why are Rubber Soul and Revolver considered 'twin' albums

I have heard this sort of terminology being used by fans, music critics, and the Beatles themselves. That somehow these albums are strongly related to the extent that Rubber Soul is part one and Revolver is part two or that they can even be considered an unofficial double album.

Frankly, I don't see it. There is nothing conceptually or musically similar about the two albums at all. Rubber Soul is primarily an accoustic based sophisticated pop album while Revolver is an electric guitar based experimental album.

In fact I actually see Help as being much closer in execution and concept to Rubber Soul. I've Just Seen A Face and You've Got to Hide Your Love Away would sound right at home on Rubber Soul while You Wont See Me and I'm Looking Through You would fit in just fine on Help.

The same can't be said with Revolver and Rubber Soul. None of the songs are interchangeable at all. There are just two such different sounding albums. Yellow Submarine or Taxman on Rubber Soul? Wouldn't work. Nowhere Man and Girl on Revolver? Nope.

When all is said and done I just don't buy that these albums are similar. They both stand on their own as individual works of art and are as dissimilar as the White Album and Abbey Road.

I don't really see any link. Only thing I can think of is that they were recorded next to each other and maybe the band saw it as a linked progression.

well I can understand the phrase....I still see HELP as their 'teeny-bopper' phase, whereas Sgt.Pepper and beyond could be seen as their take it or leave it (with the exception of Abbey Road which is a masterpiece).....but just a random thought....from my nonmusical/judgemental/analytical mind :)

I guess I'm the odd 'Linker out because I've always thought of them as Part One and Part Two! I think *Rubber Soul* was the Beatles way of "testing the experimental waters," if you will, musically (the sitar solo on *Norwegian Wood*), lyrically (". . .sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble" or "tit tit tit"), and even thematically (*The Word* is the first song that really discusses social consciousness and *Run For Your Life* is about wife beating, for goodness sakes). This album is much more mature than *Help!* or any of the ones that came before it, the bridge between mop-top Beatles and psychedelic Beatles. It was and is edgy and progressive. *Revolver* is the foudation laid down in *Rubber Soul* taken to the next level.

Originally Posted by matt5

I have heard this sort of terminology being used by fans, music critics, and the Beatles themselves. That somehow these albums are strongly related to the extent that Rubber Soul is part one and Revolver is part two or that they can even be considered an unofficial double album.

Frankly, I don't see it. There is nothing conceptually or musically similar about the two albums at all. Rubber Soul is primarily an accoustic based sophisticated pop album while Revolver is an electric guitar based experimental album.

In fact I actually see Help as being much closer in execution and concept to Rubber Soul. I've Just Seen A Face and You've Got to Hide Your Love Away would sound right at home on Rubber Soul while You Wont See Me and I'm Looking Through You would fit in just fine on Help.

The same can't be said with Revolver and Rubber Soul. None of the songs are interchangeable at all. There are just two such different sounding albums. Yellow Submarine or Taxman on Rubber Soul? Wouldn't work. Nowhere Man and Girl on Revolver? Nope.

When all is said and done I just don't buy that these albums are similar. They both stand on their own as individual works of art and are as dissimilar as the White Album and Abbey Road.

I don't think that the "twins" idea is ever applied to the sound of the albums - they definitely don't sound like each other.
What they do have in common is that they are both clearly albums in which The Beatles are beginning to develop the use of the studio as an instrument in itself as opposed to an environment in which a good recording of live material could be realised.
This is highly significant because they were still ostensibly a touring band at the time of making those albums.

Rubber Soul marked the point where they would make the recorded version without hindering themselves with the obligation that they would be able to reproduce it in subsequent live performance.

Although it would have been technically possible to deliver decent performances of some of the songs (such as Drive My Car or Dr. Robert) in the context of a rock and roll stadium gig, it's clear that the overwhelming majority of the tracks on both of these LPs are not capable of creating the kind of excitement in a live show that the songs from the Help! album would have done.

It's easy to imagine a live performance of Ticket To Ride, Help!, Another Girl, You're Going To Lose That Girl, The Night Before or Dizzy Miss Lizzie having far more energy than the recorded versions (Not to mention I'm Down, which also dates from the Help! period.)

By contrast, footage of our heroes struggling to perform If I Needed Someone in Japan clearly shows that the overlap between new recordings and live repertoire was already disappearing.
Moreover, If I Needed Someone is probably one of the more practically feasible tracks that they could have attempted -- what chance was there of hearing anything other than an inferior take of In My Life, Girl or Norwegian Wood in concert (far less Tomorrow Never Knows or Love You To)?

These two albums each presented fourteen original songs, all of which were fairly conventional in structure and were of standard pop song length.
As songs, they represented superlative examples of pop music as an art form (i.e. leaving aside for the moment the production and instrumentation aspects of the albums).

