Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

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 

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

Geez, if George Martin and Paul McCartney were heaping praise all over an album, and I didn't "hear what all the hoopla is about", I would not admit it in public. ;-)

I'm in the minority (though not alone) in considering Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album the most over-rated album in Pop music history. Both Rubber Soul and Revolver are better albums. IMO. 

I love how Pet Sounds ends: with the sound of a far-away train clattering down the tracks, a distant dog barking in response. When I was a little kid, we lived a few blocks from the train tracks that run alongside San Fernando Blvd. in the Valley, and I awoke every morning to that exact sound. If that ending doesn't give you a clue as to what the album is about, and the emotional response the music is intended to evoke in the listener, I don't believe I'm interested in knowing you. No offense intended. 

I agree with you. I also have tried to listen to PS but don't hear what the hoopla is about. Sir George is wrong, pepper is by far superior. 

@johnto - indeed, Brian Epstein was the manager and had nothing to do with the recordings. Martin and Emerick it was! 

As far as I know Epstein never had anything to do with recording the Beatles other than managing and helping them secure a recording contract. He was never an engineer or producer. George Martin produced and Geoff Emerick engineered. The Beatles were also very involved by asking the pair to produce certain sounds for them to create the record the way they heard it in their head.

Good post @lonemountain. I was a huge Beach Boys fan through the All Summer Long album (1964), and they were the first group I saw live (that summer). I had a ticket to see The Beatles on their ’64 tour, but decided to pass. I wasn’t yet sold on them, but did see them the following summer.

The next BB album was The Beach Boys Today in March of ’65, and by the time it came out Pop music had changed dramatically, the harder sound of the British Invasion bands making the BB’s sound passe’, far too gentle and "white". I never even heard the next album Summer Days, and The Beach Boys were effectively dead to me.

No one I knew bought Pet Sounds when it was released in ’66, and I heard it only after accidentally getting a copy of Smiley Smile in early ’68. In the midst of the Blues revival and psychedelic madness of 1968, here comes the strangest music I had ever heard. I became obsessed with SS, and Brian Wilson in general. So I then bought all the albums I had missed after All Summer Long, including of course Pet Sounds.

The album is rather poorly recorded, making it hard to hear all the marvelous voicings in Brian’s piano playing, or to fully appreciate the sublime chord progressions (I consider "God Only Knows" a masterpiece of a song, one of the best written in the 20th century) and orchestration he wrote for The Wrecking Crew musicians to play. You have to work to hear through the "fog" (lack of transparency and inner detail) of the recording, but it’s worth it.

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    

Paul McCartney:

"The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines on Pet Sounds. If you were in the key of C, you would normally use the root note...a C on the bass. But you just get a completely different effect if you play a G when the band is playing C. There’s a kind of tension created."

That tension is created because when the brain hears an inversion (what McCartney is in the above quote referring to), it yearns to hear the chord "resolve" (return "home"). Brian Wilson uses chord inversions (which he played on piano) throughout "God Only Knows", to great effect. But remember, Wilson often wrote parts for three basses: a 4-string electric, a 6-string electric, and a 4-string upright acoustic. He has them playing all kinds of interesting musical parts throughout Pet Sounds. Very sophisticated writing, far above the level of his peers. I consider "God Only Knows" to be amongst the greatest songs of the 20th Century.

Learning about inversion is what radically changed McCartneys bass playing, first heard in the Revolver album. Very different from his playing on Rubber Soul, before he had heard and absorbed Pet Sounds.

To hear the master of using inversion in bass playing, listen to James Jamerson in Jimmy Ruffins recording of "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted", as well in "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

lonemountain, "work of all originals"?

Hardly, the lead song, "Sloop John B" goes back to 1916.  

And I remember the Kingston Trio releasing it in 1958.

Not to detract from Brian Wilson's contributions, but let's be accurate at least.

@orgillian197

Well said.

Impressions and evaluations will always be subject to present circumstances but it's worth remembering that everything is/was initially of its own time.

I feel the same way about punk rock.

