This guy Brian Wilson went from scoring a local hit with Surfin' in 1962 to cranking out Pet Sounds four years later. How?
Pet Sounds had four hit singles on it--Wouldn't it be Nice, Sloop John B., God Only Knows and Caroline, No. Another tune, an instrumental, was written (but not used) for a James Bond film. In between those you get amazing musical explorations of the weirdness of growing up and having relationships in the U.S. in the 50's and 60's. You can sort of hear it coming with tunes on the previous few albums but it's still an amazing achievement for someone who did it all seat-of-the-pants in just a few years. Whereas Burt Bacharach had deep classical training and sort of an internship (not to slight him--he made amazing music). What Brian achieved is matched only by the Beatles' work from the same period. And no, there's no beach music or car songs on Pet Sounds. It's a whole other thing as opposed to the early records. 50 years later it holds its ground against all comers. But nothing's for everybody--some folks don't like Beethoven and some don't like the Beatles. YMMV.
Pet Sounds had four hit singles on it--Wouldn't it be Nice, Sloop John B., God Only Knows and Caroline, No. Another tune, an instrumental, was written (but not used) for a James Bond film. In between those you get amazing musical explorations of the weirdness of growing up and having relationships in the U.S. in the 50's and 60's. You can sort of hear it coming with tunes on the previous few albums but it's still an amazing achievement for someone who did it all seat-of-the-pants in just a few years. Whereas Burt Bacharach had deep classical training and sort of an internship (not to slight him--he made amazing music). What Brian achieved is matched only by the Beatles' work from the same period. And no, there's no beach music or car songs on Pet Sounds. It's a whole other thing as opposed to the early records. 50 years later it holds its ground against all comers. But nothing's for everybody--some folks don't like Beethoven and some don't like the Beatles. YMMV.