The Smiley Smile Message Board

From Peter Ames Carlin's book about McCartney (or maybe from his research):

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/beatles/article6818698.ece

That really impressed me. It's my favorite Beatles LP too and Brian really hit on a lot of the reasons I love it myself.

Rubber Soul is one of my very favorite Beatles albums, and I agree with Brian's reasons, too. Interesting that his other favorite is Let it Be, one that's not too often mentioned as a favorite of Beatle fans because of Phil Spector's often inappropriate production (like on The Long & Winding Road).  Oh, wait, it's probably BECAUSE Phil Spector produced it :p  Seriously, I do recall reading interviews where Brian mentions really liking the title song a lot.

According to John Milwords nice photo journal from 1986 Let It Be was the song Brian said was cloest to his heart. Can you imagine how pretty a circa 1970 cover version would have been?

Thanks for posting that.  Nice to see Brian elaborate on his love for the album, more than the usual statements he's given. 

I wonder if Brian's got the new Beatles Mono Box set since he's a mono guy.  To me, Rubber Soul (as well as a few other early Beatle albums) sounds much better in mono. The stereo version is just goofy, with vocals panned hard right and instruments at the left.  The mono version sounds like a band.

I think it's fairly likely that Brian would have first heard the US version not the UK "as the Beatles intended" version.

Especially if he heard it in November, a few weeks before its release.  To me that would imply some connection to the Capitol A&R department.

True, Brian would've heard the US version first, but it could well have been in mono since Capitol released both stereo and mono versions at the time.

Well, whatever Brian heard, he pretty much heard it in mono, right?