No one today who wasn't there can really know what it was like to watch it unfold back in 77 - 78.

Just about anything, taken out of context, is over-rated decades after it was state of the art. We went from window fans to air conditioning, black & white TV to color and from launching a dog into space to man walking on the moon during that decade - and the music grew by leaps and bounds as well. If you weren’t there, you really can’t grasp how cutting edge Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper, Hendrix etc were.

Compare 1963 pop music: Lesley Gore It’s My Party, The Chiffons He’s So Fine, The Kingsmen Louie Louie, The Cascades Rhythm of the Rain, to 1967: The Doors Light My Fire, The Beatles All You Need Is Love, Penny Lane, Procol Harum A Whiter Shade of Pale, Strawberry Alarm Clock Incense And Peppermints. Music was changing from mono singles and AM radio to stereo albums and FM radio - look at both The Beatles and The Beach Boys and how they evolved during these changes (that they were partially the cause of).

Hate to say it, but you had to be there.

1-10  of all Music .

Best of Rock = 2

Jazz= 7 

Folk music = 6 

Classical Music =20 , 

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. 

edcyn

Give Foreigner a chance. It was unlike anything before Catch Bull At Four, but it is an excellent album. Play it 3x and see if that doesn't change your mind. I remember having to give numerous albums a bunch of listens before really liking them.  We just don't do that anymore. Thick as A Brick anyone?

@tablejockey,

"Nothing contemporary or in the last 40/50  or so years is close to the level of PS-at least in how it influenced musicians who listened to it when it was introduced."

 

Is such a thing even possible now?

Or have all of the undiscovered musical discoveries and developments been discovered and developed?

As a chessplayer I've noticed that since the age of computers very few meaningful novelties (previously undiscovered strong moves in known opening positions) have been found.

This, despite the advent of supercomputers and neural networks which can play the game at far more accurate levels than any human could dream of.

Perhaps music, like chess, seemingly infinite in its expression, is also ultimately finite?

Thankfully, we are not infinite, and we have plenty of music to easily fill a lifetime.

 

 

@edcyn: Licorice Pizza! I knew the manager of their store on Sunset (very near the Tower store), and the bassist in my Pop group worked in the store on Topanga Canyon Blvd. That manager eventually got busted for dealing coke out of his office.

Okay, you're making me talk.

My two favorite Rock albums of all time are Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, with Television's Marquee Moon and any Ramones album coming in close behind.

 

I might have said this in another post 'way back when, but in the Mid-Seventies I was a Cat Stevens fan. As a matter of fact, his acoustic guitar style is still a large influence on my playing. Anyway, I went into the Licorice Pizza in West L.A. to get the latest Cat Stevens record, Foreigner. I also bought Aladdin Sane on a whim. I liked the cover It happened to be featured alongside Foreigner at the front of the store. Anyway, I didn't make it more than halfway through the first side of Foreigner. Ack! Ugh! I pulled it off the TT and put on Aladdin Sane. By the time Panic in Detroit was in the throes of its howling, screaming, Mick Ronson outro, I had a new favorite rock artist.

All rock is zero how would one know?

Pet Sounds & Sgt Pepper...... are not in my collection but I don't use the term over-rated. We all like what we like no matter what Paul Mccartney says. It is my opinion that matters, I don't like being told what to like or dislike.  I do like reading about why and what other music fans like or dislike. . 

I just watched the David Leaf film Beautiful Dreamer-Brian Wilson And The Story Of Smile. To establish the context for the creation of the amazing Smile album (a subject for another time), Leaf covers Pet Sounds, the album that proceeded Smile. Quotes about Pet Sounds from scenes in the film:

- Jimmy Webb: "Pet Sounds is probably, um, really, the most significant album of our generation." Wow.

- Burt Bacharach: "I think it is one of the, THE great albums."

- George Martin: "It floored me. I thought it was fantastic, and it gave The Beatles great inspiration. And it gave a challenge to them."

