(Wilson, a nervous flyer, had quit touring with the band a year earlier). Its themes range from the hopeful idealism of young love (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”) and the transient nature of romance (“Here Today”) to alienation (“I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”) and deeper ruminations on life (“I Know There’s An Answer”).Ĭlick to load video How and when did the album get written?īrian Wilson began writing the material for the album alongside a new collaborator, lyricist Tony Asher, when the rest of The Beach Boys were performing in Japan and Hawaii in January 1966. Pet Sounds is cited as an example of one of pop/rock’s first bona fide concept albums because of its unity of purpose and mood as well as the way its 13 songs interconnect to form a coherent narrative. “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,” said Brian Wilson in 2010. It followed in the wake of Beach Boys Party!, the group’s 1965 album of covers that included their memorable hit version of doo-wop group The Regents’ “Barbara Ann.” That particular record’s sound was minimalist in comparison with the grandiose sonic sculptures of Pet Sounds, which signaled a total musical transformation of a group who previously seemed solely preoccupied with the idea of having “Fun, Fun, Fun.” What’s the concept behind the album? Pet Sounds was the band’s 12th album in the space of five, hectic, and intensely productive, years. Nothing was inconsequential even the album’s two instrumental tracks, “Let’s Go Away For A While” and “Pet Sounds,” were integral to the record’s narrative arc.Ĭlick to load video Where were The Beach Boys in their career at the time? It was conceived as a coherent work of art where every song – even every note – counted. Pet Sounds didn’t follow the format of conventional pop albums of the day It wasn’t merely a collection of disparate songs that combined a couple of hit singles with reheated covers, as was the norm in the mid-’60s rather. It brought about seismic changes to the landscape of pop music with its unusual sonics, novel textures, and structural innovations. It was shaped by the musical sensibilities of songwriter/producer Brian Wilson, whose collection of carefully crafted pocket pop symphonies was unlike anything the Beach Boys – or any band for that matter – had done before. Quite simply, Pet Sounds ushered in a new approach to album making that revolutionized popular music. For the uninitiated, then, this article intends to answer some of the fundamental questions about what is undoubtedly the Beach Boys’ – and possibly pop’s – greatest album.Ĭheck out the 50th-anniversary edition of Pet Sounds here. It is pop music’s equivalent to what Citizen Kane is to the world of cinema a universally recognized masterpiece that defined a new era while simultaneously redefining the art form it represented.ĭespite its fame, Pet Sounds still remains an unexplored country for some, who may have heard of the album but are unaware of its significance. It was a collection of songs that would quickly cause a paradigm shift in pop.įew pop albums – before or since – have enjoyed the notoriety of Pet Sounds, which for decades has been showered with almost every accolade imaginable and continues to be a high achiever in magazine polls ranking the best pop and rock LPs of all time. And yet, in May 1966, the Hawthorne-hailing group – consisting of the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, together with their cousin Mike Love and family friend Al Jardine – unleashed an audacious sonic experiment they called Pet Sounds. After all, they had built their renown as clean-living all-American kids delivering harmonized hymns that worshipped surfing, girls, and hot rods – the holy trinity of Californian teenagers in the early 60s – over a rocking backbeat that bore a tangible trace of rock and roller Chuck Berry‘s musical DNA. The Beach Boys were probably the last group on earth expected to start a musical revolution.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |