I found my copy of PET SOUNDS in the stack of miscellaneous rock discs while I was washing the dinner dishes tonight, and flipped it in the player. Yeah, great classic, so why don’t I actually like any of it, aside from “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and the astonishingly good “Sloop John B” ?
Sure, a buncha Rock Gods have been slobbering all over it for thirty-some years…but you’ll notice that they’re the WUSSY Rock Gods. The Paul McCartneys and Paul Simons and John Mellencamps of the world.
You never heard John Lennon or Lou Reed or Bob Dylan or Paul Westerberg saying “That Brian Wilson, he’s the cat’s pajamas!”
Check your liner notes, at least if you’ve got the CD mono/stereo rerelease version of it. I just picked it up a while ago, after it was named the 2nd best album of all time on VH-1 (which normally wouldn’t impress me, but this same poll picked “Revolver” as #1 best album of all time, which I agree with 100%).
The impression that I get from the liner notes is that just like with the movie Psycho, context is everything. (i.e. Psycho isn’t scary nowadays because tons of horror movies since its release have emulated it). “Pet Sounds” started the trend in more complex production and arrangement for pop music, as Hemlock pointed out, and also helped start the transition to album-oriented pop music and the death of the 45. And according to George Martin and Paul McCartney, it was a major inspiration for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.”
But without the background reading, my take on it was that it was nice enough Beach Boys music, but nothing spectacular except for the three songs you mention. So even if it’s not my favorite record, or even close, I guess I can appreciate that it was a great achievement. (Similar, I guess, to my reaction to Psycho: kind of slow and not all that scary or surprising, but I can see how it would’ve really freaked people out in 1960.)
But then again, I’m one of those people who prefers the so-called wussy rock gods to the ones you list anyway – I’ll listen to 1000 Paul Simon records before I can make it through even one Lou Reed or Bob Dylan song. And don’t even get me started on post-Beatles John Lennon…
I always felt it was one of the most contrapuntally intesting pop albums I’ve ever heard, which along with the intriguing instrumentations made it extraordinary.
Good points everyone made about the groundbreaking instrumentation and production.
I guess my problem with “context” is that I’m not altogether happy with the way Brian Wilson wanted to take things. One might argue that PET SOUNDS led inexorably to the overproduced art-rock crapola of the 1970s.
While I don’t like the lousy slasher movies that PSYCHO engendered, I still think that content-wise it’s a bona fide classic of cinema. I still stand by the OP’s assertion that PET SOUNDS only has a few listenable tunes going for it.
Frank Zappa, music scholar( geek ) that he was, was impressed with it . It was the first rock album he ever heard that broke the established conventions ( musically, not lyrically ) of rock and roll as it had been played in the 50’s and 60’s.
So I would agree that it’s importance is more historical, as an innovation at the time, than anything else.
That said, I personally think it’s a pretty album and worth owning for those three songs you mentioned, alone .
I think it would be interesting to hear what people would think of various great albums (or books or films) based on their own merits, without ANY consideration of their place in history, or the influence they had on other artists.
“Pet Sounds” is always close to the top of every critic’s list of the greatest albums ever. But I’ve read that, when Mike Love first heard what Brian WIlson was recording, he went ballistic, yelling, “What IS this? Where are the SONGS???”
In my opinion, both Mike Love AND the critics have a point.
I happen to think that, if you judge the Beatles’ albums purely by the quality of the songs, “Sgt. Pepper” is one of their weakest efforts (only “Let It Be” is worse). And, while the good stuff on “Pet Sounds” is wonderful (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Caroline, No,” “God Only Knows”), there’s far too much wimpy, self-indulgent pap.
“Pet Sounds” and “Sgt. Pepper” are important albums, but they’re not very good albums. The Beach Boys and the Beatles made numerous better albums than those.
To really appreciate the complexity and importance of Pet Sounds, I suggest you get hold of the box set somehow.
