Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

The Empre State Building was a marvel in its day and still is but it now has a lot of competition. 

It was definitely influential.

I've never heard it from start to finish though. The times I have given it a listen it did not capture me.

It is on my list of albums to give another try though. Usually, when so many people praise or like something there is something to it I have found.

Its definitely not overrated in terms of its impact and influence at time and in terms of the innovative aspect of its production I suppose.

But I've personally always felt that SPLHCB then took things to a new level of overall success.

One of the things that the Beatles (with the help of George Martin) did to better effect than perhaps any other act ever is take elements of music and production that already existed elsewhere in bits and pieces and apply them in a new musical formula of their own that had tremendous mass appeal, hence their commercial success.

PS was a much needed radical and innovative departure for the Beach Boys from their prior work, which was very much cookie cutter and becoming dated in nature despite its merits. My impression has always been that PS is as much rough around the edges as it is refined though. The Beatles took things to a much more refined and higher level and continued to raise the bar of commercial success as well.

By the way, Abba is another act that came into their own after the Beatles that continued to move things forward and achieved huge commercial success, even though the music's content and meaning might be considered fluff in comparison to the BEatles by some.

A lot of the popular stuff from that era that many pick on is actually quite good nowadays on original vinyl or re-mastered to CD on a good system.

Its not high-brow stuff but listen to a lot of it today on a good system that is leaps and bounds better than what most people had back then, or what they heard on AM radio, and you may not laugh anymore!

A lot of the Herb Alpert stuff on original vinyl sounds absolutely fabulous when I listen to it today!

Wilson certainly helped take it to a higher level in a very noticeable way with the Beach Boys and particularly with PS, as did the Beatles certainly, but they were not alone by a longshot. They were perhaps two of the highest profile groups that effectively registered with the rock critics of the day to do it though.

In hindsight, those rock critics got a lot of things wrong back in the day just as they often do today as well.

Just look at some of the music from that era that lives on today and continues to be highly regarded. A lot of it was panned by the same elitist group of rock critics back then as not being "serious" art/music.

The true measure of any classic is longevity.