Man, "Pet Sounds" is really overrated.

Aside from historical importance and innovation, it’s really a predominantly boring album. There are a few killer songs on there - “I know there’s an answer,” “God Only Knows,” “Here Today,” “Caroline, No” - but there’s a hell of a lot of filler on the record, and what is “Sloop John B” doing anywhere on the album, much less right in the middle of it?

I think that “Smiley Smile,” “Sunflower,” and even “Wild Honey” are stronger albums than “Pet Sounds.” I’d probably even throw in the fake-live “Beach Boys Party” and “Friends” above “Pet Sounds!”

De gustibus non disputandum est.

Needless to say, I disagree. Pet Sounds was revolutionary at the time, and still holds up today. “Sloop John B” is perfect. Pretty much every other album you cited falls far below Pet Sounds in virtually every category: production, harmonies, song writing, musicianship, you name it, Pet Sounds wins.

VCO3 are you perhaps listening the God awful stereo mix?

Sloop John B is one of my all-time fave Beach Boys tunes, God Only Knows is in the top 5 as well. Pet Sounds was an excellent album.

I think that’s a lazy argument.

I’m prepared to offer that “Slip Inside,” from Sunflower, has a better chorus than anything on Pet Sounds. That Little Pad, in its subtlety, has a greater display of harmony and harmonic arrangement than even the most ridiculous parts of “you still believe in me.” That Surf’s Up is possibly the greatest song Wilson ever wrote, and the arrangement toward the end of that eponymous album is the most elegant one in his catalogue. That “Forever,” with that absolutely gorgeous Dennis vocal, trumps anything on Pet Sounds. That Disney Girls (1957) is the song that Caroline, No only dreamt of being.

I really think that the Sunflower/Surf’s Up CD collection is probably the most impeccable slab of Wilson music you can buy.

Let’s talk about the filler on Pet Sounds - there’s quite a bit to slog through!

The instrumentals (“Let’s go away for a while” and “Pet Sounds”) while pleasant little slices of exoticism, seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the album, thematically and sonically, and feel bizarre and out of place. Why are they there? I wouldn’t mind them as non-album or bonus tracks somewhere else - unused studio sketches like “Fall breaks and back to winter” from Smiley Smile - but even that instrumental seems to be the perfect transition from “Vegetables” to “She’s going bald.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice” is a great album opener on “Pet Sounds,” but “You Still believe in me” is forgettable, with its dangling, slightly atonal turn on the chorus. That final note is like ending a sentence with “and.” But if “you still believe in me” is forgettable, then “That’s not me” is a COMPLETE throwaway - it’s basically more of the same, just not as memorable or melodic. “I’m waiting for the day” is similiarly a throwaway - it’s pretty much the same song as “Don’t talk,” which may be the album’s finest song, just not as impressive or memorable. What is it with Brian and writing the same song twice on this record? Then there’s the out of place and forgettable instrumental of “Let’s go away…”, the COMPLETELY out of place “Sloop John B” (really, that song gets its own post), and then the final 5 songs of utmost perfection are interrupted by the out of place instrumental “Pet sounds.”

Result: uneven at best, with a good chunk of filler.

Sloop John B is a great song - don’t get me wrong - and it’s one of the Boys’ best pure pop songs. But what the hell is it doing in the middle of Pet Sounds? PS is a concept album - to use the term loosely - that tells the story of this teenage every-relationship, from the mindblowing bliss of first love through the trials and tribulations and ups and downs, finally culminating in the heartbreak of realizing that that person is an entirely different person now and things could never be the same between you two again. Beautiful. Heartbreaking.

So what the hell is this wacky bermudan folk-story doing in the middle of it? Huh? What? It would be like if Pink Floyd had recorded a cover of Margaritaville and put it in the middle of Dark Side of the Moon! If Led Zeppelin had worked in the showtune classic On the street where you live and put it in the middle of IV! It makes NO SENSE!

Sloop is a great song, but what does a wacky Caribbean tale of drunken debauchery have to do, AT ALL, with this heartbreaking saga of teen love? It’s absurd!

Yeah, that’s what I THOUGHT, bitches. :wink:

“That’s Not Me” is a terrific song. “I’m Waiting …” is not as good, but the arrangement in interesting, and Brian’s vocals are very nice, especially in the last “He hurt you bad …” part. “Let’s Go Away” is solid — it’s not my favorite track, but I don’t skip it — and I never got the big deal people made about “Sloop John B”; I didn’t even realize it “didn’t fit” until someone pointed it out. It’s a song about a young kid in a strange place, bullied, lonely and desperate to be back where he belongs—it fits perfectly on Pet Sounds.

So there.

(I agree with you on the title track; it’s the only one I would consider a “throwaway.”)

Right, and Weird Al’s Eat it is about a young man’s existential struggle with consumerism and the pathological need to consume, and Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville is the story of a man lost, in a strange place, turning to bacchanalian surrender as his only hope of salvation.

WHOOSH!

Come on, “Sloop John B” is a wacky, lighthearted romp that has nothing to do with the album in any way and was shoehorned into the tracklisting because they thought it would help it sell!

