55th Anniversary Album Spotlight
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys
Released May 16, 1966
Chart debut: May 28, 1966
Chart peak: #10 (July 2, 1966)
#2 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003)
Wiki said:
Pet Sounds is the 11th studio album by the American rock band the Beach Boys, released May 16, 1966 on Capitol Records. It was initially met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response in the U.S., peaking at number 10 on Billboard's Top LPs chart. In the UK, the album was lauded by critics and reached number 2 on the Top 40 Albums Chart, remaining in the top ten for six months. Promoted there as "the most progressive pop album ever", Pet Sounds garnered recognition for its ambitious production, sophisticated music, and emotional lyric content. It is considered to be among the most influential albums in music history.
The album was produced, arranged, and almost entirely composed by Brian Wilson with guest lyricist Tony Asher. It was recorded largely between January and April 1966, a year after Wilson quit touring with his bandmates. His goal was to create "the greatest rock album ever made"—a cohesive work with no filler tracks. It is sometimes considered a Wilson solo album that builds upon the advancements of The Beach Boys Today! (1965)....Incorporating elements of pop, jazz, exotica, classical, and the avant-garde, Wilson's Wall of Sound-based orchestrations mixed conventional rock set-ups with elaborate layers of vocal harmonies, found sounds, and instruments never before associated with rock, such as bicycle bells, French horn, flutes, Electro-Theremin, string sections, and beverage cans....The album's unprecedented total production cost exceeded $70,000 (equivalent to $560,000 in 2020).
The album consists entirely of original material with the exception of "Sloop John B," a traditional song arranged here by Brian Wilson. The original songs are largely credited to Brian Wilson and advertising jingle writer Tony Asher, with a couple of solo Wilson compositions and a smattering of credited contributions from others such as Mike Love (who went to court well after the fact for at least some of those).
Brian described Pet Sounds as an "interpretation" of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production technique. He stated: "If you take the Pet Sounds album as a collection of art pieces, each designed to stand alone, yet which belong together, you'll see what I was aiming at. ... It wasn't really a song concept album, or lyrically a concept album; it was really a production concept album."
For Pet Sounds, Brian desired to make "a complete statement", similar to what he believed the Beatles had done with their newest album Rubber Soul, released in December 1965. The version of the album that he heard was the alternate US edition that was configured by Capitol to have a cohesive folk rock sound. Wilson was impressed that the album appeared to lack filler tracks, a feature that was mostly unheard of at a time when 45 rpm singles were considered more noteworthy than full-length LPs. Many albums up until the mid-1960s lacked a cohesive artistic goal and were largely used to sell singles at a higher price point. Wilson found that Rubber Soul subverted this by having a wholly consistent thread of music. Inspired, he rushed to his wife and proclaimed, "Marilyn, I'm gonna make the greatest album! The greatest rock album ever made!"
Wilson himself thought of the album as "chapel rock ... commercial choir music. I wanted to make an album that would stand up in ten years."
The album opens on a commercial note, with one of its most recognizable numbers, classic hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (charts July 30, 1966; #8 US), featuring vocals by Brian Wilson and Mike Love:
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" describes a young couple fantasizing about the romantic freedom they would earn as adults.
Wilson produced the record between January and April 1966 with his band and 16 studio musicians who variously played drums, timpani, glockenspiel, trumpet, saxophones, accordions, guitars, pianos, and upright bass. The harp-like instrument heard in the introduction is a 12-string mando-guitar plugged directly into the recording console. One section of the song engages in a ritardando, a device that is rarely used in pop music.
The album goes more esoteric with the Brian-sung
"You Still Believe in Me," which was the product of Asher's tryout as his lyricist.
On his role as co-lyricist, [Asher] said, "The general tenor of the lyrics was always his ... and the actual choice of words was usually mine. I was really just his interpreter."
"You Still Believe in Me" contains the first expression of introspective themes that pervade the rest of the album. The lyric discusses a narrator who, while acknowledging their irresponsible behavior and unfaithfulness, is impressed by the unwavering loyalty of their lover....Wilson and Asher created the song's ethereal intro by plucking a piano's strings with a bobby pin. The ending features the sounds of a bicycle bell and horn, a remnant of the song's original childhood theme.
Paul McCartney, who was so inspired by this album that he went and made
Sgt. Pepper, has cited this as one of his favorite tracks.
Mike Love takes the vocal forefront with
"That's Not Me".
"That's Not Me" contains multiple key modulations and mood shifts and is the only track that resembles a conventional rock song. The lyric illustrates a young man in his path toward self-discovery, with the realization that he is better living with a lover than pursuing a life of solitude in service to his dream.
Brian is the only Beach Boy performing on the ethereal
"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)".
"Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" is about non-verbal communication between lovers. According to Asher, "It's strange to sit down and write a song about not talking ... but we managed to do it and it came off well." The track features a string sextet and passing tones within diminished chords. It is among the most harmonically complex songs that Wilson ever wrote.
"I'm Waiting for the Day," also sung by Brian, comes on a little more brashly.
"I'm Waiting for the Day" features jazz chords, a doo-wop progression, timpani blasts, English horn, flutes, and a string section interlude. Carl Wilson praised the arrangement, saying, "The intro is very big, then it gets quite small with the vocal in the verse with a little instrumentation and then, in the chorus, it gets very big again, with the background harmonies against the lead. It is perhaps one of the most dynamic moments in the album."
Lyrically, it is about a boy who falls in love with a broken-hearted girl who is reluctant to commit herself to another relationship. The song was copyrighted by Brian as a solo composition in February 1964, indicating that it predated the album's sessions by some years. It was co-credited to Love, who made a minor adjustment to Wilson's lyrics.
Each side's penultimate number is an instrumental. For side one, it's
"Let's Go Away for Awhile," on which no Beach Boys actually performed...not even Brian.
"Let's Go Away for Awhile" is an instrumental that features 12 violins, piano, four saxophones, oboe, vibraphones, and a Coca-Cola bottle used as a guitar slide. In 1966, Wilson considered the track to be "the finest piece of art" he had made up to that point, and said that every component of its production "worked perfectly"....Asher wrote lyrics to the piece that went unused.
The side ends as it began, with an uber-classic single sung by Brian and Mike, "Sloop John B" (charted Apr. 22, 1966; #3 US; #2 UK; #271 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time):
At the suggestion of Al Jardine, Wilson arranged a version of "Sloop John B", a traditional Caribbean folk song that Jardine had learned from listening to the Kingston Trio. His arrangement blended rock and marching band instrumentation with the use of flutes, glockenspiel, baritone saxophone, bass, guitar, and drums. Jardine likened the result to John Philip Sousa....Brian included "Sloop John B" on Pet Sounds to appease Capitol Records, who voiced concerns that the album required the inclusion of a hit single in order to sell. The song is often said to disrupt the album's lyrical flow.
The album's strongest, most memorable tracks are definitely the side openers and closers. Case in point: the breathtakingly gorgeous "God Only Knows" (B-side of "Wouldn't It Be Nice"; charts Aug. 13, 1966; #39 US; #2 UK, where it was the A-side; #25 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time).
With lead vocals by his brother Carl, Brian produced the record between March and April 1966, enlisting about twenty session musicians who variously played drums, sleigh bells, plastic orange juice cups, clarinets, flutes, strings, French horn, accordion, guitars, upright bass, harpsichord, and a tack piano with its strings taped.
The musical structure contains an ambiguous tonal center and non-diatonic chords. Musicologist Philip Lambert cites its "choral fantasy" section to contain complex key changes that elude the listener "for the entire experience—that in fact, the idea of 'key' has itself been challenged and subverted". According to musicologist Stephen Downes, this quality made the song innovative not just in pop music, but also for the Baroque style it is emulating. Another odd feature was the use of multiple vocal parts sung in counterpoint, a technique that is distinguished from the "oos" and "ahhs" style of vocals for which the Beach Boys are known. The song closes with perpetual rounds, a centuries-old technique that was highly unusual for pop music of the era.
Many songwriters, including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Webb, have cited "God Only Knows" as their personal favorite song.
McCartney proclaimed that it was "the greatest song ever written".
If you can pull yourself away from listening to that over and over, the next track is
"I Know There's an Answer," originally titled "Hang On to Your Ego".
Written by Brian Wilson, Terry Sachen, and Mike Love, the song was inspired by Wilson's experience with the drug LSD and his struggle with ego death. Musically, it is distinguished for its colorful arrangement, unorthodox structure, and bass harmonica solo. The instrumentation also includes guitars, tack piano, banjo, clarinets, flutes, electric keyboards, and timpani. Wilson, Love, and Al Jardine trade the lead vocal, for which the melody spans two octaves.
Wilson and Sachen wrote lyrics to the song that criticized people who abuse LSD as a form of escapism. After Love voiced objections to its drug references, Wilson allowed him to revise the message to be about finding meaning within oneself.
Love takes the lead again for
"Here Today".
"Here Today" is told from the perspective of an ex-boyfriend narrator who warns the listener of the inevitable heartbreak that will result from a newfound love. The track was an experiment in basslines, as Brian recalled, "I wanted to conceive the idea of a bass guitar playing an octave higher than regular, and showcase it as the principal instrument on the track." Asher said, "'Here Today' contains a little more of me both lyrically and melodically than Brian."
"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," on the other hand, is pure Brian Wilson...and I can relate, though he was concerned with feeling that he was meant to be farther in the
future. (Hey, 1966 Brian, let's swap!)
