Pet Sounds - classic or dud

Having played it to death for the last 3 years or so, it's a little over-familiar now, but Classic for sure. The fact that it's so universally fawned over by the dad-rock mags doesn't make it AUTOMATICALLY crap, although I understand the suspicion.

then riding on a bus through Archway with a hangover one day, the string quartet on "Don't talk put your head on my shoulder" slid in on top of the vocal melody on my walkman and this was the strand that unlocked the album for me, an epiphany took place, and thenceforward I was captured by its beauty, which was a beauty of a different musical logic than I was used to, hence my initial blindness. For me it's a record for hangovers. It's better than the bitty, half-crap Revolver, but this is really beginning to resemble a giants of rock mojo argument so will desist...

enough to say that the acclaim it gets is OTT: it's not an unassailable classic: the instrumentals seem overly loungey and dated now, but the songs and the textures get me every time.

after repeated playings, the music -- in a way that only a few records can -- passed through my ears and connected with my soul, wherever it may be. it was one of those moments when you literally stop dead in your tracks and realize that an album, a book, a film is playing out your life, before your very eyes/ears. the music was charged with hope, anxiety, fear; it screamed, it sighed, it shed tears: it wasn't notes or chords or lyrics, it was the word made flesh.

when you reach that level of engagment with a work of art, as i hope everyone has at some point, how the melody compares to so-and-so or "are the lyrics really as sophisticated as blah blah?", questions like that, they cease to matter. pet sounds, for me, is about being young, stupid, and in love for the very first time and i hope it continues to bring me back to those times. 'til i die.

if you want a friendly alternative to pet sounds at the very least say today!, the second side of which, if it were an album, probably tops pet sounds, "bull session with big daddy" notwithstanding.

but, as tom just proved to me, it needs to be reworked just a little: it's music for people who didn't get out enough as adolescents. because even if you're out partying every night now, your past is always with you like a scar, like the ghost of the person you'd like to believe you once were and are no longer.

Okay, so perhaps part of that is because it was released just before I was born. My understanding is that Pet Sounds played a big part in determining the direction for Sgt. Pepper, another album I don't get. I also think that Revolver was really the start of this direction, at least as far as pop/rock goes (admittedly, other artists were pushing the boundaries of recorded sound in other genres...Raymond Scott, to name one). I think Pet Sounds is pleasant enough, but hell, I even prefer to listen to the Heavy Blinkers' album, which uses it as an influence.

Except for Sloop John B, which gets a pass because of an injoke with my cousin involving hoisting my, erm, rather large grandmother's underwear in the air on laundry day and running around screaming "Hoist up the john b sails!" over and over. So, yeah. Anyhow.

Classic: the phrase "fawning pube head"

But I regress, this little tangent has more to do with the validity of deeming a record a 'classic' or not than it does 'Pet Sounds.' So I'll go ahead and bite and tell the world 'Pet Sounds' is a favorable record in my collection despite ANYTHING that has been said about it.

But what about 'Friends' or the brilliant 'Smile?' No one's talking about those? Right, Q or Mojo has yet to run coverage on either. Can you say "Manipulation by the Media?"

You only don’t like the Beach Boys because…you only don’t like the Beach Boys. It’s that simple my friend (where you got the ‘jealous’ bit is beyond me - I'm actually quite theoryless on why people don't like the Beach Boys).

Also, you're right I SHOULD calm down. I was having a fucking crazy caffinated day at work (Wall St. style!) and I went off...but today is TGIF!

Since when does opinion = token of angst? Reread the rest of the opinions on the thread mate! (Notice my previous message said nothing of blood and razor blades;)

I also don't think this thread is ENTIERLY about insecurties, but it did start with a lad wondering out loud if he should 'challenge' himself to give 'Pet Sounds' another chance as he fears his taste is predjudice (and even he agrees the 'rock classic thing is smug'). I say go with your insticts man!

Hey K-Reg - you're right, I'm sure a lot of people who rate Pet Sounds highly where in other places and times than SoCal in the mid 60's. But some Beach Boys tunes are nostalgic for me as I grew up listening to them on the Gulf Coast (of Mexico) in the 80's and the aesthetic seemed to transfer well, but I was just a little kid of course. Also, I'm glad we made you laugh from our 'symphonoc angst.'

