Customer Reviews

Pet Sounds

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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I'm 24 years old. When I first heard this album about a month ago, I was unimpressed and felt cheated out my money. However, two songs kept me coming back - Wouldn't It Be Nice and God Only Knows. After giving it a second chance, I knew something special was there. Listening to it a few more times made me absolutely love the album.

There is something about the simple, yet expressive lyrics, and the child-like, yet grand instrumentals behind the vocals. It's almost magical in a way how the vocals and instrumentals blend so beautifully.

You can call it a coming-of-age album.

The CD package itself is great. I'm no audiophile, but it sounded exactly as I expected it to. It also comes with a 24-page (includes front and back) booklet with photos and a lot of interesting information about the album. The only thing that bothers me is that they included the bonus tracks on the same CD as the album. I'm not a big fan of the bonus tracks either.

Brian Wilson once said of this album he wanted to write songs on "more than one level". And since the term "classic album" is often overdone and often used without care,Brian's own terms seem to define this album very much. And there are very few full lengh albums over the years that I can say exist on more than one level. The works of Marvin Gaye,Stevie Wonder and The Beatles come to mind. This is one of those records I can put on with absolutely no urge to skip over any songs. The key to the entire success of this album was arrangement. Inspired by the vocal harmonies of pop and doo-wop groups along with the wall of sound production of Phil Spector Wilson created this,which basically amounts to his debut solo album co-staring The Beach Boys on vocals and harmonizes. Aside from that Carl,Dennis,Mike and Al had precious little to do with the music on this album. That's where the name comes from. These were,in fact Brian's "pet sounds". Based on musical influences that impacted on him personally.

This album is home to some truly wonderful songs. Much heard and well known hits such as "Would'nt It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows" being among them. And interestingly enough if those songs excite and amaze you,than the rest of this album will be right up your alley. Much as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was supposed to be (but which even John Lennon admitted it actually wasn't) this album is completely musically and thematically unified. This is not the work of an adolescent celebrating California surf culture. This is the work of a reflective and yearning 20 something who'd by this point already experienced physical abuse,mental illness and was now married with a baby on the way. Speaking for a generation obsessed with the eternal youth,this sets the record straight on that. On "I Know There's An Answer","Caroline No","Here Today" and beautifully chorded pieces such as "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times","Don't Talk" and "That's Not Me" there's this prevailing sense that the singer-songwriter who once mused about the delights of being "in my room" now saw the music world as forcing him to pay a big price for non conformity.

Musically? Well on this you here an album that goes for redefining what rock and roll was. Rather than having a lot of distorted guitars in the mix,playing three noisy chords you have elaborate organ/piano/horn/rhythm based songs that are more about melody,harmonic and chordal invention that making noise and "rocking out". On the instrumental title track for example you realize this album has a lot more in common with types of Northern soul recordings from Dusty Springfield or Georgie Fame for example. It's not by any means a guitar rock album. Bands such as the High Llama's would later make music very much based on this sound. But it definitely extends off the Beach Boys surf sound into something that comes very directly from Brian Wilson's soul. He would in fact suffer something of an emotional breakdown whilst attempting to outdo himself with the follow up album to this. That also mixed with the fact the blood and sweat perfectionism Brian put into this product wasn't fully appreciated by every member of the Beach Boys. But that's another story.