Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

It's the album most affected by Brian's mental illness. Beside the beauty of the harmonies and inventiveness of the production, it is deeply depressing music.

Just because the techniques were pioneering does not make the album "great."

The songs are mostly mediocre pop songs, pumped up by arrangements and a format that were new to pop music. The songs themselves do not compare to other Beach Boys records.

This makes Pet Sounds "influential," and reaffirms the greatness of Brian Wilson in the R&R world, but the album itself is not great. Others took the new style and made much better records.

Jaybo: Sergeant Pepper sold big. Pet Sounds did not. Explanation?

(Hint: The correct answer is NOT that the Beatles were more popular than the Beach Boys.)

I appreciate the passion of your responses. Let me try to clarify the point:

1. Of course sales alone do not demonstrate the value of a record. The point is that Pet Sounds sold far less even than other Beach Boys records. Ie, it did not even appeal to the band's own core audience.

That's right, even Beach Boys fans did not, by and large, like the record.

I love old Beach Boys records. The songs on Pet Sounds lacks the spark of those records.

It's not only a question of sophistication. Rather, it's a work of great sophistication with songs that did not measure up to the band's own prior work. I would suggest that the Beach Boys did not leave their fans behind because the music was suddenly too sophisticated for them, but rather because it just wasn't that good.

2. I'm 51. It's possible to be an adult, and have educated taste and still not think Pet Sounds is a good record. It's an important record, but not a good one. For the record: I love early Elvis, I love early Dylan, I love early Johnny Cash ...