Album: Pet Sounds
Artist: Beach Boys
Born: Hawthorne, California
Released: May 1966
Genre: Baroque
Influenced: The Beatles, Daniel Johnston, Radiohead, Flaming Lips
1966 really was the Beach Boys' year. With the release of Pet Sounds in the summer followed by Good Vibrations, a No1 single like no other mixing up so many genres & sounds in just under 4mins, they were on top of the pop world. Paul McCartney gracefully said at the time that Pet Sounds was the best album he had ever heard. The baroque sound of harpsichords & string quartets was one that McCartney would develop to great effect with Eleanor Rigby, on the Beatles' next album Revolver. This high art form of pop had been pioneered by Jacques Brel and Phil Spector (note the Walker Brothers singles in the year just before Pet Sounds was released), but what made this album so original was marrying these classical elements with surfer harmonies and strange musical noises. Though the Beach Boys started out as a seemingly superficial sunny surfer group in the early 60s, some of Wilson's best songs had a sadness too (In My Room, '63, All Summer Long, '64).
On Pet Sounds, this sadness builds and intensifies, on what is essentially a song cycle about heartbreak (to paraphrase, going from "we could be married, wouldn't it be nice" to "what happened to the girl I used to know, Caroline No!"). I always found the lyrics to opener Wouldn't It Be Nice a bit too sickly sweet ("We could be married / And then we'd be happy / Oh, wouldn't it be nice"), but now I see that Brian Wilson's intention was to summon up the naivety of young love. By the time you get to side 2, the songwriting is of the highest order, and genuinely moving. After Sloop John B (which always seemed a little out of place to me on the album), the run of songs to the close is probably the best 20mins of pop music ever recorded, with God Only Knows, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Caroline, No! all highlights. As a teenager, I'd spend many moments trying to figure out what the noise of the train and yapping dogs as the album fades out really "meant"; did the train symbolise his lost love leaving the station and the dogs ("pet sounds") all he had left to console him? God only knows!
A few footnotes: i) Listening to Pet Sounds is like a religious experience and deserves to be properly listened to, never as background music, ii) Brian Wilson's co-writer Tony Asher was an even younger guy plucked from obscurity, iii) the legendary Wrecking Crew provided the immaculate musicianship, iv) Pet Sounds was the first album to use a bass harmonica as lead instrument, v) Brian Wilson was, like one of his greatest fans Daniel Johnston, a man child and his lack of cynicism and tenderness was the secret to his wonderful, moving songs. Sadly though, the pressure to follow up Pet Sounds and the promise of the Smile project, combined with a love for LSD, all got too much for him. Just a year later, Sgt Pepper's was launched, Hendrix declared the death of "surf music" at Monterey and Brian disappeared from view (to be continued).
Artist: Beach Boys
Born: Hawthorne, California
Released: May 1966
Genre: Baroque
Influenced: The Beatles, Daniel Johnston, Radiohead, Flaming Lips
1966 really was the Beach Boys' year. With the release of Pet Sounds in the summer followed by Good Vibrations, a No1 single like no other mixing up so many genres & sounds in just under 4mins, they were on top of the pop world. Paul McCartney gracefully said at the time that Pet Sounds was the best album he had ever heard. The baroque sound of harpsichords & string quartets was one that McCartney would develop to great effect with Eleanor Rigby, on the Beatles' next album Revolver. This high art form of pop had been pioneered by Jacques Brel and Phil Spector (note the Walker Brothers singles in the year just before Pet Sounds was released), but what made this album so original was marrying these classical elements with surfer harmonies and strange musical noises. Though the Beach Boys started out as a seemingly superficial sunny surfer group in the early 60s, some of Wilson's best songs had a sadness too (In My Room, '63, All Summer Long, '64).
On Pet Sounds, this sadness builds and intensifies, on what is essentially a song cycle about heartbreak (to paraphrase, going from "we could be married, wouldn't it be nice" to "what happened to the girl I used to know, Caroline No!"). I always found the lyrics to opener Wouldn't It Be Nice a bit too sickly sweet ("We could be married / And then we'd be happy / Oh, wouldn't it be nice"), but now I see that Brian Wilson's intention was to summon up the naivety of young love. By the time you get to side 2, the songwriting is of the highest order, and genuinely moving. After Sloop John B (which always seemed a little out of place to me on the album), the run of songs to the close is probably the best 20mins of pop music ever recorded, with God Only Knows, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Caroline, No! all highlights. As a teenager, I'd spend many moments trying to figure out what the noise of the train and yapping dogs as the album fades out really "meant"; did the train symbolise his lost love leaving the station and the dogs ("pet sounds") all he had left to console him? God only knows!
A few footnotes: i) Listening to Pet Sounds is like a religious experience and deserves to be properly listened to, never as background music, ii) Brian Wilson's co-writer Tony Asher was an even younger guy plucked from obscurity, iii) the legendary Wrecking Crew provided the immaculate musicianship, iv) Pet Sounds was the first album to use a bass harmonica as lead instrument, v) Brian Wilson was, like one of his greatest fans Daniel Johnston, a man child and his lack of cynicism and tenderness was the secret to his wonderful, moving songs. Sadly though, the pressure to follow up Pet Sounds and the promise of the Smile project, combined with a love for LSD, all got too much for him. Just a year later, Sgt Pepper's was launched, Hendrix declared the death of "surf music" at Monterey and Brian disappeared from view (to be continued).
Comments