Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?


Try as I might -- and I have tried very hard -- I just don't get the "genius" of this album. I know that George Martin said that Sgt Pepper would have never happened without Pet Sounds, but I don't think the two are even in the same league. What am I missing?
jeffreybowman2k

Interesting that on an audiophile forum, everyone save a few are judging Pet Sounds on how "good" the song writing itself is. The accolades for Pet Sounds have almost nothing to do with the song writing.

Pet Sounds was so different in that it did two things:

1) It was a complete work of all originals: every song, every note every word mattered. The "normal album" for 1965 was a collection of a few orginals and mostly covers. Look at Hollies 1965 for a good example of this. Rubber Soul was one of the first departures from this approach and Brian was a great admirer of this record. This, plus his own creative abilities, had Brian thinking a complete statement. It was quite novel in its day and hard to imagine in todays terms.

2) It was one of the first times a rock artist combined the idea of multitracking and Phil Spectors "wall of sound" into a single project. The super dense complex vocal harmonies Brian created required many many takes (and tracks) to achieve. This was new. He also did this with intruments, layering unusual elements together to create one sound. He even had the Beach Boys play, but then added Wrecking Crew tracks to build on it and make it more complete. Brian approached this Pet Sounds album in an orchestral way, like an orchestral composer does, hearing each instrument seperately yet together, using specific element combinations to create a specific sound. It is very heady work, and requires a big thinker to pull it off. Back in time, classical composers did this. Today its movie scoring composers who do this, like James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer.

So production and technology and a unique multi element sonic landscape was what made Pet Sounds so different. Its a lot more than if you like songs. THis was a left turn that changed modern recording and recomrd making forever. Sgt Pepper was very different from Rubber Soul, and it is said that it was due to Pet Sounds that the [Beatles] engineering team went to work to figure out how Brian did it, then replicated it.

 

Brad

 

NOTE: It might be fun for forum readers to sit down and listen to Pet Sounds and try to hear all these different layers and parts from different instruments. A pro engineer would follow one voice thoughout the song, then another and another.  then one isntrument, another and another.  This is also how these records are built. 

1-10  of all Music .

Best of Rock = 2

Jazz= 7 

Folk music = 6 

Classical Music =20 , 

Just about anything, taken out of context, is over-rated decades after it was state of the art. We went from window fans to air conditioning, black & white TV to color and from launching a dog into space to man walking on the moon during that decade - and the music grew by leaps and bounds as well. If you weren’t there, you really can’t grasp how cutting edge Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper, Hendrix etc were.

Compare 1963 pop music: Lesley Gore It’s My Party, The Chiffons He’s So Fine, The Kingsmen Louie Louie, The Cascades Rhythm of the Rain, to 1967: The Doors Light My Fire, The Beatles All You Need Is Love, Penny Lane, Procol Harum A Whiter Shade of Pale, Strawberry Alarm Clock Incense And Peppermints. Music was changing from mono singles and AM radio to stereo albums and FM radio - look at both The Beatles and The Beach Boys and how they evolved during these changes (that they were partially the cause of).

Hate to say it, but you had to be there.

@orgillian197

Well said.

Impressions and evaluations will always be subject to present circumstances but it's worth remembering that everything is/was initially of its own time.

I feel the same way about punk rock.

No one today who wasn't there can really know what it was like to watch it unfold back in 77 - 78.

lonemountain, "work of all originals"?

Hardly, the lead song, "Sloop John B" goes back to 1916.  

And I remember the Kingston Trio releasing it in 1958.

Not to detract from Brian Wilson's contributions, but let's be accurate at least.