I noted several of the albums I reviewed earlier this year had much in common: multiple harmonies and layers of meticulous production. If you dig back in the history of popular music, you’ll come across one album that seems to have spurred this blossoming trend. Just when everyone thought they had Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys pegged as a fun time surf band, Pet Sounds would be a change in artist direction that many fans wouldn’t appreciate at first but would become a watershed moment for popular music.
I’ll leave you to do some reading on your own, but what you need to know is that Brain Wilson is the brain behind this whole album. While the rest of the band was touring, he retired from the road and wrote, produced, sang, and arranged all the pieces of this album. When the band came back he had them fill in some vocal spots, but this is all Brian.
No one expected such an emotionally dense album to be put out by a bunch of guys that sang about girls, surfing and hitting some waves. Initially, Pet Sounds was laughed at and didn’t go gold status until the late 1990s. The album was written off, and people waited for The Beatles to make their move.
Listening now, we can hear Brian reaching out to people. You can hear all the effort he put into each song to make it sound perfect and how bands today try to emulate his precision. Besides ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ and ‘God Only Knows’ check out ‘That’s Not Me’, ‘I Know There’s an Answer’, and ‘I’m Waiting for the Day’ to get a better idea. The CD version has the album in the original mono mix and stereo. Enjoy a true classic that Paul McCartney endorses.