- Rob Reiner: "We used to play that all the time in the writer’s room because we thought this is like the most incredible Rock ’n’ Roll album we had ever heard." Pet Sounds "Rock ’n’ Roll"? Not from where I come from, but okay, maybe I’m taking the phrase too literally.

Are the opinions of the above any more credible than those with whom they disagree? Again, just a matter of opinion.

The FACT PS is being discussed 12 years since this thread was started is telling.

 

Few albums are worthy of debate such as Pet Sounds. Nothing contemporary or in the last 40/50  or so years is close to the level of PS-at least in how it influenced musicians who listened to it when it was introduced. 

I'm 70 and grew up in the pre-Beatles era, so I've seen and heard a lot of stuff come down the pike. I don't know what is a 'classic' and what is not. I do not know what is overrated and what is not. All I can tell is whether I enjoy listening to something or not. There are lots of things I do not enjoy at all, including entire genres like opera, country, blues, and a few others, that I will not put down for that reason; people have different tastes. Many people who have experienced a lot of music in various contexts have a lot to say about 'Smile'. It's not something I like, but that's not a requirement for being good, but hey, good for Brian Wilson! 

@bdp24,

Smile is a fine example of one man stretching himself too far.

Just like Newton and his alchemy or Einstein with his Unified Field Theory.

Listening to it, for me, was a case of "if only's".

Anyway, Pet Sounds is more than good enough even if I disagree about its best song.

I tend to prefer Here Today.

 

There is a YouTube video in which a pianist sits at his keyboard, explaining and demonstrating the "bones" (chord progression, modulations---aka key changes, melody, counterpoint) of "God Only Knows" as he leads you through the musical construction of what is not only the "best" song on Pet Sounds, but imo one of the best songs ever written. The craft involved in creating that song, the musical knowledge and wisdom required to do so, is far above what most Rock songwriters are in possession of, and apparently far above what some listeners are capable of appreciating, as is the beauty of the song. No offense intended. ;-)

But I completely understand why some don’t care for the Pet Sounds album. It is NOT Rock music, and sounds in a way "quaint". Most Rock music contains at least trace elements of Blues, which gives the music a "hard" edge, which people like their Rock to have. Pet Sounds contains zero Blues, and sounds gentle, soft, very "white". Is it okay to say that? ;-)

One songwriter who DOES appreciate "God Only Knows" is Paul McCartney, who still considers it his all-time favorite song, and Pet Sounds his favorite album.

Once you’ve heard Pet Sounds’ follow-up---the aborted Smile---PS just sounds like Brian Wilson warming up to do Smile. That Smile was not completed in 1967 and released prior to Sgt. pepper---as was intended---is one of Rock ’n’ Roll’s great artistic tragedies. Hope that doesn’t sound too "grand". ;-)

@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". 

 

Pet Sounds... ZZZZZZZZZZ...

Lots of interesting comments.  They simply show how divergent opinions can be.

I alway considered "Pet Sounds" to be an OK album, but never to the high esteem some place it.  I wonder if some revere it just because it was said to influence the Beatles, and who could debut them? ;^)

 

@stuartk: Amen, brother! Rubber Soul and Revolver are much better. 

Sgt. Pepper would be my vote for most overrated.

 

 

 

One of my favorite things about Pet Sounds is how the album ends: with the far-away sound of a train running down the tracks, a dog barking in response. Brilliant! So evocative, so nostalgic, so sentimental. The album’s theme is all about becoming an adult, looking back at childish innocence, with a feeling of loss, of longing and yearning.

From the time I was a few months old until seven, we lived in a house a few blocks south of San Fernando Blvd. in Pacoima, California (SoCal residents will know the street), on the other side of which are a set of railroad tracks. I awoke early every morning to that exact sound, and hearing it as side two of Pet Sounds fades to silence takes me back to my early childhood, exactly as Brian intended.