When the album came out, I enjoyed several of the songs but didn’t quite appreciate all of the hype that surrounded it at the time. Maybe it was just listening to it on a car radio or 60’s era portable stereo that prevented me from fully appreciating the album at that time.
If you listen to the various takes and mixes in the box set, you get a glimpse into Brian’s amazing and complex mind. He used real musicians that may have gone into the studio as sceptics, but were soon extremely respectful of the vision of this rock and roller. The box set shows Brian as a master of the studio who knew exactly the sound he wanted to extract from each of the musicians. This look into the mind of a genius alone is worth the price of the box set.
Pet Sounds was Brian’s answer to the Beatles groundbreaking studio masterpiece, Rubber Soul. If for nothing else, Pet Sounds is an important album because it then inspired the Beatles to even greater heights with Sergeant Pepper.
Please find someone who has the Pet Sounds Sessions box set and listen to it and read the story of this landmark.
Perhaps it’s not a good album, but rather, an important album, opening the door for more creativity in creating LPs and presenting rock music. A lot of seminal efforts are cruder than their descendents. But you gotta start somewhere.
I remember listening to PET SOUNDS when I was a high-schooler in the 70s. I wasn’t that impressed at the time, probably because I was expecting the normal mix that so many albums contain. I’ll have to dig it out again (if I still have it, that is) and give it another listen. Perhaps my more finely tuned ear and the appreciation of Great Works gained through maturity will allow me an aural epiphany.
I’ve been inspired to give it a spin. Hadn’t listened to it for 2 years or so.
Apart from the title track, it’s all superb. The other instrumental - Let’s Go Away for a While - is a genuinely emotive composition.
Ukelele Ike says “One might argue that PET SOUNDS led inexorably to the overproduced art-rock crapola of the 1970s.”
Led yes, inexorably no. It’s hard to believe Wilson would have overused the 32 track recording and flashy synthesisers early-70s style if he had had them in 65-66, the use of a theremin on one track notwithstanding. The album is far less pretentious than Sgt Pepper or the wretched early 70s art-rock (for which we can be thankful for Spinal Tap, in all fairness :)).
I also 90% agree with the critics’ adulation of Love’s classic Forever Changes.
Really?!? Now I really am embarrassed. Not only have I been making audio purchases based on VH-1, but on a list that names “Nevermind” the second best album of all time? I hate that record on every imaginable level. I still agree with “Revolver,” though…
Well, I’d agree that “Pet Sounds” would be just any other Beach Boys record without the context. But I still think that “Sgt. Pepper” is a fanastic album, although not quite my favorite by the Beatles (“Revolver” and “Abbey Road” are better). To extend my weak movie analogy even further – I’d compare “Sgt. Pepper” to Citizen Kane. It’s not my favorite movie ever, but you can’t deny that it’s amazingly well-made and stands up as interesting even now, without even considering how innovative it was at the time.
About a year ago I got the the “24 Karat Gold Disc” version of Pet Sounds and…
[echoing OP]I felt exactly the same thing: “God Only Knows”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B” were stunning and everything else was disappointing![/echoing OP]
Thinking about it I came to the conclusion that (1) Tony Asher’s lyrics weren’t very interesting and (2) Brian’s production with it’s preponderence of cellos and tympani sounded thick and heavy.
Now, it was 1966 so let’s cut them some slack on the lyric thing but I think Brian was going the wrong way in this and subsequent albums: he seemed to be focusing on sounds that build into a song, rather than the other way around. He and McCartney had a lot in common at times: they were enamored by aural bon-bons and forgot that bass, drums and guitars form the spine of a rock song.
If you skip ahead a few years, the albums Sunflower and Surf’s Up had a much more interesting pop/rock sound and it seems due to influence the other Beach Boys who were producing at this time (especially Carl).
. It was the first rock album he ever heard that broke the established conventions ( musically, not lyrically ) of rock and roll as it had been played in the 50’s and 60’s.