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Rubber Soul is the sixth album by The Beatles; it was released on December 3, 1965 in the United Kingdom and on December 6, 1965 in the United States. Rubber Soul was produced by George Martin, and recorded in just over a month to make the Christmas Market. In 2003, the album was ranked number 5 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2006, the album was also chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.

Musically, the Beatles broadened their sound, most notably with influences drawn from the contemporary folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan. The album also saw the Beatles broadening rock n' roll's instrumental resources, most notably on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This track is generally credited as being the first pop recording to use the sitar, an Indian stringed instrument, and "Norwegian Wood" sparked a musical craze for the sound of the novel instrument in the mid-Sixties. The song is now acknowledged as one of the cornerstones of what is now usually called "world music" and it was a major landmark in the trend towards incorporating non-Western musical influences into Western popular music. Harrison had recently been introduced to Indian classical music and the sitar by David Crosby of the Byrds. He soon became fanatically interested in the genre and began taking sitar lessons from renowned Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar.

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