One of my favorite genres of Substack post is the person who rattles off a nuanced bottled history of something they really love, that I know nothing about, and then hedges it in a little bit, cleans it up, makes a neat package. I didn't know literally any of this. Moved by the depiction here of two musicians playing chords, figuring out the melody together, making vocal noises and resolving to fill the words in later. A call-and-response in some meaningful second language.
Thank you for this great piece about this great album.
I was one of those kids who grew up with 80s punk rock and had no interest at all in the Beach Boys, who seemed to be as nothing more than sugary, shallow pop ... until I finally heard Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson was right on when he sang 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'.
Since then I hear some other albums I love differently, now that I hear the clear influence of this quiet masterpiece. You mention Revolver here...another is XTC's Skylarking. I had thought their love for the Beach Boys manifested mostly in the ooh-wee-ooh harmonies and light hearted energy of their earlier albums... but the melancholy beauty, the concept album flow, really everything from the cricket sounds to the piano and strings of Skylarking sounds like a tribute to Pet Sounds from start to finish to me now.
I am going to listen to Pet Sounds again right now!
Beautiful and moving. I had a copy of Endless Summer when I was a teenager in the 1970s. I loved The Beach Boys and the Ramones at the same time. I saw Brian when he toured to perform Pet Sounds. He sang well, but his staged demeanor invalid-like. The crowd was a support group and a cheering section for Brian, just to get him through the evening! The love in the room for him and his music was intense, it was an extraordinary night.
Not a joke. The Beach Boys came out of the doo-woo and group harmony singing that was popular after the second world war. All the girl groups came from the same background, including the Ronettes and the Shangri-La‘s, both from New York. And we know that the Ramones liked girl groups, particularly Joey. And we know that Brian Wilson hero-worshiped Phil Spector. So, there were certainly common influences.
And of course there's 'Rockaway Beach', and Ramone's cover of 'California Sun' ... the general light and fun vibe of their 70s albums remind me of the early Beach Boys ....
I’m glad when I hear the first notes of every single track on this album. It is truly all killer, no filler, as we say now. I’m not tempted to skip tracks, or just tolerate a song until I get to the next one. There are very few other albums of which this is true.
The sections describing the recording sessions were fascinating. The image of Brian hearing sounds others couldn’t yet hear....and pushing musicians toward something almost impossible to articulate....makes the creative process feel nearly mystical. What an incredible musical genius he was! I especially loved the idea that the session musicians were essentially trying to translate emotions and textures that existed fully formed inside Brian’s mind before they existed anywhere else in the world. You capture that rare moment where art stops feeling manufactured and starts feeling discovered, almost as if the music already existed somewhere beyond language and Brian was simply trying to pull it into reality. This was a fantastic read! Subbing so I can read more!
I am only a casual listener of the Beach Boys but the way you describe their history and music is so compelling! "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is my favorite song of theirs, but now because of your great writing I'm inspired to listen to the whole Pet Sounds album.
Fantastic writing, Ross. Pet Sounds is an album that I truly began to appreciate during the past decade or so. It started when one of my buddies brought over the Pet Sounds Sessions CD set for one of our music nights. The more I listen to (and learn about) the album, the more I appreciate it. Particularly last year when I added the Analogue Productions 45 RPM 2LP pressing, which sounds amazing and better allowed me to hear some of the nuances.
What a wonderful tribute article. I read it after viewing Love & Mercy on TV, a revealing & depressing experience. But it was all worthwhile to watch a re-enactment of Brian creating Good Vibrations on the fly in the studio, minutely directing bewildered master instrumentalists to play the symphony that pre-existed in his head.
Beautiful writing, Ross, thanks so much for this. What a gift of an essay. Besides the simple and heartfelt beauty of the writing, I learned some things I didn't know before, which I wasn't sure was still possible for me with the BBs! Thank you again.
I have been a fan of Pet Sounds and Smile since I first heard them as a teenager in the 2010s. So, I actually did get to have it resonate with my own teenage angst, which was bittersweetly sublime. I enjoyed this essay and it’s inspired me to give another look to the 70s Beach Boys albums, which I’ve mostly neglected except for Love You.
