Let’s discuss any and all music here. Got a new artist who’s rocking your boat that you want to talk about? Post a video! Found out about that unearthed Coltrane album that has the jazz freak in you losing your mind? Lay it out for us! Have a theory about what your favorite band might do for their next album? Let’s hear it! Anything and everything music-related goes here.

This week’s discussion prompt: Which albums do you think could be improved by altering the track listing?

Last month the Avocado’s very own Glyph brought up a feature that used to appear in Stylus Magazine called “Playing God”, where the writers would alter track listings on albums to (theoretically) improve them. This would be done by adding contemporaneous B-sides/outtakes/alternate takes, changing the track order and/or dropping tracks from the album.

This topic was actually covered in a WMT quite a while ago, and we had a discussion prompt devoted to a similar topic somewhat more recently, but I suspect I’m not alone in doing this sort of thing (and seeing as we recently went into triple digits I think we can get away with recycling these every once in a while).

So since we’re recycling, I’ll also take this opportunity to once again share the ways in which I’d improve Rubber Soul, widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.

My first exposure to Rubber Soul was the bastardized Capitol version, and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one of the only times that the record company almost got it right. I doubt that the decision was made with any kind of artistic considerations in mind, but instead of burying “I’ve Just Seen a Face” late into side 2 of the Help! soundtrack, as an album opener it soars – plus, musically it complements the rest of side 1 better than “Drive My Car”. Likewise, “It’s Only Love” opens side 2 in a grander fashion than the obligatory Ringo-on-vocals track “What Goes On”, which is mediocre and has always felt like a throwback to an earlier era  – I was later informed by our resident Beatles expert Lynn Mackenzie that not only does the song predate the rest of the sessions by two years, but John actually wrote it back when the group was still called the Quarrymen, so it really is a throwback to an earlier era.

Where Capitol went wrong was removing “Drive My Car”, “Nowhere Man” and “If I Needed Someone” from the album to use on their “future-Beatles-products-to-be-determined”. These songs should all have been included; however, if we include all the songs used on both releases, this puts us at sixteen tracks, which is too many for a conventional album release in 1965.

As I mentioned, “What Goes On” is B-side material at best, so losing it isn’t a problem. More controversially, even if John did write “Run For Your Life” from the perspective of a character and the song has a memorable hook, it’s kind of a jarring note to end the album on, so we lose that as well.

So, my “new and improved/sacrilegious” Rubber Soul track list goes as follows:

Side 1
1. I’ve Just Seen a Face
2. Norwegian Wood
3. You Won’t See Me
4. Nowhere Man
5. Think for Yourself
6. The Word
7. Michelle

Side 2
8. It’s Only Love
9. Girl
10. I’m Looking Through You
11. In My Life
12. Wait
13. If I Needed Someone
14. Drive My Car

Putting “Drive My Car” at the end not only makes for an upbeat album closer, but also hints at the future direction the Beatles would move in musically with Revolver the following year, moving away from the more conventional rock n’ roll/folk influenced songs to experiment more with different genres and sounds.

Feel free to disagree, but this is my preferred version of Rubber Soul – which, contrary to the opinion of beloved music critic David Marsh, isn’t the greatest album of all time or even the Beatles’ best album, as I was able to make like a Capitol executive and hack it to pieces to make a better one! 😉

As always, any and all music-related topics are welcome. Have fun, and rock out with yr guac out!