Initially met with a lukewarm critical and commercial reception after it’s 1966 release, Pet Sounds had a resurgence in the mid-90’s and is now regarded as one of the most critically acclaimed and respected albums of all-time. There isn’t a serious list of all-time albums where Pet Sounds doesn’t occupy the top spot or somewhere close. It is that influential.
Pet Sounds was a significant creative departure for The Beach Boys. The reason for that is quite simple– lead songwriter Brian Wilson saw what The Beatles were doing across the pond and decided to push the band’s creative output to the max, ditching saccharine sweet melodies for dense and complex musical and harmonic arrangements. Wilson was plagued by anxiety in his early 20’s, and took a break from The Beach Boys grueling tour schedule to hole up in Hollywood and write the entire album on his own, bringing in studio musicians to play all the parts.
The result was transcendent, and completely unappreciated, at the time. Most of Pet Sounds compositions feature a weak tonal center (in other words, the key the song is in remains somewhat ambiguous to the listener), featured arrangements so dense they were unable to be played live, and feature roughly a dozen instruments on each track (including atypical selections like accordions, harpsichords, Coca-Cola bottles, and bicycle bells). This was avant-garde rock at its absolute finest, with all the incredible vocal harmonies The Beach Boys were known for layered on top of it all.
A final note– this year I set out on a journey to listen to one full album per day for a multitude of reasons, one of these being a desire to gain a greater appreciation for the artistic achievement of a full album. In an increasingly single-centric world, music has become somewhat commoditized and transient. The spirit of an album is one that is ripe for appreciation from my perspective.
I have Brian Wilson to thank for that. With Pet Sounds he laid the very foundation for this project, creating one of the first albums that was meant to be enjoyed as an entire whole rather than as a collection of unconnected thoughts. In fact I’m sort of kicking myself right now for not doing this album first to kick off the project. It would have been a perfect way to get things started.
But in the final analysis, waiting a few months into the project to cover this album feels serendipitous. Much like the critical consensus for Pet Sounds, some things in life just simply need to take their time.
Standout Songs: “That’s Not Me”, “God Only Knows”, “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”