Okay, after the 1970s, the BBs didn't THAT much great stuff, but they definitely did some. That's Why God Made the Radio (2012) is a not only not a bad album, it's half a great one ... I listen to Summer's Gone (written with Jon Bon Jovi) all the time. The three songs before it are great too.
Also, check out Somewhere Near Japan and the Paley sessions!
Strangely, after being generally aware of Pet Sounds for years, I finally became completely entranced by it just last week. Perhaps something to do with the bubbling springtime and a general existential unease. Whatever the reason, I listened to the album on loop for days. Then seeing this on the stack was a fitting cap to that experience. Its going to be a Beach Boys summer in this house.
Excellent stuff, Ross! For whatever reason, I never would have pegged you as a fellow Beach Boys obsessive, but I suppose that's on me. I did take your somewhat tongue-in-cheek advice and print this out. Not because it's too long, but because it's so endearing and so well written that it deserves to have a physical print. Looking forward to more deep dives like this!
The mourning when Brian died felt like the most culturally unified moment we've experienced in a *long* time. People on all sides of the political/cultural divide loved him snd what he gave us.
A great read, Ross, that I couldn't get enough of. Had Brian Wilson been capable of putting together Smile and releasing it at the time, we really might be talking about it, and not Sgt. Pepper, as the greatest achievement of that '60s ferment, and a landmark of 20th-century music. It might have made Pet Sounds his Revolver by comparison - but that is no slouch. (I still think that Revolver arguably might have been better than Sgt. Pepper, because even with the tensions that were beginning to eat away at the Beatles, there was still a group ethos behind it - the idea of breaking up was still unthinkable, and the creativity was firing on all cylinders.) It is a true tragedy that he fell into the clutches of mental instability, Eugene Landy, and a sense of having achieved too much too soon. But that he was capable of what he was still overrides those factors. He will be remembered even farther down the line than who he is remembered as now - and we're over half a century away from this incredible achievement.
One of my favorite genres of Substack post is the person who rattles off a nuanced bottled history of something they really love, that I know nothing about, and then hedges it in a little bit, cleans it up, makes a neat package. I didn't know literally any of this. Moved by the depiction here of two musicians playing chords, figuring out the melody together, making vocal noises and resolving to fill the words in later. A call-and-response in some meaningful second language.
Thank you for this great piece about this great album.
I was one of those kids who grew up with 80s punk rock and had no interest at all in the Beach Boys, who seemed to be as nothing more than sugary, shallow pop ... until I finally heard Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson was right on when he sang 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'.
Since then I hear some other albums I love differently, now that I hear the clear influence of this quiet masterpiece. You mention Revolver here...another is XTC's Skylarking. I had thought their love for the Beach Boys manifested mostly in the ooh-wee-ooh harmonies and light hearted energy of their earlier albums... but the melancholy beauty, the concept album flow, really everything from the cricket sounds to the piano and strings of Skylarking sounds like a tribute to Pet Sounds from start to finish to me now.
I am going to listen to Pet Sounds again right now!
Beautiful and moving. I had a copy of Endless Summer when I was a teenager in the 1970s. I loved The Beach Boys and the Ramones at the same time. I saw Brian when he toured to perform Pet Sounds. He sang well, but his staged demeanor invalid-like. The crowd was a support group and a cheering section for Brian, just to get him through the evening! The love in the room for him and his music was intense, it was an extraordinary night.
I’ve often (half) joked that Ramones are the Beach Boys of Queens, especially their first few albums
Not a joke. The Beach Boys came out of the doo-woo and group harmony singing that was popular after the second world war. All the girl groups came from the same background, including the Ronettes and the Shangri-La‘s, both from New York. And we know that the Ramones liked girl groups, particularly Joey. And we know that Brian Wilson hero-worshiped Phil Spector. So, there were certainly common influences.
yup, all that.
And of course there's 'Rockaway Beach', and Ramone's cover of 'California Sun' ... the general light and fun vibe of their 70s albums remind me of the early Beach Boys ....