At this point, the bar had also been substantially raised for the standard of lyrical content that they would henceforth aspire to.

There were a few exceptions (There's A Place, I'm A Loser, Help!, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away...) to the generally lightweight subject matter and its expression in albums up to Help!
Rubber Soul represents the moment from which the bulk of their lyrical efforts would in themselves be important, meaningful and of considerable interest.

Thereafter, the boy-girl relationship song would be relatively rare and even when it did surface, it would usually be in the context of a far more complex consideration of deeper issues (Norwegian Wood, For No One, Girl, We Can Work It Out). But for the most part, Beatles songs would now examine other issues such as religion, philosophy, society, childhood, spirituality, the nature of consciousness and so on. They had outgrown juvenile concerns, hence Dylan's astute observation; "I get it. You don't want to be cute anymore."

Regarding the original poster's point that some of the songs on Help! would have fitted nicely onto Rubber Soul whereas none of the Revolver songs are interchangeable with its predecessor, I don't wholly agree.
Yes, if it had been You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, rather than Wait which had been held over from the Help! recordings, it would have strengthened the Rubber Soul set. (And Run For Your Life definitely doesn't belong on RS. It sticks out as if it was a throwaway single B-side or a Help! outtake that just wasn't good enough for inclusion in that album.)

But aren't there songs on Rubber Soul and Revolver which are just as interchangeable?
Would I Want To Tell You have been out of place if it had been swapped with If I Needed Someone?
Michelle for Here, There And Everywhere?
For No One as opposed to In My Life?

To put it another way, if the Beatles hadn't recorded Rubber Soul when they did and had instead reported to George Martin with a collection of thirty songs for consideration (including Paperback Writer, Rain, Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out, I am absolutely certain that a resulting album would have contained a fairly balanced mix of songs from both albums. The recorded versions of some of them might have sounded different from the ones we know, but I very much doubt if they'd have been inferior.

More than likely, what they would have actually done is to create an absolutely sensational double album which would still stand as the greatest collection of original songs ever released as a new record.

To me, they fit together perfectly as the period that separates the adolescent-oriented albums up to Help! from the full-blown psychedelia that followed.
They're also the only two mature albums in which the band feels as if it's collectively pulling together as a unit rather than being sidemen for each other's projects.

Originally Posted by matt5

I have heard this sort of terminology being used by fans, music critics, and the Beatles themselves. That somehow these albums are strongly related to the extent that Rubber Soul is part one and Revolver is part two or that they can even be considered an unofficial double album.

Frankly, I don't see it. There is nothing conceptually or musically similar about the two albums at all. Rubber Soul is primarily an accoustic based sophisticated pop album while Revolver is an electric guitar based experimental album.

In fact I actually see Help as being much closer in execution and concept to Rubber Soul. I've Just Seen A Face and You've Got to Hide Your Love Away would sound right at home on Rubber Soul while You Wont See Me and I'm Looking Through You would fit in just fine on Help.

The same can't be said with Revolver and Rubber Soul. None of the songs are interchangeable at all. There are just two such different sounding albums. Yellow Submarine or Taxman on Rubber Soul? Wouldn't work. Nowhere Man and Girl on Revolver? Nope.

When all is said and done I just don't buy that these albums are similar. They both stand on their own as individual works of art and are as dissimilar as the White Album and Abbey Road.

George Harrison viewed Rubber Soul and Revolver as volume 1 and 2. It's pretty experimental with songs like "Think For Yourself" using lead fuzz bass and then layering it with regular bass behind it. "Nowhere Man" has that ultra heavy treble guitar sound recorded through the studio faders. I think the Beatles were taking steps towards psychedelia like the proto-hippie "The Word" and the use of sitar on "Norwegian Wood" which could be honestly be an early psychedelic folk song. But this was 1965 and psychedelia had not really started yet.

You hear exotic elements in "Girl" and "Michelle" and "If I Needed Someone" is influenced by Indian music. One thing many don't realize is the Beatles on Rubber Soul were incorporating country elements in their music way before the so-called country rock thing on "What Goes On" and "Run For Your Life".

Revolver with "Rain" is another matter Harrison was writing sitar based songs like "Love You To", backward guitar "I'm Only Sleeping" or add tamboura on "Tomorrow Never Knows". The loops of "Tomorrow Never Knows" were only in common use by the likes of avant-garde composers like John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and a few others before Revolver, but afterwards, the tape loop became one of the common sounds heard when bands wanted to create spacy, psychedelic weird sounds…at least until the Moog synthesizer came around a few years later.

