Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

It's the album most affected by Brian's mental illness. Beside the beauty of the harmonies and inventiveness of the production, it is deeply depressing music.

I think that you would have to rank it with the Beatle's Revolver, Dylan's mid-60's work and possibly Hendrix as the four most important and imitated albums that spawned a host of copy cat albums by lessor artists. Everyone from Tom Petty and Elvis Costello have sang its praise.

I agree with Jimjoyce25 is that Pet Sounds is an accurate reflection of Brian's mental state, obviously influenced by large self-medicated doses of LSD, which in 1965 was legal at the time. While Sloop John B sounds like a simple ode to the sea, it is also a reference to his intake, sporting the line "This is the worst trip I have ever been on." Trippy but true.

Brian could have easily gone the way of Syd Barrett. It is nice that he still functioning, especially his recent release of Smile!

I do not agree, it change music to what we here today.
I believe has to do with the beat or tempo of the music. It's go's somthing like this. The Drummer startes the beat 123 or 1234 or 12345. Back in the early days it was all 123 in rock music. The Beach Boys were the first to start using differant tempo's and to even intertwine 2 if not three differant beats in a single song. John & Paul heard this and started to add it to thier music also that why SPLHCB was so revolutionary at the time. Pet Sound was the thinking out of the box album. If you really listen to the music it is very complex especially for the day.

Others here have touched on the idea that you have to put it in context as to what came before Pet Sounds, and what followed it to "get" the genius of the work, as is true with any great work of art.

The lack of technology and yet to have such excellent results from both the Beach Boys and the Beatles is what is so astounding. I don't believe the Moog was even invented at this point. Today, computer technology exists to reproduce the sounds that artists hear in their minds. I remember hearing the Beach Boys play good vibrations at a concert and using that weird vibraphone or vibraboard to make that eerie sound that was so much a part of the song. It's amazing how technologically advanced everyone thought that was way back then! The Beatles would probably have been able to make Sgt Peppers in a few weeks now, back than it took about 6 months, which was unheard of at the time. You have to view these great albums in their respective time periods to understand. The Beatles were also influenced later, by the Band. A lot of it is based on the time period it was made and the music that was being produced during that time. For example, I have been around to hear all of that music and still listen to rock and question some of the recent album rankings. One example is I think that Nirvana was an excellent band but I would never rate "Nevermind" as the second greatest album or whatever it was ranked, but that's my opinion, which is what all of this really is anyway.