Cheers y'all!

One of the better capsule descriptions of A Certain Album I Like is that it's _Pet Sounds_ meets _Metal Machine Music_. And frankly of the three I know which one I like listening to the most...

;)

loveless, for me, is like pet sounds but without the tunes. and the angst. and the deep, lasting connection. but with guitars. so, not really like pet sounds after all. ;)

I'll give you an abridged/simplified rant, as opposed to one of my massive rampages that I've given in the past (so, this version will be shorter and sweeter than in the past, which also means less involved and less detailed).

Brian Wilson and lyricist (depending on which album) vs. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and George Martin. PLUS, The Beatles had the record label AND almost literally the rest of the entire (yes, entire) world on their side (very much unlike Brian). Put all that together and...you get one lopsided "battle". Nonetheless, Brian some-freakin-how managed to STILL win the "war" (until the breakdown, at least).

-Early Beach Boys (B.Wilson = "The Beach Boys") is better than early Beatles. I'll take songs about surf-n-turf (regardless of how fake they were, which they were fake, Brian was nearly afraid of the water) over "she loves you yea yea yea" n'sync bull. -'Pet Sounds' is better than 'Revolver' (the difference is that one must actually listen very closely to 'Pet Sounds' than to 'Revolver' to fully hear thus understand this - which is the case with B.Wilson to The Beatles, in general...one must listen more closely to how intricate Brian gets with his brilliant music, that The Beatles simply do not touch). -'Smile' was set to be better than 'Sgt. Peppers'. By most all accounts of those around that scene who saw and/or heard 'Smile' being recorded (months before 'Sgt.' I might add) has admitted to as much.

Brian was, basically, always one step ahead of The Beatles. Of course, until his impending breakdown (which would've happened to literally anyone else - including Lennon or McCartney, if the situations were reversed).

However, I certainly will say that:

The Beatles absolutely were better pure/standard/verse-chorus-verse songwriters than Brian and lyricist. I will give them that. But, as far as "the big picture" in terms of albums (of which only the early stuff onward to 'Smile' can be taken into account - in all fairness) or over-all finished products (including certain singular songs written by Brian after 'Smile' the ones that were truly on account of/written by Brian within his very much dimished role in The Beach Boys)...which would account for the mixture of actual basis of the song/composition/lyrics+arrangement+production...I just can't see The Beatles as equal (much less above) that of Brian Wilson. But, that deals (of course, as with everything in life) with ones own personal opinions. I mean, I'm alright with people calling it a draw, but. Most feel compelled to constantly view The Beatles as above (if not FAR above) Brian (The Beach Boys), which simply isn't based on reality. I find that many Beatles supporters go overboard and the rest of the world validates them doing so (sadly enough).

But I still love it.

*there was a mistake in sending that message prematurely, by the way*

But, I would completely (though partially) agree with you about both bands lyrics being in the "crap n'sync" vein (as I already stated in my previous post, the Beach Boys, at least, mixed in some other variants than JUST "crap n'sync" simple love letters).

"over-indulged" - who's to say. Personally, I don't make such caps on art. Clearly, Parks was attempting a sort of "Picasso" of rock lyric. And...why not? Nothing wrong with that. Rock should have such freedoms (which both Brian Wilson and The Beatles were both quite important in freeing up pop/rock in numerous artistic ways - lyrically, musically, sonically, conceptually, etc). Especially seeing as Brian was doing the same with the music - a sort of "Picasso" of a rock album (was what the pieces of the 'Smile' puzzle had been).

The Beatles were better at FASHION, period. Which, unfortunately, is a part of the reason why they are so vastly more accepted and then respected in comparison to Brian Wilson (I could give a flying rats assed fuck about The Beach Boys, in case that wasn't already clear enough). The element of fashion ("hipness") clearly played a larger role than most would care to realize in their transition compared to Brian (and the Boys).

