The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” turns 60 today

Together with “Sgt. Pepper’s…” by the Beatles, “Pet Sounds” is frequently referred to by critics as the most significant album in the history of rock.
With “Sgt. Pepper’s…”, “Pet sounds”, released on May 16, 1966, also disputes the title of “first concept album”: although, to tell the truth, what unifies the 13 songs on the album is not a narrative concept or a structural scheme, but rather a previously unreleased unity of sound atmospheres.

According to some, “Pet sounds” is more of a solo album by Brian Wilson (who is also the producer) with the Beach Boys than a group work: if there is no doubt that the personality of the leader (also expressed through Tony Asher’s lyrics) emerges forcefully from the grooves of the album, it is equally true, however, that the other members of the band also contribute significantly.

With “Pet sounds”, Brian Wilson intends to free the Beach Boys from the reputation of “surf band” which, moreover, had ensured the group great sales successes: and a turn towards introspection and melancholy, while maintaining a freshness and brightness to the music never equaled by other protagonists of the music scene. If the arrangements, especially the orchestral ones, may sound a little dated today (they were inspired by the Hollywood soundtracks of the time), the accuracy of the vocal harmonies and the complex, but not heavy “wall of sound” – Brian greatly appreciated Phil Spector’s productions – retains a fascinating splendor: and even songs with an explicitly pop form such as “Wouldn’t it be nice” take on a depth and value far superior to the average of the music circulating in the mid-Sixties.

The album’s masterpiece is probably “God Only Knows” (according to Paul McCartney, “the greatest pop song ever written”), and if “Sloop John B.” it is the song that most refers to the “beach” style of the Beach Boys (it is a traditional song, already taken up by the Kingston Trio, which Alan Jardine had proposed as a single: it was included in the album even though it had not been created specifically for “Pet sounds”), titles such as “You still believe in me”, “I’m waiting for the day” and “Caroline, no” testify to the greatness of a record which – born as a creative reaction to the Beatles’ “Rubber soul” – has the additional merit of having stimulated the couple Lennon-McCartney to try to emulate and surpass him, giving life to “Sgt. Pepper’s…”. The race to continually overtake will push Brian Wilson to write a new work, “Smile”, which was later aborted: from that effort the musician would emerge mentally exhausted, on a collision course with the rest of the band.

HERE IS ROCKOL’S SPECIAL MIXTAPE ON “PET SOUNDS”