Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?


Try as I might -- and I have tried very hard -- I just don't get the "genius" of this album. I know that George Martin said that Sgt Pepper would have never happened without Pet Sounds, but I don't think the two are even in the same league. What am I missing?
jeffreybowman2k

Showing 3 responses by stuartk

@martykl:

"Rock is a reductionist/primitivist art form which isn't really complicated."

 

Sure-- if all you're talking about is the 50's. Otherwise, where have you been?????

"The Beach Boys are the greatest American rock band of all time",

Not intending to pick on anybody here, but the above statement is a good illustration of one of the main difficulties of threads such as this: the very strong tendency for we humans to confuse the subjective and the objective. I'd argue that we all do it to some degree, at least some of the time. If something aesthetic conforms to our personal tastes, we assume it must therefore have some sort of objective, universal merit. 

Those of us with any sort of artistic training are perhaps more practiced in evaluating art from the standpoint of craft, which is not the same thing as 

"I like it-- it's good; I don't like it-- it's bad".