The album Rubber Soul is generally regarded as a landmark in The Beatles career. ...'Rubber Soul' catches [The Beatles] between the hysteria of Beatlemania and the acid excesses of 'Sgt.Pepper'...For Lennon, particularly, the album marked a personal progression in his craft. Personal honesty and confession, which were to characterize his later work, were inherent. His songs were marked by a more poetic approach, and he was beginning to find his own voice, rather than copy Dylan's... [Ray Coleman]

Some members of the Beatles' fan club actually wrote complaining about the sleeve of 'Rubber Soul', saying it made their idols look like corpses...The Beatles were unsmiling, serious. Unusually for the time, their name was completely absent from the front cover - the image, albeit a disturbing one, was sufficient for instant and universal recognition... the typography too was significant and ...anticipated the earliest U.S.- inspired psychedelia by nearly a year. The album had innovation on every track ..Lennon's surrealism emerging in 'Norwegian Wood', an increased introspection in 'In My Life'; George growing in stature as a composer with 'If I Needed Someone' and introducing the sitar to rock on 'Norwegian Wood'; Paul on fuzz bass on 'Think For Yourself', Ringo on Hammond organ in 'I'm Looking Through You'...'Rubber Soul' was the final album to appear in what might be called the classic 'middle period' of the Beatles, both as regards image and music... [Mike Evans]