They went beyond what was Rock and Roll to something else. Revolver offers classical ("Eleanor Rigby"), Indian ("Love You To"), funk ("Taxman"), soul/Motown ("Got To Get You Into My Life"), baroque ("For No One"), and psychedelic/electronica ("Tomorrow Never Knows"). The way the Beatles incorporated these other musical styles into their brilliant songwriting would permanently affect what could and could not be considered rock and roll. A song like "Eleanor Rigby" wasn't something you heard on what could be called a rock and roll album before Revolver, but from that point onwards, all kinds of rock bands, particularly all the upcoming prog-rock bands, would be using full orchestras to color their music. The full-blown raga sounds of "Love You To" had never touched a slab of rock and roll vinyl before Revolver, but they could be found on more psychedelic albums in the following years.

Yeah... George comments, on The Anthology, that he saw the two albums as being more or less "linked".

I personally don't see it. But, what I DO recognize in both albums is that they both represent definite milestones, respectively:

"Rubber Soul" marked a shift in their development as song writers, while "Revolver" marked a definite shift in their development as recording artists.

Tomorrow Never Knows and Run For Your Life... now there's an interesting combination. Yes i believe that the albums have a kind of link between them, if nothing else but the ideas that Revolver is a bit too "experimental" and Rubber Soul is a bit too folk rock. Both are very gear albums.

To me, it could be much more convincingly argued that Help and Rubber Soul are "companion pieces".

I think the reason some might see a relationship between Rubber Soul and Revolver (and we could extend this to Sgt. Pepper and call them a "trilogy", I think) is because each album represents an equally impressive artistic breakthrough for the band.

It's interesting how people see things differently, Rev.

To me, Help! is the weakest Beatles album of all and Beatles For Sale is not far behind it. Those two albums, and especially Help, sound to me like the work of a band that is just about exhausted. I always think of those LPs as twins!

It's as if they knew that they'd gone just about as far as they can within the standard pop format but they had to churn out their quota regardless of whether how they felt about it.
They're almost rewriting the same song for most of Help!'s first side.
It's basically hack work rather than artistic creativity.

That's not to say that there aren't any good songs on it. Of course there are.
But as a whole, the album sounds directionless and disjointed.
The very fact that they're resorting to fairly lacklustre cover versions to make up the numbers is an indication that the well is running dry.

In particular, Dizzy Miss Lizzie brings nothing new to their development. Unlike earlier, more passionate and inspired covers such as Twist And Shout, Money, Long Tall Sally, Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey, poor old Lizzie is merely workmanlike and strained.
It's like a Friday afternoon piece of work, half-heartedly going through the motions while watching the clock and waiting for work to end.

Rubber Soul, on the other hand, is like a fresh start. There's a renewed vigour in most of the tracks and even when the subject matter is downbeat, as in Nowhere Man or Girl, the creative energy sparkles with brilliance and self-confidence.
Where Help! and BFS sound to me like contractual obligation albums, I get a feeling that the Beatles were straining at the leash to make Rubber Soul because they were full of ideas and their spark had returned. And to me, it sounds like a new beginning while Help! sounds like the end of the road.

But there we are - perceptions differ according to the ear of the beholder.

As has been mentioned, George Harrison often paired these two albums as being "Volume One" and "Volume Two", as he did in ANTHOLOGY. And I think it's because he had such fond recollections of both albums. In an interview in "Guitar World" magazine in the 1990s, George said this was when he really got into the music -- not just his own song writing and guitar playing, but with everything the Beatles did as a band, including the songs written by John & Paul. I always find it interesting the way some writers, including Philip Norman in "SHOUT" describe George as being absolutely miserable during this period. Geoff Emerick seemed to have similar recollections, saying George actually wanted to quit during the "REVOLVER" sessions, but stuck around out of loyalty. This is in direct opposition to George's own words on that period. He did, indeed, admit to hating TOURING and live performances during that time -- the mania had overwhelmed him. But he seemed to be very happy in the studio, from everything he said afterward. I think it was during 1967 and the SGT PEPPER years that George really backed away from what the Beatles were doing -- his love of Indian music seemed to overshadow everything else for him at the time.

As for the supposed similarities of these two albums, I agree with what most of you have said. I don't see them as all that similiar myself, but they both are excellent and ground-breaking albums. RUBBER SOUL was when the lyrics became deeper and the Beatles experimented with new sounds -- the sitar on "Norwegian Wood", the bouzouki on "Girl" and the fuzz bass on "Think For Yourself". It was almost folk-rock. REVOLVER, on the other hand, was a much harder-edged rock album, with very prominent guitar riffs ("Taxman", "Bird Can Sing", "She Said She Said"), classical sounding backings ("Eleanor Rigby", "For No One"), soul-tinged brass sections ("Got to Get You Into My Life") -- and of course the unique "Tomorrow Never Knows". REVOLVER was also the most democratically-divided album (5 John songs, 5 Paul songs, 3 George songs --- and "Yellow Submarine"). The band was really at its peak on this set.

Before I'd ever seen the Anthology series or knew about George's feelings, I already felt the same. These two albums could be Volumes 1 & 2 of a double album. I can't explain the details of why, I just felt it on the inside.

