page_title: Rubber Soul
section_title: Release
hierarchical_section_title: Rubber Soul / Release
caption_attribution_description: English: Viewed across Lime Street. Grade II listed theatre built 1920s for Moss Empires. Loosely neo-classical style with innovations in audience seating arrangement.
context_page_description: Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 3 December 1965 in the United Kingdom, on EMI's Parlophone label, accompanied by the non-album double A-side single "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out". The original North American version of the album, issued by Capitol Records, contained ten of the fourteen songs and two tracks withheld from the band's Help! album. Rubber Soul met with a highly favourable critical response and topped sales charts in Britain and the United States for several weeks.
  The recording sessions took place in London over a four-week period beginning in October 1965. For the first time in their career, the band were able to record an album free of concert, radio or film commitments. Often referred to as a folk rock album, particularly in its Capitol configuration, Rubber Soul incorporates a mix of pop, soul and folk musical styles. The title derives from the colloquialism "plastic soul" and was the Beatles' way of acknowledging their lack of authenticity compared to the African-American soul artists they admired. After A Hard Day's Night in 1964, it was the second Beatles LP to contain only original material.
context_section_description: Rubber Soul was issued on EMI's Parlophone label on 3 December 1965. The "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out" single was also released that day and was the first example of a double A-side single in Britain. EMI announced that it had pressed 750,000 copies of the LP to cater to local demand. Its advance orders of 500,000 almost equalled the total sales for the new single and were announced by the Daily Mirror's show business reporter as marking a new record for pre-release orders for an LP. On the day of the album's release, the Beatles performed at the Odeon Cinema in Glasgow, marking the start of what would be their final UK tour. Weary of Beatlemania, the group had conceded to do a short tour, although they refused to reprise their Christmas Show from 1963–64 and 1964–65. The band performed both sides of the single throughout the tour, but only "If I Needed Someone" and "Nowhere Man" from the new album. In the United States, Rubber Soul was their tenth album and their first to consist entirely of original songs. The release took place there on 6 December.
  According to author Michael Frontani, writing in his book The Beatles: Image and the Media: "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 and as an expansion of the parameters of popular music, and the [group's] image reflected and promoted notions of the Beatles' artistry and importance." The band's softer musical approach on the album and their use of nostalgic imagery increased their bond with their fans. In her study of the Beatles' contemporary audience, sociologist Candy Leonard says that, although some young listeners were challenged by the band's new direction, "With Rubber Soul, the Beatles came to occupy a role in fans' lives and a place in their psyches that was different from any previous fan–performer relationship." Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, who was an eleven-year-old fan at the time, later recalled his initial reaction to the album: "'I don't like this, I think they've lost their minds' … I didn't understand a word, I didn't think it was any good, and then six weeks later you couldn't live without the record. And that's good – that's when you trust the people who make music to take you somewhere you haven't been before."
  According to music critic Robert Christgau, the album had a far-reaching emotional resonance with audiences: "Rubber Soul smashed a lot of alienation. Without reneging on the group's mass cult appeal, it reached into private lives and made hundreds of thousands of secretly lonely people feel as if someone out there shared their brightest insights and most depressing discoveries." Writing in 2015, historian Marc Myers commented: "For most American teens, the arrival of the Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' ... was unsettling. Instead of cheerleading for love, the album's songs held cryptic messages about thinking for yourself, the hypnotic power of women, something called 'getting high' and bedding down with the opposite sex. Clearly, growing up wasn't going to be easy."
caption: The Beatles performed at the Liverpool Empire during their UK tour in support of Rubber Soul. The shows there marked the group's final concerts in their hometown.[199]
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