VDP's lyrics - yeah of course he was trying to do this and that. Saying it was "over-indulged" I don't think is trying to "set caps on art" - it's pointing out that whatever he was trying to do, I don't think he managed it. Compare especially his excellent lyrics on "Discover America". Points-for-effort is not a particularly sensible mode of criticism, I think.

I don't know. I thought you were being flip in reviving a thread about a pretty serious piece of work and just going, "Dud, can't get through it." So I thought I'd be flip right back atcha and imply that Pet Sounds is Ellingtonian in scope. Not so far off base, is it?

As is, very near the top.

I love "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." it's so plaintive in a really personal way. it's like a musical self-portrait of Brian

A lot of overrated albums are still classic. But this one is not even overrated.

Except for Sloop John B, which gets a pass because of an injoke with my cousin involving hoisting my, erm, rather large grandmother's underwear in the air on laundry day and running around screaming "Hoist up the john b sails!" over and over. So, yeah. Anyhow.

― Ally, Wednesday, May 2, 2001 8:00 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

Figured this for an lj post.

TWO instrumentals? This album did not need two instrumentals.

i love the beach boys. i don't really have anything else to add. sorry

― gareth

^^^^this

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" came on oldies station today and I just imagined being in the room they recorded it and tried to picture all these people playing multiple pianos and jingle bells and tympanist and vibraphones and etc etc. Was it recorded live? Wow what an amazing sound Brian got!

I've been listening to it on repeat for the last few days and one thing that's struck me is that 'I'm Waiting For The Day' is the album's unheralded masterpiece. Does anyone else agree?

― Alba (Alba), Friday, July 8, 2005 11:46 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

Yes

If it had some ripping frazzled psyche guitar solos, it'd be a much better album.

Certainly worked for the Zombies.

i pulled this thread up cuz i'm spending tonight in self loathing mode and listening t oPet Sounds and Smiley Smile era Beach Boys (just saw Mike Love and the band he calls the Beach Boys live a few weeks ago and they were pretty awesome)....

and this thread is clearly the biggest challopser I've ever read. Pet Sounds might be 'overrated' to some degree but there's little doubt in my mind that it's filled with fantastic songs. Hell, the first four tracks are pretty much flawless!

basically old-ILM was just a bunch of trolls who hated to get trolled and eventually got older, fatter, grayer in their safe haven corner of the blogosphere.

so presumably there's a thread from 2003 proclaiming Coda to be Led Zeppelin's best album.....

hmm when did Lord Soto Challops show up on ILM?

We're not as intent on fighting the Heartbreak of Rockism as we once were. I never gave a fuck about rockism, or popism, or Geirism, or whatever. I just liked what I liked, including Pet Sounds.

Kind of a dud, for me, to be honest. http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/the-beach-boys-–-pet-sounds-–-round-14-–-nick’s-selection/

So while I find the rollicking drums of I’m Waiting For The Day exciting and pleasurable, I find Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) and You Still Believe In Me to be just a little… dull.

Aww really? I think 'You Still Believe In Me' is incredibly beautiful, the bit at the end (from 'I wanna cry' echoing the intro melody, before it dies down and builds up into those harmonies) is incredible.

"Pet Sounds" is a classic for me, but on a personal level I get the most enjoyment from "Sunflower" of all the Beach Boys albums.

Someone in my neighborhood is jamming this pretty loud for 11:30pm on a Monday night.

"I'm Waiting For The Day" at the moment.

your neighbours OTM

Just got the Pet Sounds Sessions box in the mail and I skipped straight ahead to the a capella version of the album at the start of disc three. Boy, what a revelation. I mean, it's obviously their thing to do those gorgeous perfect harmonies, but to hear them isolated like that just brings out something so pure in it. Really hypnotizing and wonderful. I don't know why I waited so long to get the box.

Thanks to a Rick Astley-related link, just learned that this is currently #26 on the British album charts.

The sessions box is wonderful. Night and day between this and the Beatles anthologies !

WANT.
i love this album so so much.

listening to the instrumental tracks and you can sort of see why mike love was freaked out. otherworldly chord changes.