VC03, I think you have a view that, while not uncommon, differs from the majority (or at least the modern one) opinion on what an album is. I see an album as a collection of songs, nothing more nothing less. You seem to feel that an album is supposed to be a cohesive work.

If I were to argue the relative merits of 2 albums, one which has 9 great songs out of 10 on an album, versus one which has 12 great songs on an album of 18 with 6 forgettable ones, I’ll take the one with 12 great songs every time. A “filler” song isn’t a bad thing IMHO, I’d rather have more music in my album than less.

Also, I don’t see any reason to expect an album to have music of all one mood or prosaic quality. It’s been decades since the average listener listened to an album as a whole, and even when Pet Sounds was released it wasn’t as common among your typical fan as some uber-critics seem to think.

Most modern albums have a variety of songs types, ballads, lively pop tracks, largely instrumental tracks, and other folksy sounds. They aren’t arranged to provide for a emotional ebb and flow.

Omniscient, I think you’re entirely incorrect. A great record is more than just a collection of songs, just as a great film is more than just a collection of scenes or a novel is more than just a collection of chapters. Unless we’re talking about the latest Britney Spears album, a record has to be a cohesive text, not just a collection.

Any great album is “more than the sum of its parts” - the songs, the arrangements, the subject matter, the sequencing of the songs on the album all add up to create something greater and more important than the songs do on their own. One bad or misplaced song can wreck, or at least impede or take the shine off of an otherwise great album. Hell, I’ve seen records ruined by bizarre or inappropriate song sequencing.

On a good record, they most certainly are.

Any song that dares to include the lines:

“The poor cook he caught the fits
And threw away all my grits
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn”

…deserves to be ridiculed.

Those analogies are way off base. A book and a movie tell a greater story, out of context a scene or a chapter make zero sense. This simply is not true for a song. A better anolgy is an omnibus of poems. Each poem stands alone as a complete work, and the collection is just that, a collection.

That’s not to say that you can’t create a series of poems which are linked by a common theme and tone which taken as a whole tell some story, but it’s by no means expected or required. Same with music. You can create an album of like songs, but it’s by no means an expectation or the measure of the quality of an album. There are plenty of cohesive albums that flat out suck, but I’ll be damned if they don’t do a good job keeping out songs that are apart from the main theme.

Well, I think you’re completely wrong, VCO3, but how can I argue aesthetics? All I can relate to you is my own experience with that record. I heard it many times growing up, and never saw what the big deal was. Sure, it was nice record, melodic, experimental, but it really didn’t seem anything that extraordinary.

Then, one day after being away from the record for a number of years, I picked up the version with the mono and stereo mixes on it. I carefully read the liner notes and popped the CD in the player. For whatever reason, it was as if I was hearing it for the first time. Everything sounded so new, so fresh, so genius to me. It was one of the few purely sublime moments I’ve ever had with music. How the genius of this record was suddenly revealed to me, I don’t know, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this is one of the greatest records ever recorded.

I know it doesn’t help you appreciate it any more, but the album is full of exciting subtleties and amazing sound textures (!) Instruments blend with each other to create new timbres that are greater than the sum of their parts. The way Brian Wilson uses texture, dynamics, and instrumental voicings on that album is nothing short of incredible.

And I don’t know what you find boring about it. There’s not a single boring point on that album. Not one. And I can’t think of any one song from that album, without thinking of the record in its entirey–it truly is an Album in every sense of the word.

So, ever since my revelatory moment, I can’t believe that I ever thought Pet Sounds was just an okay pop record. Every time I hear it now, the genius behind it seems so blindingly obvious to me that I cannot imagine ever not hearing it.

Maybe it’s a record that you need to put away for a few years and get back to. Maybe you just need to turn off the lights and really listen into the music. It is a very sonically dense album, and benefits most from listening to it as you would an orchestra–with strict attention to individual melodies and counterpoints, as well as taking in the whole.

I don’t know what kind of music you listen to, VCO3, but I’d put Pet Sounds up there with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless as best albums of all time. And I like them for similar reasons: their experimentation, and rich, thick, subtle sonic landscapes. Both albums give me the goosebumps.

mono? mono? MONO?

Pet Sounds is a great album

I agree with everyone else. Pet Sounds is a fantastic album and some songs in it mean a lot to me except for Sloop John B. What the hell is that song doing in an otherwise perfect album?!!

I have to side with VC03 here. I am a hardcore, HARDCORE music geek (VC03, I was disappointed that you didn’t respond to my suggestions in that other thread). HARDCORE MUSIC GEEK. There isn’t a single genre of music that I don’t have at least SOME experience and appreciation of. And I was VASTLY disappointed in Pet Sounds when I finally got around to it in the late 80s. I’ve revisited it since then, and it’s still very much a “you had to be there” kind of thing.

I appreciate its influence, and its essential status in musical history, but like raw flour or gravel, it has more value as a raw material for others’ synthesis than it has on its own. For me (and apparently VC03) at any rate.

OUT OF MY SHIT! :smiley:

Come on! Somebody had to go there. And I’m that guy.

Just to put an aside in… you-all know that Smile was finally released, right?

It’s very very good.