According to music critic Robert Christgau, the album had a far-reaching emotional resonance with audiences: ""Rubber Soul" smashed a lot of alienation. Without reneging on the group's mass cult appeal, it reached into private lives and made hundreds of thousands of secretly lonely people feel as if someone out there shared their brightest insights and most depressing discoveries." Writing in 2015, historian Marc Myers commented: "For most American teens, the arrival of the Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' ... was unsettling. Instead of cheerleading for love, the album's songs held cryptic messages about thinking for yourself, the hypnotic power of women, something called 'getting high' and bedding down with the opposite sex. Clearly, growing up wasn't going to be easy."