This is like a master class in pop. Anyone who wants to make songs should listen to this box !

BBC Classic Albums show tomorrow night on bbc 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07ljcxf

Did anyone happen to catch this? And how was it? Should I try to watch it somehow from across the pond? Does David Fricke show up intermittently to tell me why Pet Sounds is so good?

TWO instrumentals? This album did not need two instrumentals.

― Mr. Snrub, Sunday, October 25, 2009 3:49 PM (6 years ago)

it totally did btw, the instrumentals on this album are both wonderful

Yup. And as I mentioned previously, listening to the instrumentals of the other songs is a trip.

At least for me, it really brought out the "strangeness" and "complexity" of the chord changes and stuff.

Does David Fricke show up intermittently to tell me why Pet Sounds is so good?

Same question

No, he doesn't. This wasn't long or in depth enough, they didn't talk about every track for a start. They interviewed all the right people though: all the remaining Beach Boys, Tony Asher, Hal Blaine, Don Randi. Don't know why Helen Shapiro was on it though and why she was given as much screen time as Mike Love or Al Jardine. Brian started off very lucid but seemed to be losing it a bit by the end.

yeah, the moments with Brian and Mark Linett in the studio, vaguely listening to some isolated tracks, are awkward (and quite useless).
the documentary was ok but I guess not for big fans who already know a lot about all these stories and recordings.
I don't think I have learned or heard anything new but it's always nice to go back to this fantastic album.
a funny moment was when Jardine was seating in front of a piano for the interview. then next comment he's still seating there but with a guitar. I was wondering where they would stop and if he would have an extra instrument each time !

Pet Sounds good because the lyrics were largely written by Laura LaPlante's son. And that's fun.

The day Brian Wilson and Tony Asher met at Western Studios, Tony introduced Brian to "Stella By Starlight", perhaps during Asher's Bill Evans phase.

Of course, Brian's obsession with Dick Reynolds, the arranger for the Four Freshmen, culminated in the "Beach Boys" warbly bootleged version of the song (along with another standard performed just as warbly, "How Deep Is The Ocean"). Both are Brian, Reynolds, and Bones Howe in Studio A (where Spector recorded Ebb Tide a month earlier)

But I suspect all of these events happened on the same day, October 15, '65, just as Brian was recording this overlooked seed for Pet Sounds (generally misidentified as a Smile fragment)

https://youtu.be/iMDn-CQPyF8

How much Brian was dropping in on Gold Star during the fall of '65 just to hear other people's sessions remains debated, but some of those Spector proteges/throw-aways are fucking marvels -- so I can see where Brian felt a surge of ideas

https://youtu.be/28IkZ0okfcQ

And once the Beach Boys returned from Japan around Feb '66, Mike Love was greeted with Brian's solo Caroline No already in the can, and facing his role on "Let Go of Your Ego" being the first session.

https://youtu.be/X3f6ZKQ_ffo

I often speculate on the Sloop John B sessions, just before Mike Love got on that plane to Hawaii/Japan (wait; who's gettin' paid royalties on this traditional folk song, Brian?!)

this was lacking something. wished the had the in depth analysis of each track like they did with previous episodes of this

Still the best Brian interviews I've seen on it, and well combined with Wrecking Crew interciews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0vAL8dHBxA

missed you bro

thank you. seriously :-)

“I can’t help how I act when you’re not here with me”

picked up the 4cd sessions this week, with acapella/miscellany/sax solo/dogs barking. "hey jack, is it possible we could bring a horse in here...?" "my horse would be so bitchin' in here!" no one will ever make a record as beautiful and pure as this. when traveling in california i saw brian & co play it from start to finish in san diego. i got told off for dancing.

oh, and my housemate made a very astute observation on a detail in 'don't talk. he remarked (while blind drunk i might add) how the kettle drum appearing around 2:07 is perhaps in anticipation of the following song, which of course has the big kettle drum intro.