A key point there, JC, is the perception that they were at their artistic peak as a unified group. There's a feeling that everybody is committed to making each others' songs as good as they can possibly be. For example, John is clearly having fun in the making of Yellow Submarine and he is fully committed to his duty on backing vocals in Here, There And Everywhere. Similarly, Paul invested a huge amount of creativity into the making of Tomorrow Never Knows and his scorching guitar solo in Taxman is one of the finest guitar breaks in the entire Beatles oeuvre. George's guitar playing throughout the album is immaculate and imaginative. Ringo is faultless, even when he sings! This is a great ensemble at its very best.
Yet, oddly, two of the songs (Love You To and Eleanor Rigby) are solo vocal performances by George and Paul with session players providing the instrumental backing. Nonetheless, despite its dazzling variety and eclecticism, Revolver is an album which is seamlessly unified. No band has ever created an album of such diversity and still stamped every track with its own distinctive style or sounded so at home in disparate genres.

Originally Posted by JonnyLytnin

Before I'd ever seen the Anthology series or knew about George's feelings, I already felt the same. These two albums could be Volumes 1 & 2 of a double album. I can't explain the details of why, I just felt it on the inside.

Me too!
It may also be something to do with the cover art on the back of the sleeve.
The layout of the tracklisting of the fourteen songs (and the fact that they're all Lennon/McCartney or Harrison) has a superficial similarity that strengthens the connection between them.
But I always felt a musical connection between the two sets above and beyond any other pair of Beatles albums.

agree with everything said, except help being so bad. john had the lyric breakthrough with the title song, using more syllables, not to mention honesty of it, etc. ticket to ride has heavy drums for its time. yesterday is on...same with bfs...dick said it's johns 1st major work. no reply
im a looser, lyrics
if nothing, eight days has the intro and outro innovation. i see it as the first depparture from ahdn. and the fact they were tired has to be taken into consideration. i think it all started thee, and it's no coincidence it's the 1st album after they met dylan.

think martin said with rubber soul album became the 'thing', instead of song. thats the separation. and i thnik theyre called twins, cause pepper myth is so big. it's actually triples. as john said, 'one thing's for sure, the next album is gonna be very differnt' , reffering to revolver. so we have this- all 3 albums are entities, progressive, but maybe that's it. nothing else in common.

The two albums sort of mirror each other, carrying significant innovative progressions from their earlier work. Rubber Soul signifying 'flexibility' and Revolver being the big 'evolver.'

Both back-to-back breakthrough releases that represented both a transitioning band and a transitioning period of time. They were merely the knock and turning of the doorknob while Sgt. Pepper was the one to kick the door down completely. They were both not quite Help! and not quite Sgt. Pepper. Definitely intermediate while Help! was only 2/5 of the way there.

Originally Posted by Serena

The two albums sort of mirror each other, carrying significant innovative progressions from their earlier work. Rubber Soul signifying 'flexibility' and Revolver being the big 'evolver.'

Both back-to-back breakthrough releases that represented both a transitioning band and a transitioning period of time. They were merely the knock and turning of the doorknob while Sgt. Pepper was the one to kick the door down completely. They were both not quite Help! and not quite Sgt. Pepper. Definitely intermediate while Help! was only 2/5 of the way there.

Very well said! You summed it up very nicely. I think of Rubber Soul and Revolver both as transition albums, moving from the early "moptop Beatle" period towards a psychedelic sound and era. Rubbery Soul trialed a few new sounds, Revolver some more.... and then they burst out with Sgt. Pepper.

I can kinda see them being together. At least, I agreed with George when he said it on Anthology. Not because they sound the same, which really for me would make it seem like 2 sides of the same album, not a separate Part 1 and Part 2. To me, they can be considered that because they're kinda like transition albums. Like Rubber Soul is Part 1 because its starting to show them developing their talents further and Revolver is Part 2 because they've taken that and gone beyond it, giving a taste of where they would be headed next, with Pepper.

Originally Posted by Serena

The two albums sort of mirror each other, carrying significant innovative progressions from their earlier work. Rubber Soul signifying 'flexibility' and Revolver being the big 'evolver.'

Both back-to-back breakthrough releases that represented both a transitioning band and a transitioning period of time. They were merely the knock and turning of the doorknob while Sgt. Pepper was the one to kick the door down completely. They were both not quite Help! and not quite Sgt. Pepper. Definitely intermediate while Help! was only 2/5 of the way there.

excellent synopsis.

Sorry, but I have a real hard time hearing songs like "No Reply", "I'm A Loser", "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party", "Help!", "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", "Ticket To Ride", and "Yesterday" as being songs churned out to fulfill contractural obligations, or signs of a band being exhausted or out of fresh ideas! Quite to the contrary, I would argue.