Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

Interesting that on an audiophile forum, everyone save a few are judging Pet Sounds on how "good" the song writing itself is. The accolades for Pet Sounds have almost nothing to do with the song writing.

Pet Sounds was so different in that it did two things:

1) It was a complete work of all originals: every song, every note every word mattered. The "normal album" for 1965 was a collection of a few orginals and mostly covers. Look at Hollies 1965 for a good example of this. Rubber Soul was one of the first departures from this approach and Brian was a great admirer of this record. This, plus his own creative abilities, had Brian thinking a complete statement. It was quite novel in its day and hard to imagine in todays terms.

2) It was one of the first times a rock artist combined the idea of multitracking and Phil Spectors "wall of sound" into a single project. The super dense complex vocal harmonies Brian created required many many takes (and tracks) to achieve. This was new. He also did this with intruments, layering unusual elements together to create one sound. He even had the Beach Boys play, but then added Wrecking Crew tracks to build on it and make it more complete. Brian approached this Pet Sounds album in an orchestral way, like an orchestral composer does, hearing each instrument seperately yet together, using specific element combinations to create a specific sound. It is very heady work, and requires a big thinker to pull it off. Back in time, classical composers did this. Today its movie scoring composers who do this, like James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer.

So production and technology and a unique multi element sonic landscape was what made Pet Sounds so different. Its a lot more than if you like songs. THis was a left turn that changed modern recording and recomrd making forever. Sgt Pepper was very different from Rubber Soul, and it is said that it was due to Pet Sounds that the [Beatles] engineering team went to work to figure out how Brian did it, then replicated it.

Brad

NOTE: It might be fun for forum readers to sit down and listen to Pet Sounds and try to hear all these different layers and parts from different instruments. A pro engineer would follow one voice thoughout the song, then another and another.  then one isntrument, another and another.  This is also how these records are built. 

What an interesting thread.  Amazing how different people's perspectives are.  Funny enough, I was never interested in Pet Sounds when it came out, I was in love with the Beatles.  I was young so there was a bit "are you a Beach Boys or Beatles Fan?"  At the time many of us were picking one or the other- kinds of silly now.

Im in the miusic business now and I  get to go in the room Pet Sounds was recorded in (now known as East West Studios in LA).  What is most amazing about this record (and has been said in this thread) was Brian thought of his pop music like a orchestra with a zillion parts and layers. No one else was doing anything close to that.  All the other records of the day where built with a band playing/singing at the same time, like a concert.  No one was multitracking because none of the studios had the multitrack recorder system (developed by Les Paul BTW). 

Another amzing thing about the record is Brain figured out how to get all those layers and parts, created and recorded one part at a time, all put together and mixed properly in time and a the right level.  No easy feat a the time.  It was a ridiculous amount of work and no one but a madman/genius would go through that much work over music "he heard in his head". 

Another intersting fact about the album was the Wrecking Crew,.  The played on the entire record and the Wrecking crew was an extremely professional set of stuido musicians.   I was just at an event where they finally gave Carol Kaye a lifetime achievement award.  A female bass player was behind the wrecking crew almost all the entire time, while guitartists like Glenn Campell and and Tommy Tedesco played on some records and not others. 

Funny, the list of top records in that year, Wrecking Crew played on 75% of them (Association, 5th Dimension, Mamas and Pappas, Herb Albert/Tijuana Brass, on and on).  They were incredible musicians and could play any song perfect, in any style,  by the second run through with little or no sheet music.

IM not sure if any of you ever heard a Beach Boys album that is now out of print called SURF'S UP.  It was a next step after Pet Sounds and is absolutely amazing.  There were songs like "Feel Flows" on that record that used backwards tape mixed in and all kinds of production tricks to get the coolest sound- SO FAR AHEAD of the industry at the time.   

I see that many judge Pet Sounds on the strength of the songs alone- which is only part of the story.  At the time, I did too.  Now, I understand it and the tech behind it and it WAS as a technological leap.  If anyone watched that Hulu show with Rick Rubin and Paul McCartney were Paul explains the whole story from the beginning, they were dumbfounded by Pet Sounds.  It was WAY beyond anything being done in the UK and it took George Martin and Brain Epstien months to figure out how to do to it.   

Sgt Pepper was a brilliant album but keep in mind it wasnt Paul John Ringo and George that figured out parts and multitracks and layers and overlays, it was their engineer/producers (Epstien Martin).  So Paul said on that intereview they would come in with a a song, a guitar part and a maybe the vocals and lyrics and that was it!  The rest was those producers.   In the case of the Beach Boys, it was ALL BRIAN- engineering, writing the music, figuring out voicings, conducting the sessions- completely insane.  He was doing things no one had ever done before so there was no template, no experience to draw on, no one to ask.   That's why we consider Brian a genius and why the record is so special.   

Imagine if Frank Sinatra did all that, or Elvis or any other artist of the day.  The clsoest we have to that is Les Paul who developed multitracking.  After Pet Sounds, the recording industry began adopting it as the musicians all wanted to sound liek that too.

Brad    

In regards to Epstien, yes he was not an engineer- that was Emerick (and a talented one at that). But I think you are missing the "vibe" on an english studio of the early to mid 60s. The engineer was a technician in a lab coat, saying what they could do and what they could not (from a technical perspective) and dutifully recording what the client paid for. He was not to interact with the artists or offer input- he was there to operate the studio and keep everything working. While that changed later, at the time engineers where in many ways bystanders to the events in their studios. Paul has even spoken publicly about how they argued with the engineers on earlier records that why couldnt they keep a recording that "touched the red" (clipped) as the engineers were taught to never allow distortion. However, the band (being a creative bunch of kids) actually liked certain kinds of distortion (such as a distorted guitar amp).

Epstien was a huge influence over the conditions, the style, the songs, all of it.  They would not have sounded like they did or record the songs they did without him.  He was their #1 mentor.   As I recall, Paul himself said Brian and George were the two biggest influences on their "music" at this time. Could have certainly changed later.

Brad

Hey I just saw that HDTracks (David Cheske's label) has the Beach Boys HI Rez "Sounds of Summer" with a bunch of extra tracks.  He has all their hits AND multiple tracks from my favorte BB out of print "Surf's Up"  88.2K/24 Bit.  This looks like a defintive collection to me- post if anyone buys this and has a listen. 

Brad