his most underrated, if you ask me. It's not obviously about love, but it could certainly be taken as such.

The Word feels like a rough version of "All You Need Is Love", with its hippy lyrics.It really doesn't do anything for me. I don't skip it, but I find it bland, except for the instrumentation, which is quite funky.

Paul returns to the scene with Michelle, which won a Grammy. God knows why. I can't say it's anything special. Still a decent track though, and it has neat guitar lines.

Next up, Ringo makes his first (and only) appearance as lead vocalist on the album with What Goes On. The writing credit reads Lennon-McCartney-Starkey! Despite my best efforts not to like it, I find it impossible not to tap my foot.

Girl is a song that has grown on me over time. There was a time when I hated Lennon's sharp intake of breath in the chorus. Now I enjoy every second of it. I don't love this track per se, but it's definitely one of the best on the album.

I'm Looking Through You is very similar to "You Won't See Me". Paul seems to have two types of songs: cheerful, like this one, and sad, like "The Long and Winding Road. I think that if this song was slowed down and sung with Lennon's agony, it would have been a classic. As it is, this is the only track on the album I'd consider skipping. But I haven't.

Next is a song I absolutely adore: In My Life, in which John Lennon shows his sentimental side in a bittersweet love song. It's got a subtly odd drum part from Ringo, a melodic lead guitar hook, perfect harmonies, and a double-speed Baroque piano solo from George Martin. This tune is the centrepiece of the album for me.

Wait is next. It's a solid track with catchy hooks and crisp harmonies. The lyrics are nothing special, but it's worth noting that it was written during the Help! sessions earlier in the year.

George gets another track in If I Needed Someone, a pretty piece of filler with some lyrical glitches such as, "Hang your number on my wall and maybe you will get a call from me, if I needed someone." It's a throwaway to be honest, but still worth listening to for the harmonies and guitar.

The album ends with Run For Your Life, a song which Lennon regrettd writing. The lyrics are very un-Beatley - the narrator threatens to kill his girl if she cheats - but it's different enough to have an appeal. John's vocal is excellent. Choosing this track as the closer was obviously a statement.

If Revolver was "the end of the beginning", then Rubber Soul was the beginning of the end of the beginning. It was a bridge between eras for the Beatles, the only album where all the lyrics have a deeper meaning than "yeah yeah yeah" but still make sense. Overall, it's a solid album with some filler, but no bad songs, and manages to be more than the sum of its parts. I'll give it a 3.5/5.



*Help! I'm turning into Trollheart!

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Unknown Soldier

You really should check out the Byrds discography, one of the richest in terms of material from that period, even though I don't really like country as some of their later stuff is.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Pet_Sounds

I've actually got Fifth Dimension scheduled for my next review. Their country stuff is quite good, in my opinion, though it doesn't stand up to their earlier work.

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Josef K

Yeah, I think the first six Byrds albums are all quite good, and three of them are great. I'm surprised you haven't listened to Pentangle before, but if you're into them, Fairport Convention are sort of similar and also really good (like Pentangle, they're well-known, but I don't know what you have and haven't heard).

Pet_Sounds

Prior to you and Lisna mentioning Pentangle and Fairport Convention, I'd never heard of either! I think it's because I'm Canadian - neither band seems to have broken through up here back in the day. Plus, we have a weird rule about one in four songs played on the radio having to be Canadian, which results in a lot of Canadian bands being famous within Canada and nowhere else, and bands from other countries not making it at all. For example, I started a thread on BNL recently that got no replies at all.

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Pet_Sounds

Once upon a time, you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you…

What is there to say about this song that hasn't already been said? It was named the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine and is the most famous song by one of America's greatest songwriters. "Like a Rolling Stone" is an epic - Bob Dylan's "Piano Man" or "Stairway to Heaven".

It's overrated. I like the song, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't call it Dylan's masterpiece. The instrumentation is excellent, and the lyrics good, with the exception of a couple lines about Siamese cats. I love Bob Dylan's music, but most of the time, I prefer covers of his songs, because I don't have to hear him sing. His voice gets on my nerves more than usual in this song. It's one reason why Highway 61 Revisited is not a frequent listen. Two discs of that voice, no matter how good the lyrics are, is just too much. But back on topic.

"Like a Rolling Stone" a good song with a clever rhyme scheme and biting lyrics. But by the last chorus, it's over. I'm not wanting it to continue. Despite all that, I still like it enough to give it a 3.5/5.

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Pet_Sounds

Coming soon…

Metal Month II has arrived. As you probably already know, I'm not a fan of hard rock or metal in general. In fact, I don't actively listen to anything harder than The Who. That's about to change. I'm going to interrupt my beautiful flow of '60s folk rock for the sake of trying folk metal. In fact, metalhead Briks has even recommended an album: the Brazilian Celtic metal band Tuatha de Danann's Trova di Danu. So watch this space!

What in creation ever motivated me to do this?

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Isbjørn

No worries, that Tuatha de Danann album is really soft and accessible for folk metal. You should check out Danzig's self-titled debut, too. It's not folk metal, but a really neat kind of blues metal sung by top-notch rock and roll vocalist Glenn "Evil Elvis" Danzig.

__________________

Pet_Sounds

This was a huge leap for me. Before listening to this, I hadn't heard any metal, unless you count Rush or Led Zeppelin. And I must say, I enjoyed it. Trova di Danu is a Celtic metal album, apparently, and I could certainly hear the Celtic influences. The flute playing was excellent and definitely my favourite thing about the album. It's an instrument that could be used a lot more with rock instrumentation. I was pleasantly surprised by the vocal harmonies, too, which I wasn't expecting. Overall, I enjoyed it except for the screaming. I don't know enough about metal to give Trova di Danu a drawn-out review, but because I will likely listen to it again at some point in the future when I'm feeling particularly angry, and recommend it to anyone interested in exploring folk metal, it gets a 6/10.

__________________
Everybody's dying just to get the disease