Rubber Soul is the first album where they seemed to care about art.

Rubber Soul.

Before it, Beatles albums were basically singles collections with some filler. Rubber Soul was the first time they treated the album as a cohesive artistic statement — no covers, consistent mood, lyrics that weren’t just “I love you, yeah yeah yeah.” Songs like “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life” showed they were writing about real adult emotions, and the sitar on “Norwegian Wood” signaled they were bored with the same old rock format. It’s not their best album (that’s Revolver), but it’s the pivot point where they stopped being a pop band and started being artists.