for people who listen to records and who like the beach boys: i'm playing a non-fancy U.S. stereo reissue from 2016 put out by Capitol/UMe with the UPC code 6 02547 822289 1 and it is without a doubt the best version of this album that i've ever heard. and i've heard multiple versions from multiple years and yes i have heard the mono version that people love that comes with So Tough and this is really the one. Big, Bright, Tons of Detail. its a jaw-dropper.

played on a Music Hall Ikura table with a gold Viburg weight and resting on an Auralex Acoustics isolation platform and run through a Marantz 2230 into vintage Klipsch Heresy II speakers. just in case Steve Hoffman is reading this.

i know i know what about mono but whatever. and i know i know what about the 50th anniversary 200 gram analogue productions pressing from 2016??? well, that one is probably better? i've never heard it! what i have heard? TONS of crappy pressings of this record. and this is just such a treat to actually hear one that opens up and blooms like a rose instead of lying there in the mud with those goats at the pet sounds goat farm. no offense to the goats.

anyway, kudos to Mark Linett. it gives me hope for mixing old stuff in the 21st century.

Some of the worst posts I've ever seen on the internet to start this thread. Truly gag-worthy takes.

Your set up sounds like a dream Scott, happy listening to you!

xp is there something about the Carl and the Passions version that sets it apart?

the tapes they used were supposed to be top notch/early master/etc. can't remember the details. i'm sure there is a very long internet story about it. i'm sure there are people here who can tell you more! some people swear by it as the go-to mono pressing. it sounds good from what i remember. i've sold a bunch of them.

yeah, that's the one i have - i just remember buying that double-lp set and being pretty sure the shop had no clue it was included. just looked up the discogs prices and was shocked how much mid quality even goes for.

i've had pristine early pressings that look unplayed and i think they are going to blow me away and they sound like mud. it happens. Capitol vinyl can be like that. which is why people prefer certain pressing plants from that era. and which is why it was so nice to hear this copy i was playing from 2016. they did a heck of a job with it. but it also doesn't sound...you know, digital. like a CD. too clean. too overdone as far as a new mix goes. people can go overboard with new tech to change the inherent qualities of a record. make it sound like what they THINK it should sound like. this just really sounds like what i imagine an actual reel-to-reel of the album sounded like in 1966. only louder probably.

I truly wanted to love this album, but I just can't.

its a weird one.

in 2019 i got to listen to this album while riding the Pacific Surfliner and walking around the San Diego Zoo (the site of the cover shoot). Balboa park instantly struck me as the visual universe of Pet Sounds, also this music loves giraffes. It was 70F and sunny, and there are so many plants i've never seen anywhere else in the zoo.

I don't think Pet Sounds is overrated by the dad rags, if anything it was underrated by the wider public for so long. i'm sure it's pretty hard to have an original thought about Pet Sounds but one dimension the title takes on for me- it's an album about the vulnerable, dependent kind of love, like that of a pet for its owner.

the thing with the dad rag praise, calling Pet Sounds the best album ever made implies a lot of things that i've grown uneasy with, like that art should never be limited by practical constraints...

i'm happy with my cd versions (1990 mono with trombone dixie etc, 97 box set)

I don't think Pet Sounds is overrated by the dad rags, if anything it was underrated by the wider public for so long.

I think so too. And also Rolling Stone (especially editor Dave Marsh) were actually pretty hard on it whenever I came across any mention of it published in the '70s or anything Marsh wrote in the '80s and '90s. They didn't hate it, but they constantly argued it was pretentious and beneath their earlier hits. Even Robert Christgau and I believe Greil Marcus maintain that argument.

They're older now, but the first newspaper critics I remember reading in the '90s were part of a later generation and really championed it. Everyone I knew back home who adored it was high school or college age at the turn of the millennium - Wilson's big revival (which began with that first Pet Sounds tour) probably fed off that and vice versa. I haven't heard as much about it now, but I think that's more reflective of changes in pop with the music most consciously influenced by Wilson having less of a mainstream presence now. I personally don't care - I never bought into the idea that musical trends defined "greatness" to the extent that a work is taken down a notch simply because other things have become trendy. Pet Sounds hasn't lost anything for me, it's still brilliant and beautiful for so many reasons - absolutely one of the great landmarks in rock history.