I’m glad when I hear the first notes of every single track on this album. It is truly all killer, no filler, as we say now. I’m not tempted to skip tracks, or just tolerate a song until I get to the next one. There are very few other albums of which this is true.
The sections describing the recording sessions were fascinating. The image of Brian hearing sounds others couldn’t yet hear....and pushing musicians toward something almost impossible to articulate....makes the creative process feel nearly mystical. What an incredible musical genius he was! I especially loved the idea that the session musicians were essentially trying to translate emotions and textures that existed fully formed inside Brian’s mind before they existed anywhere else in the world. You capture that rare moment where art stops feeling manufactured and starts feeling discovered, almost as if the music already existed somewhere beyond language and Brian was simply trying to pull it into reality. This was a fantastic read! Subbing so I can read more!
I am only a casual listener of the Beach Boys but the way you describe their history and music is so compelling! "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is my favorite song of theirs, but now because of your great writing I'm inspired to listen to the whole Pet Sounds album.
Superb and riveting essay, thanks so much for making it freely available.
Fantastic writing, Ross. Pet Sounds is an album that I truly began to appreciate during the past decade or so. It started when one of my buddies brought over the Pet Sounds Sessions CD set for one of our music nights. The more I listen to (and learn about) the album, the more I appreciate it. Particularly last year when I added the Analogue Productions 45 RPM 2LP pressing, which sounds amazing and better allowed me to hear some of the nuances.
What a wonderful tribute article. I read it after viewing Love & Mercy on TV, a revealing & depressing experience. But it was all worthwhile to watch a re-enactment of Brian creating Good Vibrations on the fly in the studio, minutely directing bewildered master instrumentalists to play the symphony that pre-existed in his head.
Beautiful writing, Ross, thanks so much for this. What a gift of an essay. Besides the simple and heartfelt beauty of the writing, I learned some things I didn't know before, which I wasn't sure was still possible for me with the BBs! Thank you again.
I have been a fan of Pet Sounds and Smile since I first heard them as a teenager in the 2010s. So, I actually did get to have it resonate with my own teenage angst, which was bittersweetly sublime. I enjoyed this essay and it’s inspired me to give another look to the 70s Beach Boys albums, which I’ve mostly neglected except for Love You.
Okay, after the 1970s, the BBs didn't THAT much great stuff, but they definitely did some. That's Why God Made the Radio (2012) is a not only not a bad album, it's half a great one ... I listen to Summer's Gone (written with Jon Bon Jovi) all the time. The three songs before it are great too.
Also, check out Somewhere Near Japan and the Paley sessions!
Strangely, after being generally aware of Pet Sounds for years, I finally became completely entranced by it just last week. Perhaps something to do with the bubbling springtime and a general existential unease. Whatever the reason, I listened to the album on loop for days. Then seeing this on the stack was a fitting cap to that experience. Its going to be a Beach Boys summer in this house.
Excellent stuff, Ross! For whatever reason, I never would have pegged you as a fellow Beach Boys obsessive, but I suppose that's on me. I did take your somewhat tongue-in-cheek advice and print this out. Not because it's too long, but because it's so endearing and so well written that it deserves to have a physical print. Looking forward to more deep dives like this!
The mourning when Brian died felt like the most culturally unified moment we've experienced in a *long* time. People on all sides of the political/cultural divide loved him snd what he gave us.
A great read, Ross, that I couldn't get enough of. Had Brian Wilson been capable of putting together Smile and releasing it at the time, we really might be talking about it, and not Sgt. Pepper, as the greatest achievement of that '60s ferment, and a landmark of 20th-century music. It might have made Pet Sounds his Revolver by comparison - but that is no slouch. (I still think that Revolver arguably might have been better than Sgt. Pepper, because even with the tensions that were beginning to eat away at the Beatles, there was still a group ethos behind it - the idea of breaking up was still unthinkable, and the creativity was firing on all cylinders.) It is a true tragedy that he fell into the clutches of mental instability, Eugene Landy, and a sense of having achieved too much too soon. But that he was capable of what he was still overrides those factors. He will be remembered even farther down the line than who he is remembered as now - and we're over half a century away from this incredible achievement.