"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" features lyrics about feeling alienated by society....For the track, [Brian] employed harpsichord, tack piano, flutes, temple blocks, timpani, banjo, harmonica, Fender bass, and most unusually, an Electro-Theremin performed by the instrument's inventor Paul Tanner. According to [Philip] Lambert, the strongest musical indication of Wilson's progressive vision for the album is heard in the cumulative vocal layering in the chorus, with each line sung by Wilson via overdubs.
(And yeah, one of those instruments definitely makes me picture the ol' C-57D in flight...)
The albums second instrumental is also, somewhat arbitrarily, its title track,
"Pet Sounds".
"Run, James, Run" was the working title for the instrumental "Pet Sounds", the suggestion being that it would be offered for use in a James Bond movie. According to [James] Perone, the track represents the Beach Boys' surf heritage more than any other track on the album with its emphasis on lead guitar.
The album closes with the haunting "Caroline, No" (charted Mar. 26, 1966, as a Brian Wilson single; #32 US; #211 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time):
"Caroline, No" is about the loss of innocence. Asher conceived the title as "Carol, I Know". When spoken, however, Brian heard this as "Caroline, No", which Asher thought was "a much stronger and more interesting line than the one I had in mind." Brian considered the song "probably the best I've ever written", summarizing, "It's a pretty love song about how this guy and this girl lost it and there's no way to get it back. I just felt sad, so I wrote a sad song."
Wilson produced the track in early 1966 at Western Studio with 12 session musicians who variously played harpsichord, flutes, guitars, basses, and vibraphone. Some of the percussion involved an empty water cooler jug struck from the bottom with a mallet. Wilson sped up the mix by one semi-tone to make his voice sound younger. The album version was edited to include a non-musical tag consisting of the sounds of Wilson's dogs barking and a passing train.
And according to Brian himself, that bit of business with his dogs was indeed the inspiration for the album's title. (The cover shoot, which had already been done, was based on an earlier working title,
Our Freaky Friends.)
Wilson later said that despite the positive reception afforded to the album in Britain, he still felt deeply hurt when Pet Sounds did not sell as highly as he expected and interpreted the poor sales as the public's rejection of his artistry. Marilyn supported that the lackluster response "really destroyed Brian".
Pet Sounds revolutionized the field of music production and the role of professional producers within the music industry, introduced novel approaches to orchestration, chord voicings, and structural harmonies, and furthered the cultural legitimization of popular music, a greater public appreciation for albums, the use of recording studios as an instrument, and the development of psychedelic music and progressive/art rock. The album could not be replicated live....It has topped several critics' and musicians' polls for the best album of all time, including those published by NME, Mojo, Uncut, and The Times. In 2004, it was preserved in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It has been certified platinum by the RIAA, indicating over one million units sold.
I recall that when I first listened to the whole album a few years ago, I was pretty impressed...but revisiting it for review purposes, with more immersive context behind it--including
The Beach Boys Today!--I struggled a bit more with it. I can see why the critics didn't take as much notice when it first came out. For one thing, the ground for it had definitely been laid on that prior album; for
Pet Sounds, Wilson was essentially taking its more ambitious tracks and making an entire LP in that vein. And while the idea was to make a uniformly outstanding album, the familiar single tracks still stand well above the rest of the contents, such that you really are getting the best of the album on a good hits compilation. At the risk of ending on too Beatle-centric a note, I come away with the impression that this album--which according to the narrative of its voluminous Wiki page didn't start to be routinely hailed as a masterpiece until well into the '90s--owes a lot of its pop-cultural cachet to having been the readily acknowledged inspiration for
Pepper...an album that, unlike
Pet Sounds, did have an immediate and profound impact on the industry.
_______
Co-written by future Chipmunk daddy Ross Bagdasarian (better known as David Seville) and his cousin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan.
Interesting.
I don't think I know this. It does sound like the Jacksons.
After three #1's and two #2's, they're taking a sharp turn into more obscure single releases here.
Wow, I never heard this before for sure. The idea of stirring in quotes and news items with "Abraham, Martin, and John" is brilliant. Unfortunately, the use of the child and the army stuff really compromises it. It also didn't really need "What the World Needs Now," either, but that's fine.
Really? This got oldies radio airplay in my neck. I think the whole package works pretty well...if anything, the actual performance of "Abraham, Martin and John" is a little schmaltzy. But overall, very sign o' the times I was coming to awareness in...that kid couldn't have been much older than I was. And she's the best part!
This is one of my favorites from one of my favorite bands.
Also a surprise, as despite this already being in my collection, I have zero familiarity with it. And it doesn't stand out compared to their prior major hits.
Not only that, but in the midst of the Counterculture Era, they framed it in the context of middle-class suburbia. I love it.
Well, the hippie / flower power phenomenon hasn't broken out with the general public at this point.
Happy 81st! Peace and love!