Pet Sounds is to my way of thinking the first Pop/Rock, if not concept album, at least theme album. Brian’s next project---the eventually-scrapped Smile---was an ambitious one: Manifest Destiny set to music, lyrics courtesy of Brian’s new collaborator, the genius Van Dyke Parks. I acquired the Smiley Smile album (an abbreviated version of Smile) in early 1968, and had my little teenage mind blown. If you don’t know the Smile saga, you can read all about it in the book Outlaw Blues, written by Paul Williams (not the song writer). The chapters covering Smile were originally published in three issues of Crawdaddy Magazine as the album was being recorded, and are a rivetting account of the evolving and eventually abandoned masterwork.

Around the same time, Leonard Berstein was taping his television special on the new "Artistic" movement in Rock ’n’ Roll. In the show Brian sings and performs "Surf’s Up" on the grand piano in his Bel-Air mansion living room (on Belagio Drive, one block above Sunset. I and a songwriter I was recording with made a pilgrimage to the house in ’75, to see about Brian producing us). Berstein is very effusive in his praise of the song. So much for all Rock music being "garbage", a sentiment one particularly smug and snobby Audiogon member has been spewing.

Well you did have the Doors,they were played on AM alot.....Sorry. I left them out .

I'm 69....and was there as a teenager during the 60s..I grew up in LIC.NY..Now it's the place to live ...lol.it was a working class area,full of Factories.The Beach Boys ,the were West coast Summer Time Beach Music.The Four Seasons were Bigger here.When I heard Sg Pepoers it was totally different, but it was like Roaring Twenties Stuff....The Band ,that was different to but like country western hillbillies crap.Hendrix ,Cream,that was different but Good.It was like 60s Rock and Roll Am radio music DIED....for me anyway...

WOW I like that Cash box listening for 1966...Herb Albery really sold like crazy....no wonder why there are so many albums in the cheap bonds now ....

 

Its only most overrated if one accepts the premise of it being a greatest masterpiece.

In my view its a pretty nice album, not up to level of Sunflower and Surfs Up. I certainly don't understand trashing the album, unless melodicism and harmony aren't your thing.

Perhaps one of the most overproduced albums of all time. Actually it is a masterpiece but in a way not normally associated with other music and not in the way I hold most dear.

@edcyn,

No, keep going.

What do any of us ultimately have, if not our memories?

I sometimes prefer Surf's Up (better sound quality at least) but Pet Sounds with its Spectorish production and the Wrecking Crew on board was no doubt pretty far out.
I suspect Pet Sounds will retain its appeal for some time to come.

It is a near perfect historical snapshot of an America that may have been fictional but nevertheless still holds considerable charm, especially for those living overseas.

Another time, another place.

Charles Manson didn't like it either

@edcyn: Do you like the scent of patchouli oil too? ;-) Far out, man. Gawd did I despise the hippie era, both musically and culturally. And too many guys with "attempted" mustaches (thank you Loudon Wainwright !!! ;-) . Now, young girls wearing thin tank tops with no bra, that was a different story. 

Fun thread! Makes me want to drink beers with you all, put some tunes on the 'table and diss the heck out of each other's tastes. I admit to liking Pet Sounds a heck of a lot. Pretty tunes; beautiful voices; beautifully recorded. I even enjoy the LP's liberal use of the now frowned-upon practice of overdubbing. My older sister and even-older cousin were buying 45 rpm singles at the time, and I grabbed most of them when they wanted to throw them away. I have some of my parents' 1940's pop singles, as well. A high school buddy had a sitar and took lessons from Ravi Shankar when Ravi was living in L.A. Another buddy played the tabla and took a lesson or two from Alla Rakha. Somebody PLEASE take my laptop before I embarrass myself still more...

I do not like the word "overrated". The media might have pushed "Pet Sounds" due to the popularity of the British pop invasion? I was only 2 years old so I’m speaking from a historical(research)l viewpoint. Yes, Pet Sounds is clearly the Beach Boys best album up until then if lyrical content is regarded. When considering 1967 album releases in context... The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and even Surrealistic Pillow(not as timeless?) IMO crush "Pet Sounds"

"Lots of mediocre or worse songs, too much sitar (ANY sitar is too much for me)"


It would seem as if Sgt Pepper is obviously not for you then.

