Following on from where "Help!" left off, "Rubber Soul" had pretty much completely left the group's original sound as they continued experimenting with chords and sounds whilst writing more and more complex, intelligent lyrics. Drawing from personal experiences, such examples include Norwegian Wood (written by John as a concealed affair he had recently had), I'm Looking Through You and You Won't See Me were written by Paul about his now-shaky relationship with Jane Asher and In My Life being the extremely poignant, semi-autobiographical song by John about his youth and teenage years.

When "Rubber Soul" was initially mixed it was slightly different to how we hear it today. These early mixes only ever appeared in mono and are distinguished by the matrix numbers XEX 579-1 / XEX 580-1 in the deadwax. It's argued that these early presses were unbalanced with a muddy bass and with an edgy, aggressive vocal sound. Since these copies seemed to lack body the decision was made to halt production whilst the mother platess were re-cut. Speculation is rife as to how long these 'Loud Cut ' copies were on the production line with some claiming that they were only pressed for two days while others maintain that they were pressed for up to a week or two. Whatever the timespan, today they're quite hard to find in any condition.

Something that has given us a bit of a headache is when different label typesets came into production. 'Loud Cut' copies can be found with both Times New Roman and Arial (sans serif) label fonts, although Arial is the more common and is likely to have continued production along with the TNR issues. This TNR run appears on other Beatles LPs from the late 1965 (see "Help!") to late 1966 (such as early copies of "Revolver"), but the more usual Arial font seemed to have been used at the same time in larger quantities. No real reason is known for this font change. No -5 / -5 matrix copies of "Rubber Soul" have appeared with the TNR font so we assume these date from late 1966 at the earliest.

If you have a label or font variation - no matter how small - that we haven't documented here, please contact us!

Mono 1st Label, Variation A

These are the early sans serif labels that tended to adorn the earlier 'Loud Cut' copies of the album. Their distinguishing feature is that the * credit indicator on these labels are spaced away from the song title. Early -1 / -1 matrix copies (as determined by earlier mother / stamper combinations) and slightly later -4 / -4 matrix copies of "Rubber Soul" usually use this label design. This design tends to be the most common.

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Mono 1st Label, Variation B

At some point early on in the 'Rubber Soul' pressing run, a Times New Roman font typeset was added to the label printing machines. It's with this style that we find later 'Loud Cut' presses (as determined by the stampers), almost all the transition presses of -1 / -4 or -4 / -1, and (presumably) early -4 / -4 standard pressings. The * credit indicator on these labels are now aligned next to the song title unlike on label 1A.

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Mono 1st Label, Variation C

At some point after late 1966 a slightly altered Arial label similar to 1A appeared. Whereas before on the 1A label there was a space between the * credit indicator and the song title, there's now nothing and they're directly side by side such as on the Times New Roman label, 1B. Also, the matrix number printed on the label is now misaligned to the datestamp, being too far on the left, again like it was seen on the TNR label. What solidifies this as a later pressing after the TNR run is that it can be found solely on the later -5 / -5 matrix number discs. It would appear the TNR label layout was adopted for this variation which could possibly indicate that TNR was the direct predecessor to this variation, i.e. being the later -4 / -4 matrix copies rather than being than among the earlier. Similarly, it could indicate that TNR labels were actually in production constantly throughout the -4 /-4 lifetime but just in far fewer quantities. This conundrum has still not been determined satisfactorily. As a note, these labels are also recognised by the wider vertical track spacings on both sides, something which appears rarely on some albums such as 6D and 7 labels of mono "Please Please Me'" which we know date from around 1969 - this could help us determine a more accurate date for the introduction of the -5 / -5 matrix of 1968 / 1969, rather than more towards 1966 as stated earlier. The only difference with the PPM labels is they have the datestamp and matrix number on the labels aligned, but this discrepancy could be attributed to "Rubber Soul" using its own TNR label as a template for this new Arial one.

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Mono 2nd Label

In 1969 the legal reasons as to why the 'Sold in UK' statement had to be added to labels was repealed and for a short while Parlophone albums were on the older Yellow / Black design without this statement. The lack of a space between the * credit indicator and the relevant song title remains, although the alignment of the matrix number and datestamp has been reset back.

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Mono 3rd Label

In the early 80's EMI released the Beatles Mono Boxset where each Beatles album was faithfully reprinted in glorious mono. The old 'Parlophone' yellow / black label style was reintroduced for a bit of nostalgia. The easiest way to differentiate these between the original presses is that these copies have the MONO format printed at the top right corner, something that in the 60's was only reserved for the stereo presses.

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