Townshend of the Who and the Kinks' Ray Davies, as well as Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, who issued their first album of all-original material, Aftermath, in April 1966. The album was also an influence on Dylan, Stevie Wonder and the Byrds. John Cale recalled that Rubber Soul was an inspiration as he and Lou Reed developed their band the Velvet Underground. He said it was the first time "you were forced to deal with them as something other than a flash in the pan" and especially admired Harrison's introduction of Indian sounds. In his chapter on Rubber Soul in the Cambridge Companion to Music's volume on the Beatles, James Decker credits the album with effecting the "transformation" of 1960s pop. In addition to citing it as the precedent for early experimental works by bands including Love and Jefferson Airplane, Decker writes that Rubber Soul presented "a variety of techniques hitherto unexplored in popular music" while encouraging listeners "to be cognizant of more flexible dimensions of pop music and to desire and expect them as well". Music historian Simon Philo also sees it as heralding the experimentation that characterised late-1960s rock. He describes it as an album-length confirmation of the "transformation of pop's range and reach" that the Beatles had first achieved when "Yesterday", McCartney's introspective and classically orchestrated ballad, topped US singles charts in late 1965. In a 1968 article on the Beach Boys, Gene Sculatti of Jazz & Pop recognised Rubber Soul as the model for Pet Sounds and Aftermath, as well as "the necessary prototype that no major rock group has been able to ignore". Cultural legitimisation of pop music Rubber Soul is widely viewed as the first pop album to make an artistic statement through the quality of its songs, a point that was reinforced by its artsy cover photo. The belated acceptance of the Beatles by the editors of Newsweek was indicative of the magazine's recognition of the band's popularity among American intellectuals and the cultural elite. This in turn was reflected in The Village Voices appointment of Richard Goldstein, a recent graduate and New Journalism writer, to the new position of rock critic, in June 1966, and the Beatles' central role in achieving cultural legitimisation for pop music over 1966–67. Referring to the praise afforded the band, particularly the Lennon–McCartney parternship, by Newsweek in early 1966, Michael Frontani writes: "The Beatles