Neither it appears are songs such as

Norwegian Wood
Paint it Black
Love You To
Tomorrow Never Knows
Green TambourineHurdy Gurdy Man
Games People Play etc


1967 seems to me to be a year of numerous classic albums and SPLHCB stands as one of the very best.

I see it more as a novel exploration of transcendental states than pretentious psychedelic bullshit.

Perhaps it’s all down to the interpretation, isn’t it?

Dylan of course went from one extreme to the other with Highway 61 Revisited/ Blonde on Blonde all the way to The Basement Tapes / John Wesley Harding.

In any case shouldn’t we try to judge any work of art within its own frame of reference?

If so, then Pet Sounds, in the summer of 1966 must have been mind-blowing in the world of popular music.

My vote for most over-rated album is Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The title, the cover---Hell, the very concept---is beyond hokey (it was all McCartney’s idea, of course). Lots of mediocre or worse songs, too much sitar (ANY sitar is too much for me), trying too hard to be "artistic". Just write some good songs, fellas. Then play and sing them like the Rock ’n’ Roll band you are supposed to be.

The very under-rated Beach Boys Sunflower album ("This Whole World" is glorious! A fantastic chord progression by Brian, very Baroque-era Classical in nature) came as a welcome breath of fresh air after the above. Even moreso when contrasted with the dreadful Let It Be, which reeked of death upon delivery. A sad, sorry excuse for an album. That The Beatles managed to follow it up with Abbey Road (which was released before LIB) is remarkable.

By the way: Stereophile writer Ken Micallef has been recording and posting on YouTube a series of LP reviews, primarily but not exclusively of Jazz music. In his recent YouTube review of the Let It Be/Get Back 5-LP boxset, he states that in the out-take/jam recordings he hears evidence of the effect The Band had made on The Beatles. He more broadly proclaims that The Band had started a "back-to-basics" approach to being a Rock ’n’ Roll band, one that had a profound impact on their peers. Eric Clapton for one said as much, both at the time (hearing Music From Big Pink is what lead him to disband Cream) and while inducting them into The Rock ’n' Roll Hall Of Fame.

That is a proclamation I (and others) have been making for years, mine here on Audiogon producing a lot of blow-back. Sorry fellas, you’re simply mistaken. The release of Music From Big Pink in June of 1968 signaled the death of "Psychedelic h*rsesh*t" (the term Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun used to describe Cream’s Disraeli Gears album when they turned in the tapes), the release of The Band’s S/T follow-up (the "brown" album) the blueprint for how to do it right. EVERY good musician I knew in ’68 and ’69 felt that way, and had their musical path completely and absolutely redirected. We were not alone.

Another +vote for Sunflower.

Happy Listening!

Old thread. Still think the record is way overrated. 

But Hendrix overrated? 

There are two very underrated beach Boys albums. 

Friends, & Sunflower. 

r_f_sayles,
Oh boy, Gary Lewis & the Playboys!
Those lists made me groan although there
were a few excellent songs on them.
One of the problems with "oldies" is that
there were a tremendous number I didn't like.

Fascinating bio pic on Wilson a few years back. Paul Giamatti plays his dark mgr overlord ahole guy. They recreate the pet sounds sessions in the film respectfully. 

For me, the 'masterpiece' that I loathe is trout mask replica. Makes me want to self-harm. 

@nicktheknife, the whiny voice in The Beach Boys is that of Mike Love, whom I abhor. Brian sang the high, falsetto parts. Carl Wilson had a nice voice, and it is he singing the melody on "God Only Knows".

For a while I kept trying to get into Pet Sounds but just can’t. I agree with others that the lyrics are insipid and I personally just can’t stand Brian Wilson’s whiny voice.
I grew up with the Beach Boys. I’m 60 and have two older sisters who listened to them almost constantly during the summer months. Admittedly, when I was a youngster I liked a lot of that surf music in the summer time. It went well with the beach, sun and ocean. Now, not so much. I’ve moved on to more interesting music in different genres.