 Lennon recalled that "Rubber Soul" was the first album on which the Beatles were in complete creative control, with enough studio time to develop and refine new sound ideas.According to Riley, the album reflects "a new affection for recording" over live performance.Author Philip Norman similarly writes that, with the Beatles increasingly drawn towards EMI's large cache of "exotic" musical instruments, and the band's readiness to incorporate "every possible resource of the studio itself" as well as Martin's skills as a classical arranger, "Implicitly, from the very start, this [music] was not stuff intended to be played live on stage."